Enough

Along with the many other activities and classes offered at Rancho la Puerta, I took the opportunity to attend a writing workshop with poet Myra Cohen. A New Yorker through and through, Myra has established a non-profit organization that brings writers into classrooms and the community to teach poetry.

Thinking back to Martin’s comment about writing being my hobby and anticipating the upcoming release of my book, I thought I should go. I could probably learn a thing or two and it would be interesting to hone my skills.

I definitely learned I am not a poet, but did walk away with a great writing technique that I hope to use in the future. The class opened with Myra giving us a theme, this class it was “What If”. From there we had to write consistently and without stopping for 10 minutes. It didn’t matter if it made sense, if we wrote words, phrases or sentences. The goal was to just write.

From this string of consciousness, we were to then circle words or phrases that jumped out at us and make a poem with it. In 10 minutes.

The process was very cathartic and like all things I didn’t put much thought into it, but I was happy where things landed. Please enjoy my first real poem.

 

Enough

I was warned about the stretch marks and sleepless nights

I was warned about the long days and short years

I was warned about loving your kids so much your heart hurts

 

But nobody warned me about the self-doubt and endless questions

Is that poop normal, should I call the doctor?

Why won’t they sleep?

What can they, what should they, what do they want to do

Am I doing “it”, this whole parenting thing, right

And the constant barrage of what ifs.

 

What if they never learn to swim?

What if they are bullied at school?

What if they are a bully?

What if my kids can’t find joy in the little things?

What if they can’t see how amazing they are?

What if they grow to resent me?

 

What if I mess them up?

What if I am messed up?

What if I made a mess?

What if I made a mess and didn’t clean it up?

 

Can I live with that?

Do I want to live with that?

Should I live with that?

 

I don’t know

I don’t really know anything

Except how to be me

With all of my flaws, failures, tics and fears

And hopefully that is enough

It has to be enough

Because I am enough

And yet… what if I am not.

Not too bad for a ten minute try.

The Mom Profit

I never quite understood why my Dad loved to tell stories about his crazy college days and all of the shenanigans him and his “Animal House” fraternity brothers would get up to. It seemed every time he had a moment of nostalgia, he would start to tell one of his many stories about breaking into a bar, breaking out of a bar, stealing a cop car or allude to the one story he could never tell us.

I never quite understood this habit until this past Friday in San Diego. It was there that Erin, Neff and I caught up on life and reminisced about all of the shenanigans we got up to in college and shortly thereafter. And even more so, how the next generation will never understand how much fun we had despite, and probably because of, not having cell phones, social media and the maturity to know better.

And from these memories and desire to share them not only with our kids (who will surely roll their eyes at us) but also anyone else who wants to understand the simpler time of our unicorn generation of Xennials, we hatched our plan for a podcast. Not the most unique idea we realize but it should be a fun one. We will call it the Mom Profit and instead of making money or donating any money to a non-profit we will take all proceeds and give them to groups of girlfriends who need a vacation from their mom life.

I am buying a microphone and hope to record a few sessions over the winter and at our 20 year reunion in SLO in the spring. Stay tuned!

For reference, Xennials are defined as being born sometime between 1977 and 1983 and can be read about here.  

So I Married an Axe Murderer

We will call it the perfect storm of happenstance, dumb luck and little bit of dark humor that culminated with me talking with a retired crime scene investigator on how to get away with murder and identifying potential flaws in my hypothetical plan to murder Martin with an axe.

But first - let me state it loud and clear – I love my husband and everything I am about to write is a joke.  A terrible, inappropriate joke and one I will regret the moment I post this. But share, I must.

A few things have happened recently that have gotten me to this point:   

• I was introduced to the podcast “Crime Junkies” by McKane and I now listen to it almost daily on my morning walks.  As you might infer from the name, Crime Junkies highlights gruesome crimes (most of them murders) including the police investigation, potential suspects and open questions (if the crime has yet to be solved). 
• I found a bar with axe throwing and really enjoyed it. 
• Martin and I have watched one too many dark crime series on TV resulting in a hypothetical conversation on how to dispose a body, if needed.  Note to my readers, if I go missing and you can’t find a trace of blood, you will know it isn’t Martin.  The man has never been able to properly clean up a mess and I am still finding blood splatters from his most recent injury. 
• I have learned the value and importance of long term planning.

Flash forward to a few weeks ago, one Tuesday morning when I had to go to Timber Cove to meet the delivery guys who were dropping off our outdoor table. And, knowing I had the time, I figured I would tackle a few mini projects up there while I waited.  Loving a good small hardware store, I had stopped by the Ace Hardware in Petaluma to buy brackets to hang my rake, hoe and apple picker on the wall in the mechanical room. 

