My final Friday Flashback: from an article published in May of 1992:

Ahh... Spring is in the air! Okay, so spring is already two-thirds gone and summer is less than a month away, but some of us are a little slower than others to wake up and smell the petunias.

Spring is most definitely a season for the senses. As a child, I always knew it was springtime when I opened my bedroom window and caught the subtle, heartwarming aroma of the season’s first blossoms wafting across the swamplands of home. Yep, if the skunk cabbage was blooming, summer was just around the corner. 
 
My second favorite indicators of spring were the sounds of lawnmowers humming in the distance and the smell of freshly mown grass. That was, of course, before I matured and acquired the privilege of mowing lawns myself. Now – numerous bags of lawn clippings later – fresh-cut grass smells like work, not spring. And I moved away from the swamps, so the skunk cabbage has come more to symbolize a wetlands designation than the pleasantly pungent harbinger of springtime that it once was to me. 

Maybe spring snuck up on me this year because I no longer have those childhood olfactory cues to rely on to herald the season. I mean, I should have felt its presence clear back in March, when my daughters helped pick daffodils for the church’s Easter cross. The experience really made an impression on the girls, especially two-year-old Emily. The next time she went out in our yard to play, she proceeded to pop the blossoms off almost every daffodil stalk in our yard. Then she proudly brought me the flowers to put in a vase.

I explained to the girls that in order to put flowers in a vase, their stems had to be longer, but we managed to enjoy the blossoms for a few days by floating them in a bowl of water. Sometimes I wonder if the girls really listen to anything I tell them. In this particular instance, however, my point was well taken: Madison and Emily soon discovered the blooming pansies and brought me a bouquet, complete with stems, stalks, leaves and roots dangling from the cheery little blossoms.

My daughters certainly have been relishing spring this year: hauling their lunches outside to make a picnic on the plastic table in the driveway, splashing in the wading pool, discovering ladybugs and butterflies and bee stings…

But spring is not a season to be experienced vicariously, and so even though the girls were taking in all of nature’s annual reawakening, I needed to experience some first-hand sensory input in order to come out of my winter funk and hibernation.

Maybe it was hearing the baby birds chirping in our woodstove chimney pipe (we never got around to clearing out last year’s nest). Or eating fresh Oregon-grown strawberries bought from a roadside fruit stand. Or watching our new house construction begin – the structure emerging from its concrete foundation, taking shape and growing – just like the ferns and blackberries and salal are springing forth from the duff of the surrounding woods. Or maybe it was catching the snippets of baseball game highlights on TV during the Blazer basketball series’ halftimes. 

Then again perhaps it was the tactile sense that brought spring to life for me this year: helping the girls make flower chains out of dandelions they picked from the fields; getting dirt under my fingernails at work as I cleaned out flower beds, pulled weeds and transplanted seedlings; picking bark dust splinters out of my fingers after spreading the covering around the shrubs and flowers that landscape the grounds of the office and plant where I have been temporarily employed.

But I can’t help thinking that the olfactory cues of my childhood are still the strongest links to my personal affirmation of spring. And while I am watering the impatiens that I have planted in the flower beds in front of the wastewater treatment plant where I am now employed, I catch the faint odor of the sewage plant. For a moment my mind trips back to my open bedroom window and the skunk cabbage ripening in the murky waters of the swamp. And for some reason, I finally notice it: Spring is in the air.

In reading this week’s flashback to twenty years ago, I see that even then, I was ranting about the infringement of electronic gadgetry upon our relationships with one another. While I went on about answering machines, I had no clue as to what the internet and cell phone technology would unleash upon us. Oh, how naïve I was when I wrote this article in February of 1992:


 Being Neighborly

I’ve never been overly neighborly. I mean, I don’t ignore my neighbors; if I see them in their yard, I wave or say hi. But I’m not one to pop over for a cup of coffee, or to stand at the fence trading gossip.

I think it’s partly a generational thing. I’m a product of the era where to “reach out and touch someone” means to hold a telephone conversation. If I dial a number and connect with the intended person rather than their answering machine, FAX machine, or computer, I guess by comparison I have cause to feel that it’s a close and personal encounter.

