Tracking Joey

  
  My son has embarked on his Senior trip and is currently somewhere in Italy.  Because of the high cost of international calling, we've worked out a plan for him to send text and video messages when he is in a wifi spot.  My last instructions as he boarded the plane were for him to send me a message to let me know he made it safely.   So far, I've received nothing.  While checking my bank account this morning, it became clear to me that he had indeed made it to Italy as my debit card was working it's way across Europe. While I may never get a text message or video message, I can track my son's progress by mapping out the ATM withdrawals along his journey.  It's not the plan I had hoped for, but at least I know he is alive and well.  

Dear Future Me

  Getting emails from old friends is always nice, but what a surprise to find an email that I sent to myself last year, only to be delivered exactly one year later.  It began "Dear Future Me".  This letter from my past to an older version of me had only one line.... "What have you accomplished over the past year?"   I thought this was rather brilliant as it prompted me to reflect on the year and what I had or had not accomplished.  My children were quick to interrupt my quiet reflections and point out that my one sentence email was lame and lacked details.  You can always count on your children for brutal honesty.  They educated me on how I should have talked about what I was doing a year ago and described what that day was like.  So.... with that being said, my children and I crafted our next letter... "Dear Future Us"

  The letter began by explaining that it was close to midnight on a school night and my children should be in bed.  Instead, they were piled in my bed demonstrating their version of Cirque du Soleil acrobats and tossing my daughter into the ceiling fan.  We listed details about our day so we would know exactly what was going on when we read about it a year from now.  After I finished my typing, my daughter typed in that she is very cool, making it look like I had written these words and then added several smiley faces and hearts.  My son took his turn and added some unknown statement and hit "send" before we could read it.   Giving only subtle hints that would drive my daughter mad, he left her to believe that a year from now we will open a letter that shows my son loved me much more than my daughter did.  What a terrible, yet typical thing to do his sister.  He smiled at this brilliant plan as she desperately tried to retract a message that would wait in the ethers for a year. 

  Unable to retrieve the mystery mail that was resting silently in a distant server waiting for delivery, I thought about the power of such a tool.  Had I known better so very long ago, I should have drafted the following letter to be delivered to the future me at twenty, thirty and forty years of age. 

                                     

  

  

Turning Down the Sun

  While filling out a survey, I was forced to check the box for my age.  I knew that I fell in to the 45 - 50 age group, but suddenly I could not remember if I was 46 or 48. I realized this was ridiculous as everyone knows their age, but for the life of me, I could not remember mine. I began doing the math and employed the use of counting on fingers and using a little chisanbop (you're my age if you know what that is) and quickly concluded that I was indeed 48.  I aged two years in two minutes.  It's simply not right.

  I don't know if it is the fact that I'm in the 45 - 50 box or if I'm just distracted, but I find myself doing odd things without realizing it.  Last week, while driving into a blinding sun, my children watched with great concern as I repeatedly tried to turn down the sun with the volume knob on my car radio.   Needless to say, I was unsuccessful, but I did discover that punching all the buttons on the radio was a useful coping mechanism and calmed me until the sun was out of my eyes.

  I'm keenly aware that I may not actually be keenly aware and I believe there may be some kind of twisted irony in that.  My children are taking notes and remind me on a regular basis when I do strange things that simply don't make sense.  I remind them that one day I plan to be old and crazy and any inheritance will go to the one child that best takes care of me.  It's an idle threat, but seems to work for now.  Until that time arrives, I'll continue to do strange things for no explainable reason.  

The Bus is Leaving Soon

  While you cannot see it in this photo, this little boy is a magician, an entrepreneur, a child of God, a wizard, time traveler, globe trotter, hacker, Apple genius, cinematographer, singer, artist, stockbroker, friend, son, brother and more.  From the day this picture was taken, I have placed one photo a year in a school bus photo frame that has only one seat left.  I have the senior picture that goes in that last slot and I simply cannot place it on that bus.  That would  mean that he has grown up well and is ready to head out on his own.  He may be ready, but I am not.