While I was at the store, I realized I probably had time for a few more projects (delivery windows at Timber Cove are notoriously wide and are always missed), so I decided to browse the aisles to see if I could come up with a few other ideas.  In an instant, I knew what I had to buy… an axe!  I was going to set up my own axe throwing board at Timber Cove.  We had wood, paint and plenty of space, I just needed an axe. 

Like I always do, I asked for help locating the axes in the shop, I asked for help in identifying the correct one based on shape, size and comparison to my pictures from my axe throwing night, and then headed up to the counter to pay making a complete scene and having multiple conversations about my axe purchase with everyone in line. You know what they say… it is best to hide in plain sight.

Unfortunately I actually didn’t get a chance to set up the axe throwing board at Timber Cove (the delivery guys were surprisingly on time in their specified window), but I did start the clock on when I could potentially use the now infamous axe in an accidental death… because nothing looks more suspicious than buying the murder weapon a week or even a month before the tragedy.

Guilty Purchases

I was at a birthday party today for a five year (because, yeah, my life is like that) and one of the dads asked me and Martin what has been our most decadent, life changing, guilty purchase since COVID. And to be honest, I couldn’t answer. Not for lack of purchases, but rather lack of an inventory of everything I have bought over the past 18 months.  And I have bought a lot!  So much, I can’t remember.

So, ready to face the demons (aka purchases) in my closet, this is my attempt at coming to terms with the things I have obtained during the times of COVID. The good, the bad, the useful, the unused, the embarrassing and the things I can no longer live without (which is surprisingly, very limited).

My initial purchases were functional and necessary.  I bought a lot of “day care” supplies for the kids like arts and crafts supplies, paints, a painter’s easel, and a science experiments book.

By mid-summer, my purchases shifted to supporting the Black Community: through books on racism and strong representation for the kids and through my wallet for black owned businesses. Two of my favorite black owned shops now include: Neutral Ground (in Oakland) and Domain (near D.C.).

My wardrobe shifted from business casual to SAHM with too many new pairs of comfy pants, workout pants, fat-girl pants, too many new comfy sweatshirts, and fancy new pajamas. Unfortunately I also had to invest in new jeans after one of my pairs of my pre-pandemic jeans ripped midway through summer.

I also became obsessed with buying vintage clothing that, for the most part, I have yet to wear. They are all amazing pieces like my ridiculous 80s teal jumpsuit and 70s style muumuu, but I don’t quite have an occasion to rock them.

With so much time on zoom, my self-care game also had a few new purchases: the most useless being the lipstick I bought in hopes of wearing outside (clearly forgetting about the mask mandate) and the most ridiculous being a blond wig, because why not.  I also bought my own Pilates reformer system which, after a few months, began to gather a solid layer of dust once I rediscovered my love of tennis (which also prompted another solid shopping spree for new gear).

Not surprisingly, I bought a lot of new holiday décor and supplies including our new electric fondue pot for Christmas dinner, Irish coffee glasses for Christmas Eve and naturally dinosaur taco holders for our Taco Parties.

I had specialty tea shipped in from Boston, gourmet pickles and bloody mary mix delivered from Colorado and the best caramel apples made in Wisconsin (at least I think that is where they came from).

The most useful thing I bought is probably the bike rack system we installed in the basement for the “project” I never quite finished. However I am now starting to use the air fryer a little more, so that might take the lead here shortly.  The most disappointing thing I bought was my Last Object Q-Tip (I was really hoping to save the world by no longer needing disposable Q-Tips… instead I just wasted a lot of energy to have the reusable ones delivered and not actually used).

I have bought so much stuff I have forgotten about half of it!  I bought an amazing 1980’s YSL dress from Arcade that I forgot was in my closet until I looked at my credit card annual statement and remembered purchasing it (note to self, don’t look at that statement ever again) and I bought a set of petite gold earrings to celebrate the 10-K getting on file (and to help ease the pain of me not getting promoted) that have been worn once and now sit in my jewelry box next to my engagement ring.

Even more embarrassingly, this list excludes all of the items purchased for McKane’s wedding festivities, the items needed to furnish Timber Cove, items bought to set up my home office and the multiple items for the kids who are growing so fast.  

I would like to believe in the concept of “retail therapy” but given my current state of mind, I don’t think this therapy is helping much.  So looks like I need to find another outlet.

The first step in addressing a problem is acknowledging the problem right?  So here it goes: “Hi, my name is Lisa, I have bought way too much stuff during COVID.”