My generation also coined the term “cocooning.” We insulate ourselves from the outside world so we can spend quality time at home. The quality time begins as soon as we have responded to the email on our personal computers and retrieved messages on our answering machine, and is, of course, subject to any unforeseen interruptions, such as being paged on our beepers.

I would probably never have gotten to know any of my neighbors if it weren’t for my cats. Cats haven’t caught on to all this electronic gadgetry yet; they’re still trying to figure out how that little round bell got inside their favorite catnip toy. So when a cat wants to reach out and touch someone, it doesn’t pick up the phone. It runs next door, sits on the porch and looks pathetic until your neighbor either shoos it away with a broom or invites it inside and feeds it. I’ve thought of trying that approach myself, but I’m afraid I couldn’t handle being swatted with a broom as tactfully as a cat can. 
 
Sometimes cats can get too neighborly. Once, when my cat Bonnie turned up missing for two days, I finally spotted her peeping from behind the closed curtains of an apartment across the yard from mine. The tenant of that apartment unit, whom I had theretofore not had occasion to meet, was apparently gone for the weekend and the landlord refused to unlock the door and let Bonnie out. I wasn’t so much concerned about Bonnie surviving the three-day detainment. But I had all sorts of nightmarish visions of the havoc she could wreak during an unchaperoned weekend free-for-all. Cats can be such party animals.

My neighbor across-the-way returned home the following evening. Instead of popping over to introduce myself, I hid behind my kitchen window curtains, watching for the fireworks. I figured my neighbor might choose this opportunity to reach out and touch me, if not with a broom, then with a bill for damages incurred by my kitty. She apparently opted instead to “cocoon” after her weekend away. A most satisfactory anticlimax from my point of view. 
 
Bonnie came home upon her release, and we agreed to never speak of the incident again, especially not to our neighbor across-the-way. 
 
The incident didn’t impede Bonnie’s neighborliness in the least. In fact, when I moved from that apartment complex, my neighbor-next-door asked if Bonnie could remain there with her. I told her Bonnie could only stay as a package deal with her twin brother Clyde, and when the neighbor readily agreed to keep both cats, I let them stay. I was trying to cut back to a one cat household anyway, and my third cat Cricket’s fur was a much better match to the carpet in my new home than either Bonnie’s or Clyde’s. It was a perfect solution to a delicate dilemma. 

Upon moving, my new neighbors Danny and Carol epitomized the very word, always bringing fresh cut flowers and helping out in so many ways. In return, I – um, let’s see – I guess I cocooned. Let it not be said, however, that mine was not a neighborly household. On a regular basis, Cricket hopped the fence to present Danny and Carol with a carefully selected mole or shrew carcass, laid with the utmost of care upon their back step. 

I’ve been thinking of neighbors lately because my family will soon be moving to a new house. With this new beginning I see the option of either “cocooning” away from those who will live nearby, or of “reaching our and touching someone” like a true neighbor. I hope to achieve the latter option for a change.

But just to cover all the bases, I’ll probably get a cat.

#  #  #

Here's Part Two of my saga of "The Great Summer Escape." From an article published in August of 1992:

Picking The Prize

As a child, I enjoyed reading Highlights for Children, a monthly kid’s magazine. Particularly notable was a feature called “Goofus and Gallant,” in the format of line drawings with captions.

The first drawing would show a boy, Goofus, doing something terribly rude, crude or socially unacceptable. For example, a grimacing, slovenly Goofus might be reaching across the dinner table to snag the largest piece of chicken off the platter. The caption below subtly helped ensure that other young hooligans would comprehend the illustrated infraction, stating that “Goofus eats like a pig.”

In the second picture, another boy, Gallant, depicted a more thoughtful and courteous response to the same situation. In the example above, Gallant might hold the platter, beaming pleasantly as he served the rest of his family before helping himself to a modest wing or drumstick. The caption would read “Gallant waits until everyone else has been served.” 

If you ask me, Gallant probably just hated chicken. But you got the idea, by comparing the shocked faces of Goofus’ parents with the adoring smiles that Gallant’s behavior garnered, that it was preferable to conduct yourself more like Gallant than Goofus.

I often feel like the “Goofus” of parenthood. In my last column, I showed (from firsthand example) how not to introduce your children to the library. This week I can tell you how not to reward your children for their reading efforts. 

