Suburban Island

The Dog Ate My Homework

Here I am, coming up for air again. Work has been so hectic that I have been helpless to do much else but throw everything I have at it with the knowledge that at some point, at least for a little while, things will settle down a bit. And that’s exactly what happened. Well, kind of, anyway.

Hurray for momentary islands of peace.

To celebrate, I have tried to do idle things at an idle pace for a change. The high points of my weekend included drinking coffee, going out to lunch with a friend and her daughter, watching Harry Potter movies, adding a bunch of Yahoo widgets to my desktop, making my iPod work again, talking on the phone to my best friend, buying a cute tote from the store where my daughter works as a little present to myself, and not doing any office work at all.

Before the momentary island of peace however, things had been heating up for awhile. Last Monday I had to head downtown early for the big event I had been working on for months. I must state right up front that I am not much of a morning person. Furthermore, it goes without saying that Mondays ratchet the morning thing up a bit. Monday morning events are off the scale. Add to this the fact that I was going to be speaking at the Monday morning event and you will get a pretty good feel for my general state of mind – equal parts stressed and distressed.

Sometimes you just have to step up to the plate and deal with the stress and distress. What else can you do? There are Monday mornings and we have to face them. There are Monday mornings with events and we must face those too. Consequently, on this particular Monday morning I found myself loading my stuff into the car while a sliver of moon still hung in the sky, a few stray stars still twinkled down on the world, and a knot of anxiety nestled in the pit of my stomach. On the bright side, I was awake, packing up my car, and in plenty of time for my drive into town.

Things can change quickly. A curve ball was coming my way.

Suddenly, I heard a little sound – a little scretch, scretch, scretch sound. It was just behind me. I turned quickly going through the possible scretch-making critters in my mindas I did so. None of them appealed to me as I was standing totally alone in the half-dark. What I found when I swung around was not a wild animal but a small brown and white dog. The good news is that he did not bite or bark and his tail was doing some major wagging. The bad news is that he jumped into my car, sat in the passenger seat, and could not be convinced to remove himself from my vehicle no matter how much I coaxed. He did keep wagging his tail, however.

There’s a dog in my car.

The sky was brightening. The roads were clogging. The clock was ticking.

There was still a dog in my car. I'm in trouble.

Now I am wondering…What can I do with this dog? Can I take the dog with me? Can I foist the dog off on another unsuspecting soul? Can I call my boss and say the dog ate my homework and I will not be arriving downtown on time?

About then a neighbor strolled by. Through a series of wild hand waving, or perhaps in spite of it, I was able to get this lady, complete with cute dog on a leash, to head over my way. My new friend, the small brown and white dog, finally hops out of the car. Is this good?  No.

Why, you might ask? Didn't I need the dog to get out of the car? Well, yes but I still had half my stuff in the house and the dog was now standing on its hind legs looking in the storm door at my living room. Again, the tail was wagging. Again, I was in trouble.

There’s a dog at my front door.

The sky was brightening. The roads were clogging. The clock was ticking.

There's still a dog at my front door.

What to do…

In the meantime the nice neighbor lady walking her dog tells me that this dog is out all the time and tries to get into her house too. Luckily the dog at my front door decided the dog on the leash was significantly more interesting than hanging out in my house or in my car could ever be. Fickle friend that he was, he headed off for a walk with the sultry doggy and her human companion and I immediately headed off for my work event.

Everything went well once there. And the dog? Well, I haven’t seen him again but if I do, I mean to thank him. He provided me with a great opening story to my audience – something that always comes in handy during a talk. This puppy dog tale occurred with such convenient timing and was so insufferably cute that after the program, one person asked me if I made it up. Make it up? Of course not. No indeed.

I have no need for made up stories when Heaven above sends me the perfect subject for my adventures on a routine basis. For this, I may not always be properly thankful but I am always properly amazed.

Don't Tease Me

In my garden this week, the crocuses bloomed.

Today the sun is shining like crazy and it is unseasonably warm. That means that everyone here is moving through the weekend in a state of elemental joy, like little bunnies on a green lawn or the first robins of spring. T-shirts are crying out in closets - Pick me! Pick me! Sandals and flip flops are all aflutter. Coats, scarves, and gloves are callously tossed aside. It's not really spring but the dark cold winter has disappeared in an instant, just like the snow melted away in a trice once the icy cold Queen of Narnia had fallen in page and screen. Yes, it is an exquisite, undeniable, and irresistable spring-like day and we are revelling in it.

