vignettes

1. Driving home down Powell, I pass a man on the street somewhere around 65th who is strolling along in an enormous top hat. Just a few weeks ago, in almost the same spot, a boy of 11 or 12 was walking away from a group of his comrades wearing a Blazers jersey and a very high quality werewolf head. And werewolf gloves. He listed with a young boy swagger, which was completely deserved.

Today in the local coffee shop we spotted a guy very seriously wearing a peter pan cap, complete with feather.

2. At the barn we are working on the transition from halt to trot and halt to canter, and then back to the halt. No upward transition through the gaits, but directly from stop to go. Cookie takes almost no time to understand what I want from her; I give her an intermediate verbal cue before I ask for the halt, and she strains for the moment she is meant to brake. When I kiss and nudge her back into the canter she leaps into it so enthusiastically she nearly rides out from underneath me, and I am laughing, holding my reins loosely up her neck to let her have her head.

One morning we go on a trail ride through the back edge of the property, and when I let her run up the hill, as I know she's dying to do, she turns naughty and bucks all the way up. And yet I trust her enough afterward to ride her bareback in just her halter, and her every step is measured. I am wearing shorts, a tank top, flip flops. Without breeches I stick to her back like glue.

3. In the mornings in the kitchen I pour myself a bowl of cereal and when I turn around one of the cats is climbing the forbidden plant, a big tall palm they are quickly killing with all their forbidden climbing. I brandish the squirt bottle, return to my cereal, and when I turn around ten seconds later one of them is sitting on the kitchen table, nonchalantly, either brazen enough or dumb enough to forget that it's yet another illegal activity. By the end of most mornings I am threatening caticide, and both of the cats are soaked. Most days the note I leave Cristina on the fridge references hanging them by their tails.

In the evenings they are happy to see me, winding themselves sinuously around my legs. Tonight I lay on the rug with them and they came and snuggled; one of them happily rolled upside down and regarded me in that fashion for some time. I remind them to be grateful that their cuteness saves them on a daily basis.

open water

dudes, I am a superstar. this morning, with no prior training, I leapt into the Columbia River from the tail end of a sternwheeler, and swam a mile to the Oregon shore. a few things about this swim:

gear
because I have done no swimming whatsoever in the last year, with the exception of a long chatty paddle through the warm Pacific waters off the coast of Oahu, I opted to rent a wetsuit. the water today was a balmy 71 degrees, but I wanted the wetsuit primarily because a good one will help you stay afloat. floating is good. sinking is bad. the average water depth in Hood River is 60 feet. no thanks.

an unintended side effect of the wetsuit was looking like Mystique. observe:









hard to tell the difference between us, I know.

no, but seriously, I really lucked out in the gear department. Cristina let me borrow a real swim suit (as opposed to the 2349 bikinis in my collection). the wetsuit fit perfectly and worked so well -- I didn't notice the extra buoyancy until I tried to swim completely underwater and discovered I couldn't keep my legs below the surface. and even my $12 goggles were PERFECT -- stayed on my face during the 7' jump from the boat, never leaked, and never fogged. freaking amazing.

flailing about
so, here's the thing: I am a pretty good swimmer in the sense that, you know, I can mostly keep myself afloat. I have strong legs and a good survival instinct. at the ocean, I can hold my own in the waves. I used to be a lifeguard, although frankly I swam more as a kid than I ever did as a lifeguard. but I did pass the lifeguard test (also with no training).

however, I am not a pretty swimmer. technique has never been a focal point. as a young child I was terrified of getting my head wet, and flunked a level in swim classes three times before they finally let me move on. I never got farther in swimming lessons than learning to keep myself afloat. I taught myself how to dive, and I nearly made my college roommate choke to death in the pool one afternoon when I showed off my butterfly. even the lifeguard laughed.

when you're swimming a mile, it turns out technique is kind of helpful. like, for not drowning. I did fine but boy, it would have been nice if I could have performed a stroke other than the breaststroke for more than 4 or 5 arm rotations. I have a pretty strong backstroke, but when you're in the water with 500 other swimmers and umpteen boats, and when you're actually aiming for a point offshore with no guidepost but a cloud formation, the backstroke is really not encouraged.

