AskMom

The Super, Sad, Strange Year

This year I gained treasures and lost them.  I've a new grandchild with another one scheduled into this world the day after Christmas.  And those little holiday bundles are the overwhelmingly good, and only eternally important, news.

The strangeness is that a car belonging to my daughter and I has been stolen twice; once we got it back, stripped and dirty, but still, THERE.  This time, who knows?  It will be a challenge to fully appreciate Christmas Eve tonight after seeing my wheels AWOL at 4 AM, and since the car was basic transport and not insured against theft, if it's not recovered I'll be without a way to get to work.  I can afford the impound and towing fees, if I'm lucky enough to recover it, but not another car. 

Vexing. 

The sad was the loss of a friend I truly thought I would have forever.  To me, it seemed a wonderful thing; great conversation, easy companionship, and good fun.  The kind of friendship that, in one form or another, deserved to last.

My friend saw it differently and ended it abruptly.  There was an explanation which made perfect sense, and no sense at all.  There was no chance to say goodbye; that certainly hurt.  The only cushion to the blow was that I was terminated via email; lucky, that was, since to be blown out of someone's life by text message or sloughed off in total silence seems to be the norm in these socially callous times . 

It could be argued on that basis that my friend was unusually kind to me.  Still, I wish I could halve my current troubles by speaking them to that understanding ear.  Not to be privy to the observations of that fascinating mind is an ache that won't go away soon.

I miss you, my once-a-friend.

To the cads who stole a grandmother's car while she tended her sick family, and all perpetrators of injustice and pain, I can only pray that you will not receive as you are meting out.  There is plenty of suffering in this world already without the Children of God creating more for each other. Justice, however, I do want for you.

And to the rest of you, for the blessed majority of decent, caring people: may the peace and love of our miraculous Savior be on you in this season of His Birth.

   

Just As I Almost Wasn't

This morning is calm and lovely in Seattle.  My grandchildren are healthy; each day another pleasure of the Pacific Northwest summer unfolds.

And I am oh, so thankful to be alive.

A week or so ago I was on a plane.  It was a full flight, and we were an hour into the long westward arc that would bring me home.   I had happily established that my seatmate was a military man and that there were many other seriously fit and determined looking men on board who could probably deal with any terrorist threat that might materialize. 

I was at peace with the world and enjoying the sight of America sliding silently beneath me.  Then some food stuck in my throat.  It's amazing how quickly your mind and body try all the possibilities and how panicked you become when you cannot breathe; or speak; or think of anything else to do that might save you.

I was fuzzing out mentally from lack of oxygen and the man next to me had just realized I was in serious trouble when in desperation I got a good grip on the sides of the seatback in front of me and jerked myself into the tray table.  The results were not amusing or esthetically pleasing, except of course for the bottom line, which was that I was still alive.

G-d bless all the wonderful human beings around me who cleaned up without complaint and expressed only relief and happiness that I was okay.  I'm forever in debt to the fabulous man next to me, who made the whole plane relax and laugh with his observation that he'd seen worse food fights at the mess hall in Iraq.

It's wonderful to be alive.  I've told my friends and family how very, very much they mean to me.  That when I started to see death as a real possibility, the only thing that hurt was that I'd be away from them.   That all I want, now more than ever, is to breathe the free air of America, be of service to those around me, live an ordinary life gratefully and gracefully.

Here online I'd like to thank my role models in the sensible women's blogging community:  Michelle Malkin, the Anchoress, Advice Goddess, Pamela @ Atlas Shrugs, Neo, Tammy Bruce, and so many others.   Thanks to my best friend and honorary sister, who for her own protection can remain nameless.  For the magnificent friend who inspires, teaches, and treasures me,  there are no adequate words and nothing I can offer that he hasn't already earned a dozen times over.   I don't know what the future holds for us, but his was the voice in my head telling me not to stop fighting, not now, not ever. 

Two things: right now is always the best time to love your life; everything and everyone in it.  And the toughest thing of all for me and plenty of others:  foolish pride and a desire to avoid even the appearance of trouble can cost us more than we ever imagine.  I wanted so much not to make a mess and have people think I was weak and vulnerable that I was almost dead before I gave that up. 

