Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Bear

I love springtime in the woods.

Watching the aspen trees wake up and cloak themselves in fuzzy catkins, seeing our plum tree erupt into beautiful lavender & pink blooms, being able to finally show some skin after months and months of putting on winter weight underneath my flannel jammies and bulky sweaters... It's gorgeous. Well, not so much the skin I'm showing, which is more like dried-out fishbelly-white leather rippling with dimples in all the wrong places. But the nature stuff, it's dazzling.

Perhaps the best part is that we start to get thunderstorms in April here at 7,000 feet. 

Last night we had a pretty decent storm. The Boy and I turned off all of the lights, wrapped up in fluffy robes, poured ourselves a springtime cocktail (make yourself a Chilton sometime:  Citron vodka, club soda, squeeze of fresh lemon), and sat on the porch to watch.

Wow.

The moon was still fairly new and it must have been cloudy because it was dark. Daaaaaaaaaark.  Like "Dark Shadows" dark.We live far enough outside of Denver that we don't get any light pollution and with little light coming through the clouds, we couldn't tell where the sky ended and the treeline began... until lighting would crash and expose everything as if a giant flash bulb had gone off. We gasped each time it happened and then laughed at ourselves for gasping.  It was amazing.

And then... I thought of Ka Tah Din.

Behold: Ka Tah Din

That's right, the Prophecy Bear.

You may find yourself asking:  Um, what?

In 1979 for my friend Terena's birthday, her Mom took a couple of us girls to the movies. We saw a horror film named "Prophecy." To the best of my recollection, the monster from the movie was this giant mutant bear-- created by the toxic waste generated by a saw mill. I honestly don't remember much about the movie except that it took place in the woods and there was this horribly ugly mama bear that looked like a burn victim covered in strawberry jelly-- and let me tell you, she was pissed.  And I may not be remembering this correctly, but I believe the final scene of the movie featured a shot of this extraordinarily angry mutant bear standing on her hind legs and shrieking and roaring towards the sky as her tormentors flew away in a helicopter.

There was no helping this bear. She didn't belong here, not unlike the T.rex inside the buidling lobby at the end of "Jurassic Park."  I was terrified of her-- but I also pitied her. If only we humans didn't need so much saw-milled wood, this poor creature could have lived a normal, cuddly bear life.

And last night for some reason, in the dark out here, my mind reached across the span of 33 years and conjured up the image of this ickily frightening bear standing on her hind legs, railing against her fate. And per my recollection of the ending of the movie, she is still out there.

And it spooks the hell out of me.

I told Derek about Prophecy Bear for the first time last weekend as we drove home late from a night on the town.We were on the lonely, winding road that goes up through the canyon, and after such a delightful evening of amazing food (Bistro Vendome) and wonderful theatre ("Wicked," OMG so good), the thought of a giant mutant jelly-covered she-bear seemed laughably preposterous.

But last night, in the booming, flashing dark...Ka Tah Din seemed entirely plausable. And quite possibly nearby.

So there we were, seated on the front porch, holding hands and delighting in nature's light show. There was a giant explosion of light followed by a huge rumble of thunder...and I whispered "I'm thinking of  Prophecy Bear."

We both laughed. Him, at me, because it is clearly ridiculous to be afraid of a fake mutant bear from a horror movie I saw before I even got my boobies. And me, because I was spooked and didn't want to show it.  And because I also know it's stupid.  And yet...

We stayed outside until the storm was over, then went to bed. Derek dozed off quickly after lights-out...but I lie awake for quite a long time, thinking of poor, misunderstood, terrifying Prophecy Bear. And wondering if she still roams the woods, looking for her creators. My house is made of wood, after all-- and doesn't that count me among the guilty?



Rosie-Colored Glasses

I enjoy people watching.

It is probably more grammatically correct to say that I enjoy watching people, but "people watching" just sounds better...and somehow less stalky. 