so I just resigned myself to flailing along in various strokes -- and by strokes, I mean poor imitations thereof -- for an entire mile. the thing I found especially humorous about the whole situation was that a number of people made assumptions about my swimming ability based solely on looks. "I bet you could swim this in ten minutes," one bystander said to me. another asked me the average temperature of the water, as if I were the kind of person to know. (I did know, actually). I kept the truth to myself: dudes, I am a runner. I am not a swimmer. watch me flail.

one mile


one mile is really freaking far.

crossing the columbia
hey, I did it. I didn't need to pull up a paddleboard and rest; I didn't even need to take a nap afterward. I may even escape without soreness. it turns out that swimming a mile is hard, but doable. the triathlon may be in my future now. I've long thought -- as most do, I think -- that the swim would be the scariest of the three events, in part because it's my weakest and in part because, unlike running and biking, if you get tired you can't stop. but I realized today that there's also a certain saving grace in that. regardless of being tired, you have to just keep swimming. as a coworker mentioned in his pep talk to me last week, I am familiar with the task of pushing myself through that awful fatigue. it's easier to do that in a swim because you have no choice. sure, the boats could haul you out, but wouldn't you just rather keep swimming?

tradition
I called my mom on my drive back to reassure her that I yet lived. "do you think you'll do it again?" she asked. I told her about the woman in front of me at check-in, who, when asked by the swim volunteer if she was excited, replied, "no way!" and then, when asked why she was participating, replied simply, "it's tradition!" the cross-channel swim celebrated its 67th year this year, and most people on the boat seemed to be returning swimmers. would I do it again? yes. I'm way proud of myself and thrilled to have done it. and, after two years, I'm happy to be finally crossing it off the list.

the ongoing adventures of Nub the hedgehog

where to start?

three weeks ago a group of us went out to Departure, a restaurant on top of The Nines Hotel in downtown Portland. Departure has two decks that overlook the city, and because it's known as one of the swankier places in town, we had planned on a fancy ladies' cocktail hour and dressed accordingly.

Of course, I brought Nub.



Three of us got there right as happy hour started, and ordered a bottle of prosecco, which was their happy hour bubbly special. By 5 PM another friend had joined us and we had ordered two more bottles. Then the whole group arrived, and -- well, it was downhill from there.



Our numbers swelled. More prosecco arrived. We ordered food in great quantities. It was a great time. Nub got to visit with everybody.





It got dark, and grew chilly. It was already an overcast day, and not terribly warm. The waiter generously brought out blankets for us to cozy into. Glasses were continuously refilled. We drunkenly called a colleague and talked him into joining us. Kids, this is how accidents happen.

Somewhere in those blankets, Nub got lost.



It was a long night. I won't get into the details. The weekend that followed was rough. When I awoke the next day, my clothes from the previous night were either missing or soaked, someone else's dress was on my floor, and I had mysterious bruises. And Nub was missing.

I figured right away that either he had been forgotten at the bar, or someone else had taken him home. Neither Cristina nor I had our cars at the apartment -- we had both gotten a ride home. So we walked to pick up our cars, and then we went back to Departure for a rescue mission.

Let me tell you: there's nothing like saying, "I was here for happy hour last night, and I think I may have left my hedgehog."

After having to repeat "plush hedgehog" several times, they went on a search. Cristina and I stood at the desk for several minutes, and the hostess told us how she had a friend who liked to walk around with an actual human skeleton named Mr. D. Bones. After that, I didn't feel so strange. A lot of staff came and went, but no talk of the hedgehog. Finally, a guy came out and strolled over.

"Are you girls here for the hedgehog?" he asked. We nodded. "Well, we found him last night, but we didn't know what to do with him, so we gave him to security and he's locked up downstairs. We don't have a key and nobody will be in to open it until Monday. Can we mail him to you?"

I was so relieved that he'd been found -- and so amused by the idea that Nub was in lockdown -- that I didn't volunteer to come pick him up. I wrote down the opera's address, my cell phone number, and then scribbled "Nub the Hedgehog" on top.

"Do you take him places, like a traveling gnome?" the guy asked.
"Yup," I replied. "He even has his own Facebook page. And Twitter account."
"No kidding!" He scribbled something on the paper. "That's hilarious! OK -- we'll send him out on Monday."

We left and I was incredibly relieved. I was afraid I was in very real danger of bursting into tears if he hadn't been found. We went home and I looked forward to Tuesday or Wednesday, when he'd arrive at the opera.

Then, a week passed. No Nub.