Life is messy and doing what we need to do can make others mad at us.  But G-d will help us clean up.  G-d lets us start over every day.  That's the real gift of life.  All the glories and foolishness of man comes down to just you and me, just today, just where we are, with just what we already have. 

Grab on to it and live it good.

      

   

The Laundry Detergent Skirmish

There's a huge disconnect between appearance and reality in laundry detergents.  This is no accident.  If you read the consumer testing reports, or do some experiments yourself, you know that the $4.99 generic stuff from Big-Box Store is likely to clean as well as anything else. 

But of course people have different needs and desires and outright fantasies involving laundry detergent.  Clean is just the start of it, and not the most important part for lots of people.  Forest-fresh scent?  Bright blue color?  Dreamy, romantic package graphics?  Help the environment and save the planet?  Right there on the shelves at your local market.

But for us, with our bonus-size family and propensity to amuse ourselves in the company of dirt, oil,  sawdust, agricultural chemicals, greasy engine parts, large animals and noxious formerly-edible substances, buckets full of detergent are practical. And there's the problem.

Where in the name of Heaven do you put that bucket?  There's never a place on the floor that someone won't trip over.  And the baby will open the lid, you know they will, even if YOU can't, and eat the stuff.  Or their ever-helpful seven year old sister will leave the lid open after she performs a virtuous service and puts all your wool sweaters in the washer.  With hot water.  Any detergent the baby doesn't eat, she'll leave in a pile by the bucket so your fifteen year old nephew will kick it under the machines while he's under the influence of his i-Pod. 

Unless the cats get to it first and track it onto the plush dark-red sectional in the tv room.

There's not enough space on the folding table.  And if there were, the spilled detergent would get on the clean clothes.  The bucket is too big for the cupboard.  Even if it would fit, you couldn't reach up and over the top of the rim to get the scoop full of powder.   And the bucket might fit under the sink if only all those silly PIPES weren't there.  Women all know that men design houses, that's for sure.  Pipes have no business under sinks, where we want to HIDE things, for goodness sake.

It's always a puzzle and rarely is there a good answer.  Laundry detergent makers can, and do, charge a lot more for a package that's convenient.   Currently the favored model holds liquid detergent and sits on the shelf above the washer.  Like a good soldier it is ready for action.  Turn a cute little spigot and the stuff runs into the machine.    You don't even have to pick up the container.  So simple.

But we have no shelf over the machine and no space to install one.

Then there's the little bottles that can rest on top of the washer. Expensive.  And you either run out every day and a half, or need to buy a dozen at a time and store them ..... store them ..... out in the woodshed, I suppose.  Nice try.

Quite a while back a manufacturer made laundry detergent in big pellets.  Bliss.  My grandmother had them in a mesh bag on a nail in the wall.  Of course they didn't dissolve properly in anything but hot water.  Perhaps we could use new technologies and bring this product back, able to dissolve in cold water.  Most of us could find a piece of wall big enough for a nail and a mesh bag.

If someone can solve this problem, the American laundry-doing public will make them rich.  And famous.  The typical dwelling today has a grand total of seven cubic feet of storage space and none of it in the laundry.  And we keep getting clothes dirty and trying to clean them, to the chagrin of the environmentalists and nudists.

We'd probably want this genius, this angel, this deus ex machina of the Maytag, to run for President. 

I'd vote for them.

My Shameful Addictions

Three years ago, I had to admit I had a problem with power washers.

To me it had seemed so harmless.   I promised my children I'd limit myself to weekend cleaning of walkways and decks and house foundations.  I was practically mainlining ibuprofen for the ache in my forearms.  I felt lightheaded from the vibrations, but kept finding more moss and old paint to blast.

Finally I had to go cold turkey.  The next summer I spent mostly in New York City where recreational power washing is just not on.   The next summer my sons sent the power washer to a friend's house in Montana and somehow forgot to bring it home until fall.

The portable gas cans were full, and stayed that way for months.  We all relaxed. 

Then this winter, windstorms brought down thousands of trees. Free firewood aplenty to cut, split and stack.