As described previously, my family was embroiled in a summer reading program where my daughters could earn a prize at our library by reading ten books. I was the designated reader for my pre-literate preschoolers. We worked our way through stories of hiccupping hippos, defunct dinosaurs, and my favorite: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

With nine books completed and a hysterical dread that the prizes would all be gone by the time we got through the tenth tome, I gave in to the escalating panic. We drove to the library and bee-lined for the kids’ section, where I found a one-word-per-page book. I sped read it to my daughters, then produced a pen and entered the title in the coveted tenth line of their book list forms. Before the ink dried, the girls were presenting the lists to the librarian, eagerly awaiting their bounty.

The librarian brought out a display which included a shiny pinwheel, a plastic paratrooper, and the bright orange sunglasses that Madison had previously set her heart on winning.

“Did you already collect a prize?” The allotment was one toy per child for the summer, and the librarian scrutinized us from behind her horn-rimmed glasses, apparently debating whether we looked the type to defraud the library. As if we might be on our third or fourth list of books. Get real.

“Yes,” Madison chirped happily. She’d say yes to anything to get her prize. The librarian recoiled, snatching the prize board away.

“No!” I corrected. The prizes came back begrudgingly, to the girls’ great relief. Madison studied the display and at length selected the pinwheel. Emily did likewise. Not the sunglasses?

“Are you sure?” I asked, and then added as nonchalantly as a shark in a swimming pool, “because once you choose, you can’t change your mind.” Was I setting myself up or what?

“Yes, I’m sure.” The split-second the pinwheels reached their hands, Madison wailed, “Mommy, I don’t like this.”

The librarian shot me one of those looks that Goofus was probably accustomed to receiving.

“You picked it, you’d better like it,” I muttered between clenched teeth, making matters decidedly worse. Belatedly I tried psychology. “I think it looks like a magic wand.”

Madison’s pout continued.

We piled glumly into the truck and headed home. Borrowing Emily’s pinwheel, I blew mightily, setting it into a sparkling blur of motion. Emily tried too, delighted with the results. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Madison’s discreet attempt. Nothing. 

“Hold it farther away,” I said softly, staring straight ahead. Momentarily a rustle from the far side of the truck let me know it had worked.

Soon Madison was humming a happy tune, as she and Emily took turns making their pinwheels spin. “You know,” Madison casually observed, “these kind of look like magic wands.”

#  #   #

Looking back on the good old days (not to be confused with the very enjoyable new days), here's an article I wrote in July of 1992:

The Great Summer Escape

Libraries have always enthralled me. I don’t really recall hanging out at libraries as a child, but I hold vague, fond remembrances: the transfiguring effect of leaving the harshly bright, muggy summer afternoon behind and entering the cool, subdued atmosphere of spacious, musty-aired, book lined rooms.  

The silence inside the library was reverential, the books carefully aligned on the shelves, each in its designated place and neatly protected with clear plastic sleeves that crackled expectantly when you opened them. You felt privileged to touch them, honored at having access to these channels of knowledge.

It was these warm and cozy feelings toward libraries that recently got me sucked into “The Great Summer Escape,” a reading program sponsored by our local library. With promises of fun and prizes and a learning opportunity for children, how could any conscientious parent refuse? Besides, it would provide a perfect summertime endeavor for my preschoolers; something to keep them occupied and entertained and out of trouble while my husband and I worked at getting our new house ready to move into.

I could envision my two daughters sprawling on the carpet of the living room, their faces aglow with excitement and enthusiasm as they pored over colorfully illustrated, oversized books lying open on the floor. They would entertain themselves for hours, making up their own stories to match the pictures. Then, in the evenings, after we had polished off a nutritious home-cooked meal and taken our baths and were sitting in the overstuffed chair enjoying the light summer breeze that would float gently through the open window, I would read the books to my daughters as they quietly snuggled into me, eyes drooping to half-mast in anticipation of a restful night’s sleep.

By the end of a week, we would have read the ten books needed to earn the girls a prize, and I would proudly lead them into the library to collect their treat, which they would covet forever because it would invoke in them the same warm and cozy feelings that I held for libraries. 

We checked out three books from the library and read them together, and I carefully entered the titles on the form the library had provided for us to document our progress toward our goal of ten books. We were off to a great start.