The following Monday I drove back to the bar, figuring that he'd just been forgotten in the daily hubbub of running a restaurant. I was dismayed to discover that Departure is not open on Mondays, but the guys working the front desk of The Nines told me that since security was actually on the 8th floor, I could go talk to them. I made my way upstairs and once again had to explain that yes, I'd left a toy hedgehog at the bar a week ago. They phoned security but got no response. Will you be here for awhile? the girl asked. I said no, but left my name and phone number, and the word "hedgehog" at the top of the note. I went home and kept my phone on me all night. No word.

A few days later, I called The Nines. It was mid-day, and Departure hadn't opened yet. The girl at the desk didn't know anything about a hedgehog, but did let me know that actually, the bar had its own lost and found, so the hedgehog wouldn't be in security anyway. Then she suggested I leave a message at the restaurant, but I didn't, since they hadn't called me back before anyway.

Then, last Friday, unbeknownst to me, our friend Bob made an attempt at hostage retrieval. He showed up at Departure and demanded the return of the hedgehog. He was mailed yesterday, they told him, and he reported that he had reason to believe there may be photos included in his return box. I was bolstered. He was really on his way home! And the hotel staff had played along!

Monday morning I anxiously awaited the mail. I mean, it was really like a kid on Christmas. But no Nub. The same on Tuesday. And yesterday. When I left work yesterday afternoon, I went back to Departure. I arrived to discover that there was a private party being hosted in the restaurant, and it was closed to the public for the entire night. When I told the girl working the elevator that actually, I just needed to retrieve a lost hedgehog, she didn't bat an eye. "Oh!" she said. "I thought we mailed him!"
"It's been a week," I said, "and I'm a half-mile from here, and I haven't gotten him yet."
She frowned, and suggested I ask the guys at the front desk to call up and let me speak to the staff in the bar. It took several minutes of wrangling them -- well, you can't go up there, there's a private party .... well, security's on the eighth floor ... well ma'am, I don't know of any lost and found in Departure ... we only work down here, we don't know what goes on up there -- before I got someone on the phone.

Then the guy on the phone was a royal bitch. I explained that, though it was starting to feel like a joke line, I was calling about my lost hedgehog. He immediately put me on hold, and when he returned a minute or so later, he said he couldn't find the hedgehog, and he believed it had been mailed.
I was losing my cool. "Okay, see, here's the thing. I either want to speak to the person who put the hedgehog in the box, or I want to walk out of here with the hedgehog in my hand."
"Well, the person who mailed him isn't here, and I don't know where the hedgehog is." Long pause. "You can leave a message."
"See, here's the thing," I said. "I've left my phone number like four times, and nobody ever calls me. So no thanks."

And that was how I had to leave it. I wanted to be able to stand at the desk until somebody gave me a direct answer. A direct answer like HE WAS MAILED ON THURSDAY, or WE ARE VERY SORRY WE'VE BRUSHED YOU OFF FOR THREE WEEKS or best of all, WHOOPS, HERE'S YOUR HEDGEHOG. Instead I had to turn around and storm back to my car, angry that because my lost item was a stuffed hedgehog rather than a purse, nobody cares to give me a straight answer. Angry enough that when some passing panhandler asked me for money, I replied NO SORRY like a fire-breathing dragon, and when the stupid clipboard nazis on the street corner accosted me I yelled I AM NOT INTERESTED! Because that's about as rude as I can get.

Today I had to tell my sister that actually, I would not be bringing Nub to my cousin's wedding this weekend, despite the fact that I have been threatening for weeks to find some way to stash him on the altar. She was audibly disappointed -- after all, she gave him to me. But I can't lie to her, and I'm not sure what else to do.

we miss you, buddy.

back east

north carolina:



a blast of humidity upon setting foot outside the airport. driving to the beach house, the road was lined with myrtles. we stopped at dunkin donuts on the way -- we don't have it on the west coast and after years drinking iced coffees in college, I miss it -- and then we took the old familiar roads back to the island, watching for alligators in the golf course water hazards.

in my summer away from the beach, construction began on the new bridge, which will eventually replace the old, beloved, single lane pontoon bridge that connects the small barrier island to the mainland. other than the new bridge pilings, the island existed as a near-perfect replica of the image I keep in my memory. it makes the place feel eternal, somehow. the old dilapidated pool hall building is still on the corner; the rain still puddles on the side of the road. inside my bedroom the wood paneling is the same, and there are still the same wall hangings, the same green cot folded neatly in the closet.