   They say hindsight is twenty twenty and when I started filling the seats in his bus, I should have started a similar frame and put a picture of me in it each year.  The first year would have a young mom with a full head of hair taking her son to school for the first time.   As the years passed, my hair would be thinner, my hips a bit wider, my smile even larger and my memories even greater. The last picture can be one of me racing to the boarding gate at the airport to catch a plane to go visit my boy at college, my smile still wide.  Now that the bus is full, I know that it has been a fantastic ride.

 

My daughter has a similar bus and she still has five years or five seats worth of pictures before she drives off to college.   I imagine my hair will continue to fall onto the bus floor and while I enter an age of cholesterol awareness and walking for health, my hips are a little smaller.  The memories are just as great and I fear the day that both vehicles have left the garage. 

I'm toying with the idea of putting up another bus photo frame and filling it with pictures of each visit I make to see my children at college.  I realize that I may need more than the standard 12 seats, and may need to start planning for a fleet of vehicles.  My greatest joy would be leaving this world one day with a wall full of buses and every seat filled.  My neighbors would certainly think me crazy, but that's probably already crossed their minds before now.  

The Mink That Made Its Way Home

   
    

    When I was five years old, my grandmother would care for me before school each day.  She would turn the stereo console on and play big band music from the 40's.  I remember dressing up in her mink stole as we danced around the living room spinning and twirling to the classics.  She told me that one day the mink would be mine and I hoped that I would be as beautiful as she was wrapped in luxurious mink.

    Time, of course, came and went and my grandmother passed away many years ago.  I have often wondered what happened to her mink stole and wished that I could wear it just one more time.  Little did I know, my grandmother had given the stole to her daughter and sometime during the early 80's when fur was not fashionable and we were wearing hideous things like leather pants and spandex, my aunt tossed the mink into the Goodwill bin near her home. She did not know that anyone actually wanted the mink and donated it to charity.  She told me she remembers looking in the rear view mirror of her station wagon as she pulled away from the collection bin and saw a man climbing in to retrieve what treasures he could. And that was the last we saw of the mink.... or so we thought.

   Move the clock forward thirty years.  I am now 48 and find myself thinking more and more about the wonderful memories of my youth.  The same week I told my family about dancing in my grandmother's mink as a child, my aunt went shopping in downtown Indianapolis.  She entered an antique store and there, on a mannequin, was an age old mink needing to go home.  My aunt stopped in her tracks and told her friend, "That's my mother's mink!"  One would never believe this as there are certainly plenty of mink stoles in this world, and how would one ever really know if that was theirs from so many years ago.  But... she turned to her friend, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that this was her mother's stole and placed on the table the one card that would clearly determine if this was indeed her mother's lost stole.  Her initials would be stitched inside the wrap.  As they lifted the mink from the mannequin, there in script embroidery were the letters T M P for Thelma Mae Pietrobon, my grandmother.

    After thirty years and a seventy five dollar purchase, the mink was back in the family and shipped directly to my door where I found a mystery box with my childhood memories tucked inside.  I carefully removed the wrap from the box and placed it around my shoulders once again.  Somewhere high above, I know that my grandmother has to be smiling down on me as she sits in Heaven spinning old tunes of Benny Goodman playing "How High the Moon."   The mink's return is proof that some things are just meant to be. 

   

Cooking While Driving

www.healthline.com

 
  As my son prepares for college, I’ve read dozens of brochures about career fields and all the great things one can be.  While I am a college graduate and do have a good career, I think the university may have failed in truly preparing me for my place in the workforce.  I understand the skills required for someone with my degree, but nowhere in the pamphlet about academic choices, did they include a picture of a woman racing into work with a bag of potatoes in one hand and a crock pot in the other.    While duty calls, so do the hungry bellies of our families and we have learned to do what we can, where we can and when we can.  My friend Kelly has figured out how to work and cook at the same time to meet the demands of the workplace and her family.  I’m certain when she chose her career path it didn’t include defrosting roasts in-between assisting clients.