But somehow the “great summer” I envisioned truly did “escape,” and I was left with harsh reality. I got too busy to go back to the library, so we kept reading the same three books over and over and over again. Which is something a mother is used to, but it wasn’t getting us any closer to our quota of ten, and the girls began to fret that they’d never get their prize.

As the weeks wore on, the girls spent more time in daycare, while I spent more time house painting. One day the girls’ daycare class attended the weekly children’s story hour at the library, and Madison came home aghast with tales of how “all the other kids” were turning in their book lists and getting prizes, and there weren’t going to be any prizes left by the time we made it through ten books.

Here I was trying to choreograph wonderful childhood memories for my daughters, and instead all I was managing to do was instill massive anxiety. At this rate, I’d be lucky if the girls ever dared venture into a library again. In a panic, I hauled them to the library one evening, foregoing their much-needed bath and trying to hide my paint-spattered arms, and trying to convince the girls that, yes, we would eat sometime tonight, I just didn’t know when. We checked out seven books and came home to read them. 

Pulling the girls onto my lap (“Madison, don’t kick your sister!”), we began to read. (“Emily, stop turning the pages so fast.” “You girls quit playing and pay attention!”) It was muggy, there was no breeze anywhere, and our bodies stuck together in a sweaty, wilted mass. We made it through one book.

Six more to go. Madison has her eye on winning the sunglasses with orange star-shaped frames, and knowing Emily, she will want the same thing that her sister picks out. If the prizes run out, I will be scouring the five-and-dime stores in search of star-shaped sunglasses. In the meantime, the TV dinners are in the oven, I need a bath, and the girls are on the floor surrounded by library books: they are using them to build a “fort.” 

#  #  #

Here's another look back at life 20 years ago. From an article published in August of 1992:

Welcome to the Neighborhood

It was a Saturday afternoon and we had been in our new house one full week. Cardboard moving boxes still clogged the rooms, spewing out assorted junk through which we sifted as schedules allowed, scratching our heads and wondering exactly why it was we kept lugging these useless items around with us when we hadn’t used them in the last five years. 

While busily engaged in this laborious tedium of unpacking and head-scratching, we heard the doorbell ring. After locating the front door (“I think it’s behind that tall ‘Allied Vans’ box with the fake nose and glasses poking out”) my husband negotiated the obstacle-laden living room in a splendid impersonation of O.J. Simpson jumping hurdles at an international airport. Vaulting the stuffed bobcat, skimming over my beloved art deco lamp, and leaping over the crosscut saw which bears a hand-painted Warholian rendition of some tri-color mountain range, my husband opened the door to be greeted by a warm blackberry cobbler.

Our neighbors one-street-over-and-two-doors-down had stopped by to welcome us with a home baked dessert made from berries picked fresh that morning. What a thoughtful gesture, and what an unexpected one in an era when social amenities requiring any real effort are becoming nearly extinct. With four moves in five years, this was the first time we had actually been welcomed into a neighborhood in any tangible form.

Well, okay, there was one man a couple of moves ago who came next door when he saw the moving van in our driveway and shook my husband’s hand and said, “Welcome to the neighborhood.” But that doesn’t really count. Sure, it was a nice gesture, and it did take some effort to come over to personally greet us. The only problem was that that was the house we were moving out of – not into – and we had been living next door to this man for almost eleven months by then. I guess he didn’t recognize my husband without the fence between them. 

Neighborliness is, of course, a two way street, and although I am often guilty of negligence (and sometimes even manslaughter) of proper manners and societal protocol, my mother did manage to instill in me a few nuggets of propriety. One of them being: you never return a dish empty.

If you can successfully boil water, then you are overqualified to comprehend the utter despair I feel when faced with an empty dish – a dish that I am expected to fill with something edible. You see, when I should have been sitting in Mrs. Ramey’s home economics class learning to measure ingredients, I was instead perched on a stool in the shop building watching Mr. Moon demonstrate the finer points of disassembling a lawn mower engine.

To this day I’m not sure how much a “pinch” of salt is; and when a recipe calls for a cup of water, I never know if they mean a heaping cup or just a level one.  

Given my shortcomings in the kitchen, I thought perhaps it would be socially acceptable to return the dish empty, and in lieu of poisoning our generous neighbors with well-intentioned burnt goods, I could offer to tear apart their lawn mower engine. Unfortunately, I never learned to put the darn things back together again, so my mechanical abilities would probably go as equally unappreciated as my culinary skills. 