five days, distilled: showers outside, in the outdoor stall nestled between the house's stilts; mornings on the beach -- by 8:30, some days -- carrying the chairs down the new walkway, watching the sun grow brighter over the still-empty beach as early morning runners pass by. afternoons biking from the house to the end of the island, where we comb for shells and on one adventurous day I swim across the intracoastal waterway that separates our island from the one farther north; I emerge from the water and wave to my aunt and cousins, who remain on the opposite shore. a singular feeling, the sensation of swimming across a body of water and surfacing on a different island. vaguely like columbus.



at night we eat shrimp and steamed crabs, standing at the kitchen counter; we sit on the porch and paint our nails or borrow someone's wifi on our laptops or, in my case, sit in rocking chairs with one bare foot pressed against the porch railing, listening to the locusts in the trees and watching the approaching thunderstorm. we joke about the real estate we will purchase nearby (trailers in trailer parks, mostly) and amuse ourselves with long strings of "do you remember" stories, which are of particular interest and delight to my oldest cousin's 11-year-old daughter. do you remember the night my cousin and her friend ended up in jail, after the friend was pulled over on I-40 in clinton for reckless driving and couldn't pay the $200 fee? do you remember how beth jumped into the dunes that night we ran from the police after the party on 12th street was raided and we were all found to be underage and loaded up with beer? do you remember the year we walked barefoot to the far end of the island each night for four nights, in search of sand dollars -- a trip that we only just learned is a total of 6 miles?



my cousin stephanie and I left the beach quickly on wednesday morning, in order to beat the bridge, which opens to boating traffic every hour on the hour. There was none of the usual lingering goodbye, none of the usual attempts at imprinting everything indelibly to memory. after so many years, those attempts are unnecessary anyway. on the ride home, we stopped for boiled peanuts and homemade peach ice cream (the ice cream stop, off Hwy 701 in tiny Newton Grove, NC, is tradition). I heard the details of her upcoming wedding as I watched tobacco fields slowly give way to traffic.



maryland was snowballs with an old friend whom I don't see or talk to often enough; a reunion night that lasted until 4 AM; the first morning of my life where I awoke hungover at my mom's house, walked into her bedroom, plopped on her bed and said, "I don't feel very good." it was a daily thunderstorm; riding roller coasters at hersheypark; playing card games with my brother; watching my mom's new chickens peck for bugs in the backyard. sunday night we stood for a long time in the backyard, watching the fireflies hover over the neighbor's 10-acre soybean field.

"If you'd never seen them before," my mother says, "they would seem like magic." they don't live in oregon or in syracuse; I haven't seen them in years. they do.

on set with Julie Goodnight

my time with Julie Goodnight was awesome. On Wednesday, after a frantic morning bathing Cookie, prepping myself, and packing the trailer, my friend Allison and I arrived at Tanz-Pferde, the beautiful Oregon City dressage barn that served as our shoot location. What a place! A huge, beautiful indoor dressage arena, immaculately clean stalls and walkways, a REAL bathroom, amazing paddocks -- I could go on and on. While we love our boarding barn, Allison and I couldn't help being beside ourselves with envy. I mean, AIR CONDITIONING!!

When I arrived I was greeted by a grip, June, who brought me up to the arena viewing room (complete, may I add, with leather couches and a KITCHEN), where I signed one billion waivers and received the first of several free gifts -- a shiny new Troxel Reliance helmet! I have been desperately in need of a new helmet -- mine actually has SKID MARKS on it -- so I am totally thrilled.

There was a ton of time between our arrival and the start of our episode shoot, so we walked out to the upper outdoor arena, where they were in the process of taping episode 4 (I was episode 6), about a 15-year-old girl whose horse was, basically, a giant asshole: bucking, rearing, crow-hopping, and doing everything he could to avoid actual work. To her credit, Claire rode the crap out of that horse, but it was clear she needed help. Her problems also eclipsed any problems I had brought with Cookie. (Allison turned to me, wide-eyed, and said, "I feel so much better about my horse now.") It was fascinating, and great fun, to watch the process of taping the episode -- the number of takes they had to do, the way they would call out to the rider what they wanted to see ("okay, pick up the canter at that corner, please"), and how Julie was busy making her verbal assessment at the fence line, murmuring into her body mic.