I think I learned this behavior from my Dad. Sometimes when we'd have Father/Daughter outings, he'd make up stories for me about the people around us on the highway or in a store or in line at the bank.  Once we were cruising down Interstate 45, headed to Galveston for a day of fishing (yes, fishing-- Dad wasn't sure what my interests were), and he noticed a couple driving a camper in the next lane.  He decided their names were Jim & Rosie.  He told me that Jim & Rosie criss-crossed the countryside in their little camper, regaling new friends with their travel tales and delighting their tastebuds with Rosie's famous campfire biscuits.  Jim, the perfect gentleman who adored his wife...and Rosie, the perfect little homemaker, even on the road.

I am not making this up, although he certainly was. 

It's funny, the things we learn from our parents.  It's likely he was just filling the silence or trying to prevent my incessant rambling, but I loved that he made up stories for me while we people watched.  It was vastly preferable to his concerted attempts to embarrass me-- whether that was by pretending to trip on a curb when crossing the street downtown, or by loudly singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" while driving through our neighborhood with the windows down, or by telling perfect strangers that I took dance lessons.  Dad loved to make people laugh and if he could embarrass me by doing so, all the better.

I like to watch people in their quiet moments, when they are unaware they are being observed, like an elusive snow leopard chasing a mountain goat, or a chimpanzee studiously picking his nose.  Or like a human being doing either of those things, and preferably with a tissue.

Once I was in the drive-thru at Starbucks and noticed an older couple seated at a table inside, talking.  I was pulled up parallel to the window, and while I could see the woman's face, the man had his back to me.  She appeared to be in her early 80's...and she was animatedly telling a story.  Her eyes were flashing and she was smiling and gesturing and I could kind of see what she must have looked like when she was young.  The late afternoon sunlight was falling through the window onto her creased face and I thought to myself that she was quite beautiful as she spoke.

And then the man seated across from her reached out and gently caressed her face while she talked.  His wedding ring actually glinted in the shaft of sunlight.

It was lovely. 

It was so private and caring...and in that moment, my head made up an amazing love story for the two of them that involved ill-timed wars, hardships, laughter in the rain, and a wrap-around porch covered in grandkids, rocking chairs and cats.  My mind told me these two people had weathered the good and bad times and still loved each other with such force that he couldn't help but touch her face when she spoke.  The quiet, comfortable stillness between them was gorgeous.

(Nevermind that I was thinking of World War I or II and the timing would be totally off.  Clearly my Mathtardedness doesn't hinder my imagination.  I know this because when I imagined the lifetime of these two people who were sitting in full-color right in front of me, I imagined them in black & white.)

I never did see the man's face.  The line in front of me moved, I pulled up to the window, paid for my skinny vanilla latte, and headed to my then-empty home.  I started crying in the car because I so desperately wanted what those two people had...or rather what I imagined they had.  For all I know they were on their second date and he was making her uncomfortable by touching her and infringing on her bubble. Or perhaps, this was Jim & Rosie thirty-five years later... and the camper was resting comfortably in the parking lot.  Maybe in his twilight years, Jim developed a fondness for scones that Rosie's campfire biscuits simply couldn't satisfy. 

It was late March 2011.  I had received a couple of communications through eHarmony from a man named Derek who lived in a town I'd never heard of somewhere in the mountains.  He had kind eyes, a thoughtfully written profile...and I had been ignoring him for weeks.  Earlier that day I had exasperatedly asked Yoda (my shrink) just exactly where Sedalia was anyway in the hope that it was too far... and I realized that for some time, I had been looking for reasons to stop trying to date.  I was close to giving up on the kind of love I had sought for a lifetime... and quite possibly, it was sitting in my eHarmony inbox with dimples and a love for mountain biking and dogs.

I went home, curled up with my laptop, opened Derek's email, and replied by asking him if we could skip all the e-Harmony hoop-jumping.  "Here's my phone number, I'd love to chat with you."

Then I cried a little bit more, because I was terrified that I'd never be loved like Rosie.

Mildred-Age Crazy

I bought a really big purse today.  Really big.  And I'm not sure if I'm okay with it.

Sure, it's a Coach. A finely crafted leather bag, if ever there was one, and at a moderate price point. And of course it's in basic black...cuz I'm still just traditional and budget-conscious enough to realize that it goes with EVERYTHING. And yes, I can put my iPad in it, which should quiet the constant nagging fear I carry with me that I will leave the best birthday present EVER somewhere.