After staring prolongedly and futilely at the empty eight by eight inch baking dish for some spark of inspiration, I finally rummaged through the moving boxes to find my recipe books. I have about a half-dozen of them. The titles tend to include either the word “quick” or the word “easy” in them. But, alas, I possess no recipe book entitled “Quick and Easy Recipes for an Eight by Eight Inch Baking Dish,” so I was out of luck. 

I finally settled on a recipe for brownies which I am baking in my 9 x 13 inch dish. While they are cooling on the rack, I’ll head out to the garage to find my chisel and sledge hammer so I can cut the brownies up and transfer them to the neighbors’ dish. I figure depending on the outcome, I can either tell my neighbors I have made charcoal squares (they may have household purposes, you know), or chocolate-flavored lawn mower engine gaskets.

And for everyone’s sake, I hope we won’t be moving again soon. 

#  #  # 

My former husband loved flying. While still married, I wrote an article about his “aviation addiction,” mostly tongue-in-cheek. I was glad he had an avocation that he could put his heart into. He passed away in 2011, doing what he loved to do: flying.  Adapted from an article I wrote in November, 1991:

My Life with an Aviation Addict 
 
I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that my husband is an incurable “aviation addict.” Since Oprah and Geraldo haven’t covered this topic yet, I’ll share with you my exclusive first-person account of how I learned to deal with this unique affliction.

Before I married, I vowed I would never be a weekend widow. I had heard war stories about “football fanatic” husbands, whose wives were perpetually awaiting the end of football season to get their attention long enough to tell them the car broke down or that child number three needed braces. Nope, I told myself, I’d find someone whose interests extended beyond the pro bowls.

No one warned me about “aviation addicts” however. When I met my future husband, he was charming, dashing, debonair… and to add a touch of mystique, he was a pilot. Sure, he liked football, but he’d rather hang out at the airport than vegetate on the couch watching slow-motion replays. I’d never been around airplanes much before, so it seemed incredibly romantic. 

On our first vacation together we drove across Oregon, hopping from one airport to the next, inspecting any airplane that might conceivably come up for sale in our lifetime. I couldn’t tell you who was quarterbacking for the Seattle Seahawks that year, but I could rattle off the name of any aircraft broker in the western states.

I thought I’d go nuts if I heard one more discussion on the virtues of a Lycoming engine versus a Continental, so when my husband finally found an older Piper Warrior that we could afford without having to hawk our firstborn, he bought it with my blessings.

Now, I thought, this will get it out of his system. He can take a short jaunt in the Warrior whenever the urge strikes and the rest of the time we can be together at home; maybe watch a little football…

Not true. If he wasn’t flying it, he was washing and waxing it. He could remember the date of the engine’s last inspection faster than he could recall our wedding anniversary date. It became obvious that the only way I could spend time with my husband was at the airport. I had to find an interest that meshed with his. 
 
“What about wing-walking?” I teased, just to get his attention.

“On my Warrior? No way. You’d scratch the paint when you fell off.” Was the honeymoon over or what? 

“Okay, then, how about aerial photography?” I’d seen where people buy aerial photos of their homes, farms or businesses. I could spend time flying with my husband and make money, too.

We took a practice flight. My husband circled some farms while I snapped away with the camera. When the film was developed, we had 24 color glossies of the airplane’s right wingtip. Although my husband admired them (they showed off his nice wax job), we decided they just wouldn’t sell to the general public. 
 
Well, then, I’d try navigation. My husband convinced me that it would not only be fun, but it would help him out as well. We took a trip up the Oregon-Washington coastline and I pored over the charts as he pointed out specific landmarks below and their corresponding location on the map. Easy peasy.

Then he turned inland. This wasn’t so easy. On the coast I at least knew which ocean we were over, but now I couldn’t tell one river from another. The only time I really knew where we were was when we landed at the Independence air field, because I could read the name painted in huge lettering on the runway. 
 
Navigating wasn’t going to be the answer to my dilemma, either.

I was beginning to envy those weekend widows of football season. If they wanted to talk to their husbands, all they had to do was wait for a commercial break. I had to take the laundry outside and use it to spell out messages on the lawn. 
 