Later, we watched as Julie worked with Claire's horse in the round pen, doing some fundamental ground work exercises to get him to submit to her authority. To our surprise, very early on in the process the horse, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid work, turned and jumped the fence, stopping immediately on the other side as if he had startled even himself. (The action had momentarily stunned all of us into silence). He was easily caught and maneuvered back into the pen, and we watched as, for the next ten minutes, Julie put him through his paces, making him change direction and gait frequently to mimic the way a dominant horse will control the movement of the submissive horse in a herd. Finally, the horse's head dropped in contrition, and from there on out he was a much better worker.

The rest of the afternoon was mainly spent waiting around and observing others. When it finally came time for me, I slipped quickly into my clean, staff-approved riding clothes and headed up to the arena with Cookie. I had been very nervous that she would be a perfect angel, making it difficult to justify even being there -- she's shown drastic and sudden improvement in the last week -- but fortunately it was decided, in the end, that we would work on her head carriage and on my equitation, both things I had wanted most to address. We shot the first day's footage quickly, because it was late in the evening and the shadows were lengthening so fast in the arena that multiple takes were just not possible. My interview was done in one take, and we were released.

The next morning we arrived on the set at 7 AM; I tossed some hay to Cookie and walked over to the barn, where they asked permission to use her for a few commercials they were shooting in the afternoon. (These are very brief segments shown in the middle of the program, as well as, I think, on the internet). Obviously, I complied! As before, there was a great deal of waiting around, but Allison and I were glad to watch the conclusion of Claire's episode. Because they worked so much on groundwork, they didn't address her problems under saddle at all in the "after" footage, but once they were done with her, Claire threw on her saddle and tested her horse. What a difference! I had been skeptical that just two days of groundwork would do anything for her under saddle, but he gave just one little buck and then acted like a dream. It was a really emotional moment. She was cantering around the ring, doing flying lead changes every other lap. Her mother turned to us and said, "She hasn't been able to do that in a year and a half." It made me feel so good about the whole process. I felt a little teary-eyed. I'm sure Claire was home today, riding her heart out!

The alternate trainer -- there to help while Julie is busy filming -- came over later in the morning and worked with me on the stuff Julie had suggested. We worked primarily on getting Cookie to hold her head in the correct position -- tucked in rather than with her nose poking out -- and also on my equitation, which has clearly gotten sloppy over the years. She left us to practice as they began to film the last segments of episode 5. After a LONG wait -- more than two hours -- we came up to the arena to film the last part of our episode. Cookie was a dream for the pre-film practice session; I beamed inwardly as Julie walked past and said, "She looks beautiful! Much better." We had to film several takes, and after the first one Julie turned to me and said, "Hey, hop down, let me school her a little. She was so good for you in practice but she kind of lost it in that take." So I watched as Julie rode my horse around in a picture-perfect head carriage and frame. Ah, if only my camera battery hadn't died! It had occurred to me only the day before that never once had I seen another rider on Cookie; literally no one else has ridden her since the first day I rode her last August. It was so gratifying to see how beautiful she is and how wonderful she can look. Clearly the problems I'm having are rider-related and not horse-related!

We shot several more clips, going back to redo certain sections, and took a couple of still shots, and then my portion of the episode was finished. We untacked, and as I let Cookie crop grass I listened as they shot Julie's intro of our episode, "about a lovely part-Arab mare who just needs a few extra tweaks," and then they fitted Cookie with a gaited Western saddle for one of several segments they shot with her and Julie for commercials. As we stood there the wardrobe gal asked me where I had bought Cookie. "I just love her," Cheryl said. "I would buy a horse that looked just like her. I love that refined face! I have a dun but she's darker. Your horse is just beautiful." It never gets old to hear!

And then we were finished. As we were walking back, Heidi, the show's producer, asked me to come see her after I had everything all put away. "We have a little something extra for you," she said. At the barn, she came out with the saddle pad they'd had me use for day two, a nice black Toklat pad, and handed it to me. "We don't usually give all this stuff away," she said, "but you've been so patient, and such a trooper in this heat" (it was 95 degrees on both days) "that we wanted to send you home with a little something extra." She paused. "So please take this ... but you might want to take it home and put it right in the wash. There's nothing wrong with it, it just ... might be a little stinky."
I smiled. "Did the cat spray it?" (A barn cat had been spraying everything in sight.)
She smiled sheepishly and nodded. "Maybe?"
Then she handed me one of Julie's DVDs, on collection and refinement -- what we'd been working on. She explained that Julie had asked them to pass it on to me, as an extra thank-you for letting them use Cookie for the commercial shots. "We didn't have another horse to use," Heidi explained. "None of the horses at this barn would have looked right in a Western saddle."