But it's large.  LARGE.

And it feels like maybe I've crossed over a threshold here.

When I was growing up, my Grandma Mildred carried a very large purse.  It was white, and as I recall it had many compartments, the way an old lady's purse does.  She kept her head scarves in there, for when her hair was freshly set. And a plastic rain bonnet for when it was raining. And empty Wonder Bread bags that she used in lieu of baggies (she had lived thru the Depression and was quite thrifty). I don't know what else she carried, but whenever I watched "Let's Make a Deal" with my Mom and Monty Hall would bargain with the ladies in the audience for totally bizarre items they might have in their purses, I always thought that Mildred would make a killing in that scenario. After all, this was the woman who cut bacon in half because it "made more."

So I found myself in the Coach store today, in dire need of retail therapy after an exceptionally emotional and grueling week at work (survived big layoffs and a re-org-- more on that at some point, I'm still digesting).  My current purse, while quite stylish in its own right, was beginning to seem too small for the things I find I now need to carry in addition to my wallet and a small make-up bag: Prescription glasses (in a large case) for meetings in which a projector is used or for driving at night; prescription sunglasses (in an even larger case) for daytime driving; asthma inhaler; random wads of Kleenex; iPhone; work badge (for admittance to building); Tums (for very recent onset of stress-induced acid attacks); various prescription meds...aaaaaand the extremely unglamorous list continues. I found that each time I needed to retrieve something from this purse, I had to take EVERYTHING out of it.  And on work mornings, when I'm speed-walking from the parking garage to the building in 5 inch stilettos while on a conference call juggling a Venti Starbucks, a briefcase and the purse that ate...hmmm, let's say Kokomo, Indiana...I can't play Tiny Purse Jenga. At least with my current number of arms.

In no time, I found a nice large black leather hobo bag that seemed to fit the bill.  I threw it over my shoulder picturing all the skinny Hollywood starlets and their giant handbags featured in the "Stars: They're Just Like Us!!" section of Us Magazine and stole a glance in the mirror to see how it looked. And you know who I saw?  Grandma Mildred. With a pretty decent dye job and stiletto heels...but Grandma Mildred nonetheless.

And you know what?  That pisses me off.  Like, A LOT.

I'll be 46 in three months.  This means I am sliding towards 50, which doesn't even seem possible.  Fifty?  That's a bad surprise party waiting to happen.  That's a Buick LeSabre. That's a character that Molly Shannon used to do on SNL, for Christ's sake.  But that for sure as hell IS NOT ME. I was supposed to be someone-- I was supposed to be a wunderkind, a child prodigy.  I was at least supposed to be a skinny starlet with a gigantic bag.

Long story short, I bought it.  I brought it home, placed it on the kitchen table and eyed it suspiciously all evening as it quite literally loomed largely in my peripheral vision.  And then finally I unwrapped it and started transferring the contents of my now super-chic and somehow young small purse into the giant old lady satchel I just had to procure.  I got everything crammed in and found myself thinking: Oh my God, I'm not sure this is big enough.

So tomorrow, I'm going out to buy a box of calcium supplements.  Quite frankly, I'm surprised they weren't "Free With Purchase of Large Old Lady Bag."  (Marketing genius?)  Not only will I be able to carry them in my new purse-- but they will help to prep my old lady bones for lugging around the next size in my journey toward Mildred-Age.

Plus, I think if I cut it in half, it'll make more.

The Brady Bunch Experiment

Moving is hard. 

Especially the way I do it, which ought to be captured via time-lapse photography.  Kind of like glacial movement, lichen-growing, or the compounded interest I'm earning on my many, many investments.

For those of you playing at home, I began splitting time between my house and The Boy's last April.  It started with me and Jackson (my high-strung and highly vocal dog) heading out to the woods on Friday nights and returning to our place in the 'burbs Sunday evenings.  It was a great arrangement, except for my two cats Kip and Cali, who had to spend their weekends seething and staring into space, respectively, in relative silence.  Occasionally, I'd spend a Friday night at my house in the event I had Saturday in-town stuff to attend to-- but on the whole, I started thinking of D's place as my weekend home in the mountains. 