I took a part time job at the local airport, answering the Unicom radio and pumping aviation fuel. I did see more of my husband (he waved whenever he taxied by), but relaying airport advisories to him over the radio wasn’t my idea of intimate conversation.

Finally I took an introductory flying lesson. I had tried everything but piloting, I thought. Maybe I would discover that I loved it as much as my husband did… maybe even more than football.

Within ten minutes of climbing into the cockpit alongside my instructor, I found myself careening at 60 miles per hour down a seemingly pencil-thin and all-too-short runway in a very expensive piece of machinery. No big deal, except that supposedly I was in control. 

Just as I began to calculate the cost of replacing the runway lights I was about to overrun, the instructor rescued us and lifted the plane to momentary safety.

Then began a lesson on coordinating turns. The instructor shoved one rudder pedal forward to demonstrate its effect on the airplane. The nose of the aircraft veered sharply to one side, and my stomach lurched responsively in the other direction. The procedure was repeated with the other rudder pedal. By then I was green with something other than envy, and the only technique I wanted demonstrated was a speedy landing.

But, you know, it was kind of fun at that. Maybe the “aviation addiction” was creeping up on me all along. All I know is that I’m going back for more. And this fall, if anyone stops by our house to catch the Seahawks game, they’ll probably find the tube tuned in to an aviation ground school video instead. 
 
# #  #

That actually was my one and only flying lesson. I turned to more artistic endeavors. I took acrylic painting lessons (painting aerial scenes) and stained glass (making my husband a glass panel of an airplane), and writing aviation articles for regional publications (my husband served as resident expert advisor). Occasionally, we watched football together. 

My weekly (or thereabouts) look back at a previous era in my life. From November 1, 1991:

Elementary, My Dear Watson

I’m always amazed at how even the simplest undertakings can explode into major incidents when children are involved. Take the other evening for example, when I dispensed some chewable vitamins to my two daughters. There ensued the usual debate of whether today’s pill should be a purple tiger, a pink elephant or an orange hippopotamus. And then came the ritual of smearing the wet vitamin all over their cheeks to create colorful splotches that looked like the onset of some exotic disease. So far so good.  I’ve come to expect and tolerate these proceedings. 
 
I had just managed  to send both girls off, perfectly satisfied with the proper shade and species of vitamin, only to have two-year-old Emily come storming back into the kitchen, howling like a wild banshee. Her sister Madison was not far behind, bawling hysterically and insisting, “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!” Which of course immediately led me to believe that whatever “it” was, Madison must certainly have done it.

I consoled Emily until her sobs lessened to a decibel that I hoped wouldn’t cause permanent hearing loss, and then I managed to decipher that she was telling me Madison had eaten her vitamin.

“I didn’t!” Madison repeated for the twentieth time in the last 30 seconds. “Emily ate it.” And then the hysterical crying recommenced, in stereo.

Had I been smart, I would have simply given Emily another pill, resigning myself to the notion that whichever girl had received the double dose would just be twice as healthy that day. But that would have been too easy.

Maybe I’ve read too many crime novels lately, because my first instinct was to set Madison in a dark room with a bare light bulb aimed in her eyes, and rapid-fire questions at her until she cracked under the pressure and babbled out a full confession to the heinous crime of eating her sister’s vitamin. After all, honesty and truthfulness are important values to instill in our children.

But then, so is trust. And there was the catch. If I took Madison on her word and she was lying, this would teach her that she could simply lie her way out of trouble. If, however, I chose not to believe her and she was telling the truth, it would make honesty seem futile since I didn’t believe it anyway.

Okay, I would withhold judgment and try to resolve this objectively. Thus began my investigation into the case of the missing vitamin.

“Emily, did you eat your vitamin?”

“Noooooo!”

“Open your mouth.” She presented the cavern for inspection, and I examined it like a veteran horse trader. Nope, no traces of vitamin. That let her off the hook.

“Madison, did you eat Emily’s vitamin?”

“No!” But of course, she had eaten her own pill, so a cursory check of her choppers got me nowhere. She was still my number one suspect.

“Where did it go, then?”

“She dropped it!” Madison suggested.

Emily led us to the scene of the alleged crime, and we all got down on our hands and knees to search the premises for clues (I was feeling like a regular Sherlock Holmes by this time). We found nothing. Now I was thoroughly convinced Madison was guilty.