And that was a wrap. What a crazy two days! It was hot; I got sunburned; we waited around forever; I wasn't even sure I should be there. In the end it was just what I needed and it really helped. Amazing how much you could accomplish in just two days. Today I went back to the barn to clean stalls, and ended up joining a pre-existing lesson. I was wearing shorts and a tank top, and sneakers. Not dressed for riding at all! Everybody was impressed with how much improvement we had already made. At the canter, Sarah, one of the 4-H girls, cried out in anguish, "Ahhh, she looks so beautiful! I'm so jealous!" I can't wait to keep working on it, and to try our hand again at another show.

The show, I believe, airs in August. I can't wait to see it!

summer, eternal

the kids are out of school now. I am envious of them; not necessarily for their long, expansive summers full of sunshine and boredom, books to read, pools to swim in -- although of course I envy that too -- but rather for those few days of delicious anticipation just before school lets out, and that wonderful afternoon when you step off the bus and realize this is it, you're free, you're in the next grade, and there is so much time between then and now it might as well be eternity. don't you remember those days? it's warm out, you're wearing shorts, you've been waiting to wear shorts for all those long cold months. in class the teachers have mostly given up; you're watching Disney movies and having cupcake parties and getting your friends to sign memory books, planning sleepovers and feeling a sharp pang of regret that you won't see the boy you have a crush on until NEXT YEAR and that's forever. but maybe you'll go to that friend's house who lives in his neighborhood and maybe he'll be walking down the street and you can sneak a peek.

I think there's nothing in adult life to rival that moment.

rain.

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgivable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

-- Rain, Raymond Carver

28 things to do before I turn 29

1. Eat a doner at Doner Kebab
2. Go kayaking around Ross Island
3. Brave the long route in Ape Cave
4. Swim across the Columbia River
5. Eat beef head tacos at the Rose Festival
6. Hike Beacon Rock
7. Go to Paris with a girlfriend
8. Get a motorcycle license
9. Read the Bible
10. Go to the nude beach (nude)
11. Compete in the Mississippi Pizza Adult Spelling Bee
12. Watch the Vaux's Swifts
13. Finish reading all the Pulitzer winning novels
14. Get a Garmin Forerunner
15. Play Brahms clarinet sonatas with Rob
16. Compete in a triathlon
17. Visit Mill Ends Park (the world's smallest park)
18. Eat an insect
19. Fall in love with someone or something that matters
20. Pay off one of my credit cards. For good. Seriously.
21. Go skiing
22. Climb a volcano
23. Finish War & Peace
24. Shave my head
25. Run in a scramble
26. Eat boiled peanuts at the beach in North Carolina
27. Catch fireflies in a jar
28. Read 100 books

as always, inspired by the beautiful andrea at hula seventy

up with joy

nearly every single thing over the last 24 hours has been like an early birthday present:

+ last night at the softball game -- a game in which we were totally massacred by the opposing team -- I stopped a fast ground ball to second with my left kneecap. the resulting, instantaneous bruise is dotted with the lines left by the laces of the ball. it's a fabulous bruise, a real badge of honor. I had my rally cap on (hat turned inside out) & my signature rainbow socks-turned-leg-warmers; earlier I had been trash talking the opposing team. the ball that nailed my knee rolled straight to our pitcher, who threw it to first to score the hitter out.
+ the one time I got up to bat I hit a lame pop fly right to the pitcher, who somehow missed catching it, but it had so much backspin that the chumps, who were already at least 20 points ahead, let it roll all the way back to the plate for a foul call. I walked huffily back to the plate (I had long since made it to first) and nailed one into the outfield, running easily back to first base.
+ the injury, in tandem with a couple snagged balls in the infield and an RBI, scored me the game ball for this week. the game ball is a tradition on the team: it starts at the opening of the season as an unassuming softball, modified slightly by the person each week who is, basically, voted MVP of the game. last year the end result involved a mexican wrestling mask, sparklers, and cartoon jesus band-aids. two years ago it included a barbie suitcase and theme music. this year it already has a talking napoleon dynamite figurine and a candy dispenser. the bar is set pretty high.
+ I was picked to be on Horse Master with Julie Goodnight, a TV show about horseback riding/training ! they're coming to shoot in Portland at the end of June. by some miraculous stroke of luck, they begin shooting the day I return from hawaii. I requested to work on that little problem we're having where Cookie doesn't turn well to the right.
+ last night lauren gave another friend (whose birthday was saturday) and me belated/early birthday presents & strawberry shortcake; today my boss brought me a carrot cake cupcake w/cream cheese frosting & coconut as an early birthday treat. seriously, this has been the rockingest birthday week. I feel so lucky!
+ today on my midday run a pair of guys I passed called out, 'hello beautiful!' and rather than assume they were kidding/meanly teasing and ignoring them (which is what I usually do), I assumed they were serious and yelled 'hey!' and waved. it was the kind of day where I could believe everyone meant the best.
+ DISNEYLAND YAAAAAY