Here you see the newest embodiment of my Furies,  the log splitter.  My sons rented one and towed it to one of their houses, and spent a peaceful few hours splitting and stacking wood there.   Then they towed it to the house where I was innocently making oatmeal cookies, performing arranged marriages on various reluctant socks, and listening to the blues. 

We worked until dark.   I did stop once to go inside for a sandwich and coffee.  (My daughter-in-law said if I didn't eat she'd consider me too weak to hold the baby safely for at least a day.  Blackmail.)   I also went inside once for at least 90 seconds to use the bathroom. 

I did not check my email.  I did not read the news at PajamasMedia.  I did not return calls.  I did not bite my daughter-in-law's father when he tried to take my place at the switch of the log splitter; I didn't even snarl at him very loudly.

We've cut and split and stacked every tree that was down in our neighborhood.  The boys took the splitter back to the rental place.  They say they gave my name and description to the manager and told him not to rent me any big power tools.

They reminded me that this is a small town, and people do talk.   They told me if I make trouble I'll lose my motorcycle privileges, and that my tractor-driving license for next summer at the family apple orchards is on the line. 

Sometimes I hate my own children.

Happy New Year

To all my readers, friends and family a happy new year. 

I quit making resolutions a long time ago.  But as life speeds by me:

Every day I am grateful for all I have.  Born an American,  accountable only to myself, my God and a representative government which I helped to elect.  My beautiful family, including a new grandson and granddaughter this year.  My magnificent friends, who are not only interesting and charming and sweet tempered, but also insane enough to tolerate me.  My health and my good mind.  The city and surrounds of Seattle, which have helped make me the person I am.

Also every day I try to give a little thought to the big and small things that could challenge me and those I love.   Do I trust the power to stay on in the windstorm or should I get out the candles and headlamps now, while I can still see to organize things easily?  Is there gas in the cars, cash in everyone's pocket, are all the cell phones and emergency radios charged up?   Is there enough food and water to last if we get cut off from the world for a week?    Is the laundry, the financial paperwork, the cleaning caught up enough so that a family or business crisis won't mean a fiscal or housework mess too?

Most important, every day I check in with God to see how I'm doing.  If there's something I don't think he wants to hear about,  I make sure that's the first thing I get off my chest.  After I confess to myself and the One who knows it already anyway, it seems a lot easier to move along; to make the apologies and mend the hurts and change my ways so it won't happen again.

AskMom, and the real person behind her, is so very far from perfect.   But therein is the true beauty and the timeless necessity of our faith.   Human failings are large indeed.  The forgiveness and salvation offered us are bigger still.   Inside the heart of a humble carpenter of Galilee is a universe of hope and love. 

Take his hand, and be resolute.  Come what may this new year, we know there will be work to do, challenges to meet, people who need our help and love.   And if the worst should come, remember the words of C.S. Lewis, speaking through the King of Narnia in his book The Last Battle:

All worlds draw to an end, and a noble death is a treasure no one is too poor to buy.

May the Lord bless us all, in this world and in his. 
 

Woman Plans, God Laughs

I was just about ready to blog again.  The weather, however, was uncooperative.  Record winds blew all night.  And in Seattle a million of us woke to a world without power.  Without internet connections.  Without traffic lights, so getting through a simple 6 mile stretch of all-American road takes hours, not minutes. 

So I waited in line at one of the few public libraries that has power, and I logged in to read my email,  say hello to you, and get the crucial news off PajamasMedia.

And now an anxious student with a paper due at midnight must take priority.   As soon as we return to the powered world,  there's a column waiting.

For the record, in my 50+ years of life, I have never seen so many trees down in Seattle.  It is sad, and awe inspiring. 

The Lord will have his way with us.  Best to accept it gracefully and run laughing into the wind.

Playgroup

My oldest daughter and her children belong to a play group, which seems to be the modern equivalent of having lots of children or living in a neighborhood with lots of kids near the same age.  Her group is diverse, in the real sense that several religions and at least two widely differing political views are held, although everyone is the same politically incorrect skin color.  One of the moms was born in and remains a citizen of another country.  One is an accountant, one an engineer, one a teacher.  In true sisterhood they care for each other and all the children.