Sometime in late April, I was granted a drawer.

Shortly thereafter, I took the drawer ownership as an opportunity to go buy duplicates of all hair and make-up necessities, including (but not limited to) creams, powders, gels, mousses, products, brushes, combs, mirrors, balms, appliances and various accoutrements.  The whole toiletry packing and unpacking thing had grown quite tiresome and I lived in fear that I would awaken Monday morning to find that I had left something crucial (mousse, eyeliner) at D's.  And if you know me at all, you know I'd call in sick before showing up at the office with air-dried hair or unlined eyes.  The horror.  Several hundred dollars later, I was all set.

I loved being at D's house...but it had never really accommodated a girly-girl prior to my arrival.  As he once remarked, none of his drinking glasses had ever even been contaminated by the ever-present and dishwasher-resistant scourge of lipstick prior to my occupation.  So clearly we all had to make sacrifices.  I became nomadic and now responsible for laundry and cleaning at two houses, and he became adept at pre-washing glasses and removing wine stains from the furniture and carpet.

Before too long, Friday through Sunday just wasn't enough as we left the early stages of infatuation and moved right into the "I can't breathe without you" phase.  So now Jackson and I were heading out to the woods on Thursday evening and I wasn't returning to my house until Monday morning, and that was just to drop Jax off before heading to work.  It was wonderful, except for my cats, who now engaged in an all-out war for my affection Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night.  There was cat drama of the highest accord... plotting, grooming, stalking, chasing, biscuit-making, hissing, pfft-pffting, and enough subterfuge to make me feel like Pinky (or was it The Brain?)... and I felt horribly guilty.  I was also fairly certain that Jax was taunting them with woodsy adventure tales featuring large amounts of shellfish and bragging that I loved him more, as was clearly evidenced by my active and weekly cat-snubbing.

This continued for some time, with D and I getting more comfortable together and talking more and more about cohabitation...and my house in Lakewood serving as nothing more than an incredibly expensive cat storage device.

Finally, we decided it was time to conduct what we thought of as "The Brady Bunch Experiment."  This entailed packing up the cats and taking them out to the woods to introduce them to Gus and Boo, Derek's yellow and black labrador retrievers, respectively.  I kind of thought Jax could serve as an intermediary, since he already knew everyone and had such a calming demeanor (and that, my friends, is what you call "sarcasm"-- because that is one hyper dog) .  You know, he'd say something like "Gus, this is Kip.  He enjoys plastic bags and sunbeams.  Kip, Gus enjoys drooling and waking up at 6:30 a.m." 

So the weekend before Thanksgiving, we all headed into the mountains.  Two very angry cats that had been unceremoniously stalked, trapped and stuffed into traveling crates, then transported for 45 very loud and mewling minutes out to Derek's house...and two labs who had no idea they were getting new and very miffed siblings. And Jax, who just wanted to eat pork products.

Cali (my girl cat) was definitely the Jan Brady of the bunch:  Quiet, lacking self-confidence, prone to wearing afro wigs to parties in a relentless search for her own identity.  Kip was decidely the Peter Brady, quick with a joke, a fan of pork chops and apple sauce, and always looking for a get-rich-quick scheme.  Gus, aka "Mr. Perfect," served as Greg Brady-- captain of the football team, good with the ladies, and deserving of his own bedroom (largely due to a flatulence issue, if you ask me). Boo was definitely Bobby Brady, bringing a little goofiness mixed with a large dose of bon ami, and a fresh freckled face.  And Jax? With his golden locks, prissy demeanor and obsession with all things sausage-- well, he was definitely Marsha Brady.

Clearly we were missing a Cindy...and that was okay.  Cindy was so fucking annoying and who needs a new Shirley Temple anyway?  That's my role.  And no doubt between 2 houses, 2 adults, 3 dogs and 2 cats, we needed an Alice.  But this was not to be.  Although Jackson did make a strong and deeply-felt case for the necessity of Sam the Butcher.