and even the cons are tinged in things uplifting:
- tomorrow I have to crowbar myself out of bed at 3:30 to get to the airport, but this is only because my friends hannah & joe are also going to the airport and have sweetly agreed to take me so that I don't have to leave my car. my flight leaves for long beach at 7.
- it's supposed to be 86 degrees in portland while I'm gone -- my favorite kind of weather! and 66 in santa barbara. but DISNEYLAND and hanging with Cristina and the beach and barbecues and home cooking and my sister's little family and my toddler nephew and my friend josh and guitar hero and MICKEY MOUSE and seriously, you guys, this is the best week.

durum wheat

Memory at its finest lacks corroboration
—no photographs, no diaries—
nothing to pin the past on the present with, to make it stick.
Just because you've got this idea
of red fields stretching along the tertiary roads
of Saskatchewan, like blazing, contained fires —
just because somewhere in your memory
there's a rust-coloured pulse
taking its place among canola yellow
and flax fields the huddled blue of morning azures—
just because you want to
doesn't mean you can
build a home for that old, peculiar ghost.

Someone tells you you've imagined it,
that gash across the ripe belly of summer,
and for a year, maybe two, you believe them.
Maybe you did invent it, maybe as you leaned,
to escape the heat, out the Pontiac's backseat window
you just remembered it that way
because you preferred the better version.

Someone tells you this.
But what can they know of faith?
To ask you to leave behind this insignificance.
This innocence that can't be proved: what the child saw
of the fields as she passed by, expecting nothing.

You have to go there while there's still time.
Back to the red flag of that field, blazing in the wind.
While you're still young enough to remember
a flame planted along a road. While you're still
seeing more than there is to see.

-- lisa martin-demoor

mother's day

I was born when my mother was only nineteen, an 'oops' baby that changed the course of her life. She was married to my father on Valentine's Day 1981, three months before I was born; she was divorced two years later. Afterwards our little nuclear family consisted of me, my mom, and my maternal grandmother, a cranky, functional alcoholic who my mother turned to only out of desperation, at a time when she had just declared bankruptcy and couldn't afford day care.

Many of my sweetest memories involve my mother: standing on a chair at the stove on Saturday mornings, flipping pancakes as she poured batter; playing Around the World on the basketball courts at the elementary school; riding in the back of her new pick-up truck; taking road trips to New York, D.C., Ocean City -- and that accompanying feeling of getting up early in the still-cool fog of morning, and picking up breakfast on the road; learning to move the gearshift correctly on her stick shift (she'd push in the clutch and say "now!" and I'd shift). We went to Broadway shows and to the circus; we traveled around the East Coast.

As an adult I am grateful for the way she taught me -- and now my sister and brother -- to feel wonder at the world, to take notice of things, to be unabashed. She still feels so much youthful excitement. Last year she was incensed at how my siblings refused to take a day off school to go feed the circus elephants in Lexington Market. "Who are these spawn?" she cried. (She herself hated school and was adept at cutting class). On our cross-country road trip she was game for anything, and often sought out crazy things to do on the way, like stopping at "the mustard capital of the world" (Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin) or driving down a forgotten scenic highway in South Dakota to see the World's Largest Quail.

The thing that is hardest about living in Portland is being 3000 miles away from her. We're close; we talk a couple times a week. The worst nightmare I've ever had in my life is one in which I discovered my mom to be dead. My first reaction was, "Who will I tell my stories to?" Because we're so alike, my mom is my sounding-board for nearly everything. Something doesn't seem real unless I've told her about it.



love you, Mama. Happy Mother's Day.