There's no diversity of intelligence.  These girls are all smart, and well informed, and well educated.   And they are all making serious sacrifices to stay home and rear their children themselves.  Now before I get hit with a hailstorm of comments, let me say that I do realize that some mothers truly are financially obligated to work.  Some would go nuts if they didn't work.  And some are the only support of a family.  I was a single mom, and this post is not a depreciation of the incredible work done by single parents.  I only wish somehow we as a society could give you the choice to stay home, where so many of you would like to be.

But with all that said, there can't be any question that children who have decent parents do the very best when those parents rear them personally.  Even the most vocal supporters of day care aren't saying it's better; the most they can claim is that it's maybe, kinda, almost just as good as family care.

Looking at the lack of positive benefits and the undoubted risks of institutionalized care, parents might do well to reconsider the financial angles.  If your kids don't eat when you don't work, that's a little different from them having to do without kindergym or  having to share a bedroom with their siblings.  Ask a child if he'd rather have gourmet food and daycare or if he'd prefer mac and cheese with Mom or Dad.   

The real problem with letting a nanny or a daycare rear your children for you is that you don't realize how subtly and deeply it changes your child, and you, until it's over.  Right now America has an oversupply of 20 and 30 somethings whose waking hours were spent with a rotating roster of $8.00 an hour helpers.  They look at your lapels and say it was cool, that Mom had to work.  They're fine, thanks for asking.

Then they reconnect themselves to their best friend, the ipod, and amble off to - well - "whatever."  They don't feel connected to the places where they live, they don't volunteer or go to church, they can't seem to work out a stable love life, they don't stay attached to their siblings, who were in different "age groups" at the day care. 

Meanwhile their parents, the boomers, we're at the mall or the copy machine or the spa griping to each other about how the kids never call.  And when they do call, we have nothing to say to each other.  And when we do say anything, it's a fight about grandchildren or lack of them, and about both generations overuse of drugs, food; unhealthy relationships and career obsessions.  Parents wonder when they are going to see the returns, in the coin of respect and contentment, for the 150K they spent on their hollow-eyed darlings.  Young adults feel pressured and abandoned at the same time.

Significantly, in many families today the young adults feel most connected to their grandparents.  You know, those men and women of the greatest generation, who just like the kids were shuffled off by the boomers to live in institutions.

Back at my daughter's playgroup, tips are being traded about efficient use of limited house space and nourishing food that kids will actually eat.  A group Ebay enterprise has been set up and generates a substantial amount of cash without anyone having to be away from their family.  Plus it's fun for the moms.  One mom is studying for an advanced degree, an inch at a time it's true, but she won't need it for four more years when her youngest goes to school so the timing is perfect.

Do these young moms wish they could go to London instead of Portland, Oregon for vacations?  They sure do.  Are they longing for party dresses and new jewelry?  Yep.  Does it sting to see the bigger houses and newer cars they won't own till the kids are much older?  Of course it does.  But these material things are the jelly, not the meat and potatoes, of their lives.  And they know it even while they gripe about it.

My daughter looks at the women her age who work, usually so they can afford a car and suits and take-out  that they wouldn't need if they didn't work.  She sees them missing their babies ten hours a day to make payments on a bigger house they don't have any time to enjoy.  She hears the stories of milestones reached with the only witness being the daycare worker, who really didn't seem too impressed.  She sees the stress on marriages where no one is available weekdays to fix a good dinner or let in the repair man or shop for birthday presents.   

She watches people rushing around on weekends like meth addicts, catching up the errands and laundry so they can rush around all week catching up at their jobs.  She wonders when any of them are going to put themselves and their families first, if they ever put their feet up, breathe deeply and experience the simple contentment of just being alive.

She's happy with her too-small house, her unstylish practical clothes, her shabby furniture.  Because she's the one who knows her children best, and her marriage is well-tended and strong.  It's quite likely that when her kids grow up, instead of finding her incomprehensible and tedious, they will seek out her company.  They'll probably remain close and supportive of her and each other.  The other moms at the playgroup can say the same happy things about their lives.      