And strangely...it worked.  Kip immediately became a dog and ran with the pack around the living room.  Cali hid for approximately two weeks, as was her nature, and then surprised all by joining us on the couch to watch movies one evening. Gus and Boo were very curious about her and so respectful of her shyness, they immediately seemed like the big brothers she never had (although she's the eldest by 10 years).  And Jackson mostly ran around, barking and peeing on things, just like Marsha Brady.

Our little family was complete. 

And happy.

And shedding copious amounts of hair-- and that was just me.

So we knew it would work.  And one night two months later, after none of us had made the trek back to the 'burbs to what had now become just a very expensive furniture and emotionally-charged momento storage unit, we decided it was time to put my house on the market and move from the "I can't breathe without you" stage fully into the "Holy crap, there's no place to put all my things" stage.

That happens tomorrow, after weeks of packing.  I'm excited.  And nervous.  And exhausted.  And quite frankly, covered in pet hair. 

But now we're finally the Johnson-Ogg Bunch... and we found a name for our tractor:  Cindy.

The Return to Ogg: An Odyssey

So, lately I've been on a journey. This one isn't to the center of the earth, or a totally awesome 80's band, or even something written by Homer... but rather a long and ridiculously drawn out odyssey that will take me, finally and fully, back to my maiden name. I've come to think of it as "The Return to Ogg." An Oggyssey, if you will.

As I've already pointed out, I separated from my ex-husband in June 2010 and was officially divorced in January 2011. In the divorce, I had my maiden name legally restored. So here it was more than a year later, and yes, I was finally taking the steps to change my name on every piece of paper or plastic that makes me and my debits and credits me.

You may find yourself asking "how can it take a full year to get around to that?" And my first response would be to tell you back off, Judgey McJudgerson.  I've been busy.  But the real truth is that I am returning to Ogg with some trepidation. I haven't been Ogg since February 15, 1992.  I've spent my entire adult life as either Andrea Rocha (1992 - 2005) or Andrea Moravits (2005 - 2011)... or even occasionally as a French transfer student, a paleobiologist, or stunt driver-- but those are stories for another blog. And to be quite frank, many of my memories of being an Ogg aren't so pleasant.

3rd Grade Ogg: Hard to believe my nickname was "Ogg the Dog."

For a while, I toyed with taking my Nana's (my Mom's Mom) maiden name, which was Domini. I really dig the name Andrea Domini. Seriously, that chick is cool. And maybe kinda hot. People want to hang out with Andrea Domini, likely behind a velvet rope somewhere fabulous. But you know, when push comes to shove, I'm not actually an actress or novelist or singer, so I likely don't need a freaking stage name. (Well, I'm all of those things-- just usually all at one time which makes me kind of manic but not at all a triple threat.) I just couldn't do it.

This is how I picture Andrea Domini, pretty much 24/7.  She has way more fun than it really makes sense to be having. 

Damn it, I'm an Ogg.

In December, I made my first trek up to the Drivers License office in Castle Rock. It was the first day I was able to leave the house after being snowed in with pneumonia for about 10 days...and I was feeling remarkably optimistic. My optimism was short-lived, however, when I learned that I would first have to get a Social Security card with my new name, and then I could get a new Drivers License. I had lunch plans with my Southie girls Coral & Melissa, so I couldn't head over to the Social Security office, and I figured I'd likely need some sort of form anyway, so I held off.

Fast forward about two weeks. Per the SSA website, I completed a form, brought my passport and the divorce decree I received in the mail, and trudged up to the SSA office in Lakewood. After waiting for an hour, my number was finally called and I approached the window feeling really superior for being so prepared. Um...what do you mean I need a certified copy of my divorce decree? This is the decree they sent me in the mail, it's the only one that exists. Oh, I need to go to the court house and get a copy with a meaningless stamp on it? Goodie, I'm always looking for a reason to go to the courhouse and deal with bureaucrats.

So I raced off to the courthouse, waited forever in line in 5 inch stilettos behind someone who apparently had TB, paid $20 and got my stamped copy. I asked the clerk why in the world they wouldn't just send a stamped copy in the first place versus a completely worthless one and shockingly she had no answer. These people never do. It was too late to go back to the SSA office, so I had to abort my mission.  And disinfect myself.