Meanwhile, Emily and Madison had had so much fun inspecting each other’s teeth and crawling around on the floor with me, that they were fully recovered from their trauma over the pill’s disappearance. Perhaps showing trust in Madison was more important than conning a confession out of her, I thought. Maybe three-year-olds are just too young to understand the difference between the truth and lying.

I trundled the girls off to bed, and sat down to read the newspaper. As I picked the paper off the coffee table, out popped Emily’s missing vitamin! How rotten I felt for doubting Madison’s word. I went straight to her room, told her I had found the pill, and apologized for not believing her.

Madison smiled. “Where did you find it?” she asked.

“In the newspaper,” I told her and she laughed. Hmm… now just how did the pill get in the newspaper, anyway? 

“Madison,” I said, reaching for a bare light bulb, “Did you hide Emily’s vitamin?” 
 
# # # 

The case of the misplaced vitamin was never resolved, but both girls grew up to be outstanding citizens, so I guess they learned the right lessons whether I bungled in my teaching of them or not. I’m not sure if they still take vitamins, though. I haven’t seen any purple or orange cheeks lately.

Looking back to my life twenty years ago... from July of 1992: 

Ladder Etiquette

My husband is always supportive of my artistic endeavors. When I expressed interest in renewing my painting efforts, for example, he promptly drove to the local supply store and bought paint for my hobby.  Several gallons of paint, in fact. Exterior latex. And he purchased a 20-foot extension ladder so I would be able to navigate the expansive “canvas” he supplied: the outer walls of our new home. 

Not exactly what I had in mind, but it’s the thought that counts, right? At least, that’s what my husband says.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time lately hugging the rungs of my new ladder as I attempt to coerce the paint from my brush to land on the house siding and not on my arms. Rows of bruises at twelve inch intervals all the way up my body testify to the close relationship this ladder and I have formed. But even now, a week into the paint job (I’m a slow painter), I’m learning new things about my metallic compatriot.

Yesterday I extended the ladder fully for the first time since we’ve owned it so I could paint the eaves at the peak of the roof line. I usually don’t have a problem with heights, but the higher I climbed, the more the ladder shimmied and swayed, and the more I began to ponder the likelihood of falling. I could easily imagine my head implanted in the sand like those cartoon caricatures of ostriches. 
 
I persevered to the top and began painting the eaves, when I was joined by a curious bee. I suppose it didn’t help any that my shirt was bright red, and my paintbrush handle a bright yellow. Whatever the attraction, it wasn’t mutual, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do while clinging to a thin rung 20 feet in the air. Fortunately I have no great fear of bees, so I simply cussed at it and made references to the nature of its mother’s footwear until it finally retreated, buzzing indignantly. 

Now spiders are another story. And when the largest daddy longlegs I’ve seen in my life materialized on the wall six inches from my face, I nearly jumped off the ladder. I know daddy longlegs are harmless, but that doesn’t mean I want them crawling around me with their creepy, gangly legs.

The spider fell right onto my pants leg. 

You’d be amazed at the agile maneuvers I performed on my high rise perch as I combated that spider, eventually knocking him to the ground. He made a run directly for the wall. Probably climbing right back up here to get me, I figured.

So I started down the shaky ladder. Only then did I notice the bright red “DANGER” label slapped inside the ladder. Yarmouth Gray paint covered most of the message. All I could make out was “DO NOT XXXXX ON OR ABXXXXX,” followed by a big black arrow pointing down to the hard, hard ground. No doubt a graphic depiction of where you would end up should you foolishly XXXXX on or abXXXXX. Below this label, another one began “Before climbing,…” with several paragraphs of fine print whose contents I suddenly felt compelled to read. But I didn’t want to remain swaying 20 feet up with a revengeful spider on the way while I tried to decipher the microscopic print. Besides, it was a little late for any “before climbing” instructions, and I would just have to take my chances about XXXXXing on or abXXXXX.

After I safely reached terra firma, I took a closer look at this ladder to see what else I had overlooked. A yellow “CAUTION” sticker gave clues on the proper positioning of the ladder. “For proper angle distance from ladder base of support wall must be ¼ the working length of ladder.” What do they mean the “working” length of the ladder? Is there part of the ladder that doesn’t work?!?
 