They may not drive big shiny desks, but they're powerful, influential women, and plenty smart.

Halloween

For a whole swirling fallen leaf pile-up of excellent reasons, I love Halloween.  So does my grandson, as you can see by the fun he had checking out pumpkins.  And to properly celebrate this harvest holiday, here's the perfect charity.  Soldier's Angels is raising money to provide voice-activated hardware/software to injured servicemen who can no longer use regular computers. 

There's a good natured contest among the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, and of course their supporters too, to see who can raise the most.  Tough to choose only one.  My Dad was in the Army, my son served in the Navy, and one brother was in the Air Force while another was a Coastie for life.  No way could I insult any of them........so........

I've signed up with the Marines to honor one of my heroes, Asa Baber.  Ace served with honor, and then took on the insanities of the feminists and the follies of political correctness in his "Men" column in Playboy Magazine.  Ace died in 2003 of Lou Gehrig's Disease.   

He taught me so many fun and fabulous lessons, and he believed in me when I moved to the big league of lobbying.  He was sure I could make a difference in D.C. and he never missed an opportunity to cheer me on.  And he always knew the best little ethnic restaurants in Chicago. 

Ace believed that beauty and brains go together in women.  He taught me not to underestimate beautiful women nor to sell short my own appearance. Years later, as I look at the blossoming ranks of gorgeous, intelligent, kick-butt conservative, neo-conservative, libertarian and freeranger women bloggers, it's obvious that Ace knew what he was talking about.

I miss you, Ace.  Thank you for everything you did for all us uppity women, and for the brave men who love us! 

Cover Your Load

Washington has "cover your load' laws that require loose objects on vehicles to be covered or tied down.  And people continue to ignore the law, putting the rest of us at risk.  Most states have these laws and for very good reasons; gruesome and completely avoidable accidents push legislatures to put legal teeth into the kind of common-sense precautions you'd think would be automatic.

Swerving around the pile of dryer hose and PVC pipe that today's scofflaw let fly onto Highway Two, I found myself contemplating other actions that irritate, inconvenience and endanger.  Actions taken from ignorance, carelessness and sometimes reckless disregard for the comfort and safety of others.  Is it just me or is the world becoming ruder, physically more challenging? 

My oldest daughter has become a sniper in the war against pushy and borderline dangerous behavior.  To hear her husband tell it, it happened quite suddenly at Costco.  After threading around dozens of carts left blocking aisles and intersections, patiently waiting while chatting idlers barricaded the milk display, and politely telling the nth stranger please not to touch her pregnant tummy, she snapped. 

Now she bashes gaily into carts left in the right-of-way , pushing them to the side where they should have been left in the first place.  She hollers out her demands that people get their items quickly and get out of the way of the next shopper.  If it's embarrassing, she figures that will help people focus on changing their behavior. 

She growls like a rabid dog at anyone getting too close to her children.  And she emerges from the weekly shopping happier and with time to spare.

Once again I find a hero in one of my own children.  Let her be your hero too.  I called in the license plate and vehicle description of the idiot who committed a public assault with deadly plumbing.  I did it for Leah.  And for all the other package laden innocents who just want to walk through a public door without some brash teen or businessman in a cell-phone fog pushing them out of the way, then letting the door slam in their faces.

This country does not belong to the outright criminals, the thugs and terrorists; we all know that.  But neither did our forefathers sacrifice and die for the rude, the selfish, the immature and the greedy.  The United States of America does not belong to the manipulators, the abusers of the privilege of citizenship, the lazily ignorant and careless.   It belongs to us, the great unsung mass of decent, hardworking, considerate people.  Cover your loads, or we will rise up and cover them for you.

God's Account Books

Estimated cost in 2006 dollars of rearing six children to productive, happy maturity:  $750,000.

Estimated percentage of my adult waking hours spent nurturing loved ones:  75.

Number of family members killed or seriously injured on freedom's battlefields:  7.

Saved by grace under peaceful skies, grandchild on lap, sunset glowing pink and silver over mountains, bay, and hometown:  Charges waived.