Fast forward about two weeks to when I finally had the time and the permission to miss a little work again in order to go back to the SSA office, which is only open, oh-so-conveniently for those of us who work, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.  Apparently you are supposed to leave there, go to eat your early bird special dinner at Denny's and head straight home to watch "Matlock" or "Murder, She Wrote."  I once again waited an hour, inexplicably watching "Star Trek" on a Spanish language TV channel, and finally made my way up to the window. Aaaaaand...success! I was told I'd receive my new card in the mail in less than 2 weeks.

Caramba, Jaime! Yo soy un medico!

Two days later, I headed back to the Castle Rock Drivers License office, triumphant in my Social Security name change success. I told the clerk I also wanted to change my address. She told me I needed to provide proof of address-- like a bank statement or credit card bill.  Um, I've been waiting to change my address on those things until I change my name, which I can't do until I have my new Drivers License.

Are you hip to the whole chicken and egg nature of this process by now?

The clerk suggested I go across the street and change my vehicle registration and bring that back to her as proof.  "Um, I'm driving his car today and don't have proof of insurance with me."  She raised her eyebrow at me. New name, new address, some random person's car, no proof of insurance... Yeah, I seemed like Citizen of the Year and not at all suspicious. Had she been allowed, I'm pretty sure she would've asked for a urine sample at that point.

As I frantically tried to check several online accounts to show her my address, I realized that the mobile apps for these accounts don't show your profile information. I dug through my briefcase, thinking I must have at least one Bed, Bath and Beyond coupon with The Boy's address listed...aaaaand, negative. In fact, they all had my former father-in-law's name listed (misspelled) at my old address, where he never lived. Finally, after I had exhausted all of my resources, I deployed a new strategy: I just cried. I told her I'd been there three times now (okay, a slight exaggeration which she called me out on), and I just really couldn't afford to keep taking off work to get my documentation squared away. She took pity on me and after looking surreptitiously around the room, agreed to change it without documentaiton. You gotta love small town America.

Fast forward two weeks and I still hadn't received my new Social Security card. It turns out the reason for this was that I had a mail forwarding order with the Post Office because I am in the process of moving in with The Boy...and guess what?  The Post Office doesn't forward Social Security cards. I'll need to change my address with the IRS BY MAIL, DURING TAX SEASON, in order to go BACK to the SSA office, wait for an hour watching "I Dream of Jeannie" in Spanish, to request a copy of my new Social Secuirty card, bearing the Ogg name.

That sounds promising, doesn't it?

And then inspriation struck: I bet I have my old SS card, I thought, from when I was a child, that will show my maiden name. Genius! And since I'm in the midst of packing my house...I should be able to find it.

Strangely, it wasn't in my safe. My birth certificate was. Passports as Andrea Ogg, Andrea Rocha and Andrea Moravits were there. Two marriage certificates and two divorce decrees were in there. Seriously, if you need to assume an identity and go on the lam, call me and let's work out a deal. But I found no superflous SS cards.

Oh, but wait-- my packrattiness knows no bounds. There are boxes of momentoes in my basement, I thought...and surely among all of these treausres is my original SS card.

So I continued my search. I found front pages from the Houston Chronicle from 9/11, from Y2K. I found a blank check from my very first checking account. I found a copy of my first paycheck from 1982. But no Social Security card. I have the invoice sticker from my 1984 RX7, every report card and every Iowa Test score, and the mum my first love gave me for Homecoming 1983. But no god damn Social Security card. I found the plastic cup my pastor used to baptize me in the hospital as a very sickly newborn, a cigar from the bunch that my Dad gave out when I was born. But no ever-loving Social Security card. I found a business card from every job I've ever held and an envelope containing every ticket stub from every concert, play or musical I ever attended. I found baby shoes, baby teeth, my Indian Princess headress and the sling I wore for my broken arm in the third grade. I found every drivers license I've ever held and every badge I've ever been issued, including a media pass from the first post-Challenger Shuttle launch at the Johnson Space Center in 1989.