  I remember the early nineties when mini-vans first came out and my friend, Hal, bought one that had a built-in refrigerator and a stove top warmer.  He was thrilled that you could heat a can of soup while driving down I-40.  Being single and unaware why that might have been a selling point to a man with five children, I could not figure out why anyone would ever want or need to cook and drive at the same time. Oh, I was so naive.

  Now, as I have gotten older and have children of my own, I fully understand the thinking behind such a wonderful option.  Of course, my kids, unlike their mother, would never eat Spaghettios out of a can and I would need a vehicle with a full Viking range and a Scotsman Ice Maker that dispenses nugget ice just like Sonic.  In fact,  If I could start dinner in my car, on my way to work, I may never actually have to unload groceries again.  Everything would be right where we need it.  This would require extra space for storage and a prep counter and possibly a separate hand washing sink, so the car would have to be very long.   We may, in fact, have to go up and design a double decker, fuel efficient, meals on wheels vehicle that could carry me to and from work.  If we could squeeze in a washer and dryer, I might be able to knock out some laundry while I’m working on next year’s business plan.  Tell me I wouldn’t be popular walking into the board room smelling of home cooked potatoes and Downy. 

  Until then, we will continue to thaw meat in our passenger seat, cook in the back rooms of our offices and tote bags of potatoes where they are needed. 

Put Your Left Foot In

 

    Morning should be quiet and peaceful and should not include hunting for one's own shoes that have disappeared overnight.  It amazes that I can take both shoes off in one location and yet, without fail, the pair separates sometime during the night when nobody is watching.   While hopping though the house this morning, wearing only one black leather boot, I mined for the missing mate in the closet, under the bed and in my daughter's room.  It's sad to report that I never found the other boot, but I did find a small collection of left footed shoes under my couch.   This begs the question, "Why?" and even "How?"  Why would anyone have a need for one shoe only and what would be the reason for a small collection of shoes, for the left foot only, to gather under my couch!?!  After turning the house upside down and slowly slipping into madness, I concluded that we had a one legged shoe thief who liked my shoes, but needed only one from a each set.  It's either that or there is a crazy game of Hokey Pokey going on after I fall asleep each night. 
    I left word for my daughter to please locate the missing shoes and oddly, without fail, she matched all the shoes and left them in my room.  She has an uncanny ability to find lost things and restores sanity to my world.  

    It is not uncommon for items to come up missing in my house.  It is usually after a complete meltdown on my part that the items magically reappear.  It is odd to me that a 10 gallon stock pot or a plunger can mysteriously vanish with nobody knowledgeable as to who removed the items from the house.  I've learned not to get too attached to material things as who knows when they will suddenly come up missing.  They normally return, but not until I've moved a few steps closer to madness. To this day, I'm still missing some right footed shoes, a very special wine opener, a three legged cat and a mop that must have walked right out the door.   

 Thanks to Ben Simo for the great shoe pic.  http://BenSimo.QualityFrog.com/
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Oddly, my concern over left footed thieves could be valid as I ran across this recent article...

Unfashionable Thieves Make Off With 50 Oversized Right-Footed Shoes

By Coburn Palmer Thu., Dec. 6 2012 at 1:50 PM
SFWeekly Blogs

If the shoe fits...

We're not kidding when we tell you that a San Francisco shoe store had some $10,000 worth of right-footed plus-sized shoes stolen Monday night.

Perhaps it was the work of some right-footed peg-leg pirates?

According to Johanna Nilsson, a spokeswoman for LLXLLQ (AKA: really large shoes for women), she parked her car near 19th and Valencia streets, leaving a suitcase of 50 right-footed shoe samples in her trunk. When she came back, the shoes -- and incidentally, her Christmas spirit -- were long gone.

The Palo Alto-based online store, which specializes in oversized Italian shoes, is now hoping that a good Samaritan who appreciates shoes will find the footwear and return it.

Yes, there's a reward -- no questions asked. Anyone who returns all 50 shoes can get either a free pair of oversized footwear (one right and one left shoe), or $150 Visa gift card. If you know what happened to the shoes, call Nilsson at (650) 516-7463.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised if now there's a sudden rash of left-footed shoe thefts around town.