This last label I found listed other sundry ladder dangers and ended with “read additional instructions on ladder.” Apparently this was the label I should have read first. I found no mention anywhere of what to do should you encounter bees or spiders at high elevations.

I guess I need a taller ladder. This one apparently ran out of room for warning stickers. 

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The house did eventually get painted. The next time we faced a house painting project, we contracted it out. I had changed hobbies by then.

Happy Friday,
Maggie

Unlike many – okay most  – holiday seasons, I am actually finding myself getting into the Christmas spirit this year. The tree's up, the carols are playing, the eggnog's been poured... No Scrooginess for me this year! Here’s a look back at a prior year’s holiday planning. From December, 1991:

The Perfect Holiday Plan

It seemed like a perfect plan. I had a ton of pre-holiday items to attend to last week, and my husband was going to be working extended shifts all week, so we decided to let Grandma and Grandpa have the kids for a few days. Dropping my daughters at my parents’ house on Tuesday, I did some quick shopping while in town, and then headed home. 

On Wednesday morning, I awoke abruptly at five a.m. to a shrieking radio alarm clock and my shrieking husband, who was trying to locate and dismember the radio in the dark. I was fully alert by the time my husband’s fist met the off button, but I felt it would be something akin to blasphemy if I didn’t at least try to sleep in on this once-in-a-decade child-free opportunity.

So while my husband headed off to work, I forced myself to remain in bed until nine o’clock, a full hour and a half past the time my daughters would have routed me out with their incessant chattering, giggling, and knocking on the wall that separates their bedrooms. I think they communicate between themselves in a language that is half Gregorian chant and half Morse code. They send cryptic messages that roughly translate like so:

“Whose turn is it to spill the milk this morning?”

“It’s my turn. You did the apple juice last night, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. That really set Mom off. What a coup! Well, what should we ask for for breakfast today?”

“Let’s insist on Oatie-Boaties. Oatie-Boaties. Oatie-Boaties.” 
 
“We don’t have any more. Dad emptied the last cereal box yesterday.”

“My point exactly.”

“Okay, it’s Oatie-Boaties or bust. Oatie-Boaties. Oatie-Boaties…” 
 
Anyway, at nine I arose with a sore back, a throbbing shoulder, and a crick in my neck to show for my efforts at sleeping in. But I was eager to get to the tasks at hand. Let’s see, I needed to take the girls to see Santa, take the girls to find a Christmas tree and help them decorate it, take the girls Christmas shopping, and help the girls bake some holiday goodies.

Only one slight problem here. No girls. They were at Grandpa and Grandma’s house 66 miles away. With the seconds until Christmas ticking off like mad, in the midst of the holiday season when I should be inspiring my children with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, I had instead selfishly shipped them away. I metamorphosed instantly into a Scrooge. A Scrooge with a crick in my neck. 
 
Now, I knew they were having a ball with their grandparents. But what was I supposed to do? I put on a Christmas record and sat down to write greeting cards. Two hours and two cards later, I gave up on that. Bah, humbug.

Okay, at least I could decorate the house while the girls were away. I went into town and bought evergreen boughs, then came home and artistically placed them about the house, interspersed with red and white candles and ornamental balls. Then I stepped back to survey my handiwork. It looked like a Christmas wreath had self-destructed in the middle of our house, spewing holly and cedar and fir boughs everywhere. Not the effect I was shooting for, but I’d settle for that.

When my husband came home from work, we took a drive through town. Everywhere we went, homes were decked out like a General Electric convention. Cars passed with children’s noses pressed to the windows, their eyes agog at the holiday scenes that twinkled and glowed just for them. And why weren’t my children here to see all this splendor? I sank deeper into the car seat and rubbed my sore shoulder.

“Let’s go home,” I mumbled.

On Friday we went to my parents’ house to retrieve the girls. As I expected, they were having so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa that they didn’t want to leave, but I lured them away with a holiday agenda that would tire out even the spriteliest elf. 

Our tree is up now and decorated, with most of the ornaments hanging within the three-foot reach of our young daughters. And sitting at the foot of the tree, eyes as twinkling as the brightest Christmas decorations, are the two most precious gifts I ever received: my two beautiful girls. 
 
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