But what I didn't find was my motherfucking, God-forsaken, holy-shitballs-where-the-hell-is-it Social Security card.

So what? You may be asking. What do you even need a SS card for? I haven't needed to provide one in decades. My first reaction would be to suggest that you stop being so smug. And then I'd tell you this: My employer is requiring it so I can change my name in our corporate directory. And until I change my name in that directory, I can't change my name on my insurance cards or on any travel documents.

Which is why I'll be traveling to Las Vegas for business next week on an airline ticket for Andrea Moravits, while carrying a Drivers License for Andrea Ogg. Thankfully I'll also be carrying a passport for Andrea Moravits as I haven't tried to change that one yet, since it will require me sending in my passport itself along with a birth certificate, 2 marriage certificates, two divorce decrees, and likely a fingerprint, a lock of hair, a blood specimen and 2 - 3 eye witnesses. (Volunteers?)

I tell you what, I'm never changing my name again. Ever.

Seriously.

Ever.

I'll tell you something else: Homer's got nothing on me.

The Place to Be

It's true, my transformation to Eva Gabor is almost complete.

When I started dating The Boy MORE THAN TEN MONTHS AGO (but who's counting?), he mentioned that winters at his place were a little tough. At the time, we were sitting on the deck on a gorgeous summer night after yet another ordinarily gorgeous summer day. We were sunkissed, nicely exhausted from a long hike, and our bellies were full of delicious food. There was likely wine involved. And I remember breathlessly thinking "I bet it's beautiful here in the winter."

And I was right-- it is beautiful here in the winter. But there really is an awful lot of winter. And even more driveway. Very steep driveway. 200 yards of it, to be exact. As previously established, I'm no math whiz-- but I'd guess that driveway is like at a 400 degree angle. And my rear-wheel drive tank of a Durango is just no match for it.

We suspected as much pretty early on, so the plan was always to just leave my car at the foot of the driveway when it snowed. I kept a walkie-talkie in my car so that when I got home in the evenings, I'd call "Dogfort, this is Red Leader, over" and Derek would drive down to pick me up and drive me back up the almost impossibly steep driveway. It was a perfect scheme.

My first exposure to how things were really going to go down was after our first good snowfall, sometime in October. We walked out onto the front porch on a random Friday morning, and I could see his 4-Runner across the broad expanse of the driveway-- which had been magically transformed overnight into an ice rink. The ice was literally like 3 inches thick. It was magnificent. Because I'm me, I was wearing some fabulous 5 inch platform peep toe stilettos. Boldly, I stepped out onto the ice, immediately becoming Bambi as he walked onto the frozen pond, just without all the cuteness and free time. Derek grabbed my arm and said "Don't move. I will come to pick you up."

On our way down the traitorous driveway that morning, he mentioned that he probably needed to outfit me with some proper winter gear or I was going to end up hospitalized. As he was already indoctrinated by then, he mentioned he'd make sure I had a high heel cast like the one in "Inglorious Basterds."

Yep, that's exactly how I would roll.

(And true to his word, he went on his first ever shopping spree for me. While I had the shopping montage from "Pretty Woman" in mind, what I actually got was a parka, snow pants, long johns, water-proof gloves, a hat, and some waterproof snow boots. When fully outfitted, I look not unlike the Michelin Man. But I digress.)

So the shuttle arrangement worked for quite some time...and then came to a screeching and unceremonious halt when we got two feet of snow at Christmas. The 4-Runner joined my Durango at the foot of the driveway...and I spent two weeks sitting on the couch. As fate would have it, I had pneumonia and was basically as dead to the driveway as the driveway was dead to me.

Eventually the snow melted. And so we limped through January, with the Durango occasionally making it up the driveway...and with shuttle service restored. I thought the worst was behind us and was looking forward to Spring, to bare skin and open-toed shoes. I congratulated myself on my adaptability and heretofore unknown ruggedness.

And then Snowmaggedon 2012 unleashed three feet of snow on us. And let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've seen the Michelin Woman on snowshoes trudging up the K2 of driveways. (Shout out to my girl Jen, who was with us for all of the glory that was Snowmageddon-- it seriously would have been a bust without you, sista!)