When I round the corner into our backyard there is a real flurry of activity. Birds flying, squirrels scrambling, and dogs from a neighbor's yard kicking up a ruckus. Everybody is into the glorious weather. We know we are not really going to get a steady dose of this. Hearts are light. People linger at the tables in front of the coffee shop. Someone plays a guitar. People are driving their cars with the windows down. Kids are riding their bikes along the suburban streets. Green shoots are showing on my rose bushes. There is a chipmunk scurrying around on my back lawn like a maniac.

Inside, the house isn't quite up to even my relaxed standards of household okayness. I have brought home work and it is yapping at my heels in a most annoying manner. When I step outside, I don't care. It's all good. It's a beautiful day. That's enough for me.

On another happy note, I want to wish the delightful Spritopias a belated but heartfelt happy birthday. I always say - a day without Spritopias is a day without sunshine. Don't forget to give Spritopias some virtual birthday hugs if you haven't done so already.

In-Sigh-ts

I know – I’m busy, you’re busy, we’re all busy. What else is new? I had been busy lately in a way that kind of creeps up on a person in the most insidious of ways. It’s the busy that you think is going to stop but doesn’t. Instead it just gets busier and you just get busier too. It’s the busy that you can never catch up with but that tricks you into thinking you can. That kind of busy is sneaky because it overcomes you, overwhelms you, and overshadows your daily hopes and dreams before you even realize that it’s happening. I was starting to figure out that I was that kind of busy of late but it was the sighing that convinced me of the fact that I was there – at the very heart of bad busy. I have become a sigher. It’s a clear symptom of the bad busy syndrome.

Sighing is one of those things that you can do without even realizing you are doing it. Consequently, I wasn’t aware how far I had slipped into the valley of sighs until a coworker pointed out to me the undeniable fact that I was sighing. Sighing? Me? Oh, yes. Oh, no. I had no idea that I had become a chronic sigher. Yet, I had. My coworker didn’t know the half of it.

When I thought about it, I realized that I was sighing up a storm. I was sighing in the morning. I was sighing in the afternoon. I was sighing in the evening. I was sighing late at night. There was so much to sigh about. Husbands who don’t want to pick up dinner. Work that wants to come home with you at night so that you miss your favorite TV shows in the hopes of finishing up. Magic piles of clothes – one dirty and one clean that constantly build into little mountains of washing and folding. Stainless steel sink that never stops filling up with dishes. Tables that never stop acquiring clutter. Kids who forget to call to tell you where they are, or recall that they have homework, or express an understanding of the simple yet revolutionary idea that a clean room is a happy room. There is the traffic, the bills to be paid, the grocery shopping to be done.

And then there are all the things you don’t get to do. That’s probably what all the sighing is really about. It’s the writing not done. It’s the reading you long to settle down to but can’t because you are so bad busy. It’s the knitting that is rests untouched for months on a dining room chair. It’s the best friend’s birthday that you forgot - again. It’s the diet you are too tired to think about starting and the gym you can’t find time to go to. It’s the cards you mean to send, the walks you talk about taking, the time with friends you put off until things slow down a little.

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

I am going to stop sighing though. I’ve decided. Sighing is sinking me deeper into the bad busy zone or so I have concluded. In a strange way I think it is part of the problem. Sighing is like throwing up my arms and just accepting defeat at some core level. I can’t have that. Not for all the piles of laundry, cluttered tables, and undone chores in the world. I think ditching the sighs would signify an internal switch to a different view of challenge, change, and the balance of commitments on my part. I am not sure what to replace the sighs with but I figure it has something to do with replacing the sighs with the recognition that it is okay not to get it all done, it is okay to take time for yourself, and it is okay to not get it all right all the time.

I figured this out when I saw someone walking around today in a sweater that was clearly inside out. She did not know it was inside out. And who wants to tell someone something like that. Nobody. So she did not know about her inside out sweater. In fact, she was enjoying her sweater. After all, it is essentially the same sweater either way. Not the perfect sweater though. The beauty of it is that the sweater didn’t have to be perfect to be just right. Comfy, cozy, and inside out.

In life, I believe we are sometimes walking around with inside out sweaters and that it is okay in the end. We are still comfy and cozy if somewhat unwittingly goofy – at least for the moment. And I think that’s okay.

Excuse me while I turn my sweater inside out, walk past some of these endless chores, and cuddle up with a good book and a much lighter heart.