A natural, no?

There was so much snow, we couldn't even get the Durango up the canyon, much less to the foot of the driveway, so it sheltered comfortably in the garage of my house, forty-five minutes away. Oh, how I envied it. Because now your girl here was routinely snowshoeing up and down that motherfucking driveway in super-cute work outfits, refusing to admit defeat. I tried to act like I was born for this.

But alas, we all know I was not. What I was actually born with was a third of a functioning heart AND asthma...but damn it, I wouldn't back down. For a few days, I think The Boy was both amused by and proud of my valiant driveway-climbing efforts. And then came the night that the asthma attack hit me about 50 feet from the house and neither of us could find my rescue inhaler in the depths of my purse. It was scary for me-- but even scarier for him. And I know this because yesterday he bought me the nicest gift a man could ever buy for a woman.

Kubota Orange is the new black!

Yes friends and neighbors, I'm in love.

And I kinda like The Boy, too.

Life Moments: That One Time I Was Wrong, Episode 1

Howdy, strangers!  Remember me? 

The weird thing about not writing blogs is that the more you don't write, the more you don't write.  Kind of like the whole "an object in motion, tends to stay in motion...an object at rest tends to stay at rest" principle.  Except that while I haven't been writing, I've decidedly NOT been at rest.

Life is hectic, isn't it? 

You look forward to your two-week vacation over the holidays, knowing you need the downtime, knowing not taking those weeks during the earlier part of the year would be worth it, knowing how much you're going to enjoy your vacation time with The Boy...only to get pneumonia and spend those two weeks coughing up blood and generally feeling grumpy, isolated, and out of control.  You tell yourself that your relentless program launch schedule for Q1 2012 will be no issue because you'll be so well-rested from said two-week vacation...only to return to work, still sick, still grumpy only now instead of lying around in your pajamas all day, you're back in a cubicle that was seemingly built for raising veal, having all the creativity sucked from your body by soul-less corporate America.

You tell yourself you're going to blog your ever-loving ass off on your vacation...and one day you look up and it's mid-January and you've gone bone dry.

Well, screw that.

As I often do when navel-gazing, I find myself drawn to a particular time in my life when I said, did or thought something wrong.  So let's start a new series:  That OneTime I Was Wrong.

Once when I was in college, I went to meet my Mom for lunch at her office.  She worked in the Marathon Oil Tower and I remember getting dresed just-so because I didn't want to look like a college student-- I wanted to look like a career woman.  I wore a blue and white houndstooth skin-tight pencil skirt and a white blouse and heels...because even in college, that's how I rolled. 

I met my Mom in the huge cafeteria they had in the building and as I waited for her, I noticed a woman sitting all by herself.  She was wearing a suit (late-80's edition, think "Working Girl" meets high humidity) and was sitting all alone at a four-top.  She looked very important.  Her lunch tray was pushed to the side of her table, untouched and ignored, as she furiously worked on a report that was, no-doubt, due half an hour ago.  She was completely oblivious of her surroundings and certainly never saw me staring at her.

God help me, I have her hair.  Like, right now.

I thought she was probably the coolest, most important career woman I had ever seen and I wanted to be just like her.  I wanted to be exactly that busy, that important and that successful one day.

Oh, how wrong I was.

What I didn't see was her so-called career interfering with her private life.  What I didn't see was that, if she really had been that important, she surely would not have been ignoring her lunch in the worker-bee cafeteria.  What I didn't see was that she was likely turning in version seven of the same pointless report that had nothing to do with her actual job and was likely causing her to have to spend her evenings working on her actual work load.

Glamorous, right? 

What I can see now is that we really do create our futures.  I wanted to be that woman...and I am a version of her.  My version is dressed in some pretty snazzy business casual attire versus the big shoulder-padded suit.  And my version seriously could stand to skip a few meals.  But as I look at my lunch, still sitting in it's bag despite the mad dash I made to pick it up 45 minutes ago, I get it.  I'm her.

Only now I don't want to be.

Man, life is hectic.