Date Morning

Having Rock Star in high school now, Super Hubs and I have essentially lost our Friday evening Date Nights. Between football games and guitar jams and parties, our teens have calendars packed with social agendas. Which is good. That is how high school should be. But it leaves Little Squirt with nary a babysitter. So our Date Nights have morphed into stolen moments or practical opportunities when the kids are in school; “Date Taco Lunches” or “Date Grocery Shopping” or “Date Let’s Just Sip Coffee and Read the Papers.” We try to be flexible and take what we can get.

The other morning, with a 2-hour window when Little Squirt was in school and Super Hubs was working from home, we headed up to Woodstock Square, a mere hop-skip-and-a-jump from our home. I adore this historic town, with it’s old Opera House, gazebo, artsy shops and French creperie. This is the location where the movie, “Groundhog Day,” was filmed.

We ate a breakfast sandwiches of sausage in French toast pockets and sipped hot café au lait while watching people walk The Square. Then we browsed the shops, where I bought a blue ceramic choker. The air was crisp, the leaves were beginning to color, and it was bliss.

Life Is My Stage

As one of the leaders of our church’s Drama Team, I helped to audition 7 potential actors last night. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them Improv, do a “cold read” of a script, and perform their monologues. Very few things in life energize me as being around fellow actors. Their spirit, spunk, lack of inhibitions, wild creativity, sense of humor. They.Are.My.People. Last night’s experience brought me right back to 5 years ago when I was auditioning for the same Drama Team….

Before we auditioned, we were asked to fill out an application that asked general information, including the dreaded: “Please describe any acting experience.” I glanced over at the others’ answers, feeling intimidated by seeing “Commercial work” and “Professional Voice-Overs” and “Community Theater.” Other than a tad bit of child runway modeling and one acting class in college for non-theater majors (Ahem. I was the only one who got an “A.”), I had no real practical experience.

Yet how could I describe, in three sentences or less, that I have been a frustrated actor since birth? How could I begin to explain that I grew up viewing my life as a performance that I was called to produce, act and direct? As if the world was an empty canvas, and I, the artist, would paint away the white monotony with colorful swirls of my choosing….

I spent my childhood bored with being just “Kelly the Middle-Class Suburban Girl.” So I invented characters wherever I went. I successfully entertained my friends and convinced complete strangers that I was “Inga from Sweden.” Or “Sadie the Orphan.” Or “Random Blind Child At The Park.” I was also “Girl Who Made A Guest Appearance on ‘The Brady Bunch.’” And “Weird Kid At The Mall.”

But my piece de résistance was when I was ten and staying at our vacation condo. I transformed myself into twins, “Kelly and Kerry.” With a quick change of my of my bathing suit and hairstyle, all the other condo kids were fooled. For an entire week, no one questioned that they never saw “the identicals” together. But then I nearly had a panic attack when we both were invited to a birthday party. I gave “my twin” a bad case of scarlet fever, and I went off to the festivities solo. I was feeling proud of my ingenuity, until the discerning mother of the birthday child confronted me on my fib. Being a good Catholic girl, I confessed my lie, and then slunk away in mortification. Did I learn my lesson? Absolutely not!

I was born to act. On stage, in front of a camera, or in real life. It’s an art form. A creative urge that must be expressed. A soul-filler. Other actors know exactly what I am talking about. Which is why, in answering the “Please describe any acting experience” question, I simply wrote: “Life is my stage.”

Autumn

We’ve had summer-like weather the past two weeks in Chicago Land. After a few weeks of chillier- weather, it was back to shorts and flip-flops. Super Hubs and I went to a party this weekend in which we enjoyed wine on our friends’ patio under the balmy starry skies. It could have been July.

But the inevitable occurred today……the temperature has dropped and it feels like Autumn again. Good-bye to our capris, beach towels and allergies. I saw a flock of geese this morning, undoubtedly heading to their southern condo. We are greeting jackets, apple-picking and soups in the crock-pot. Our back deck is adorned with beauty only God could design. September will leave us soon. Welcome October!! (You have always been my favorite month. Just don’t tell the others.)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
(John Keats)

It's A Wonderful Life

Cats are the antithesis of me. I am an Emotional-Roller-Coasting Industrious People Pleaser; a #2 on the Enneagram. I work hard. And when I am not working hard, I worry that I should be working hard. So then I work hard some more. And in between working hard, I navel gaze. And reflect. And then get up to do some more work.

I have two felines who employee me as a Domestic Servant. I clean around them, keep their bowls filled, and provide a warm lap on the rare occasion they acknowledge my presence. They seem to tolerate me. Perhaps they even like me. But it’s hard to really tell. They have yet to kick me out, on the one hand. Or show me any gratitude, on the other hand. They are definitely not encouragers. And the only distribution they ever make to our household is the periodic hairball on my carpet. Or white sofa.

As I watched them doze this morning on Rock Star’s bed, and continue to doze this afternoon on Rock Star’s bed, and then presently still inhabit Rock Star’s bed 9 hours later, I am wondering about their lives. With a bit of longing. What would it be like to be a Lazy, Self-Indulgent Narcissistic Taker, who wiles her days away napping in the sunshine? Who only gets off the bed to hop onto another bed across the hall and nap again? Who then gets up to stretch, move to the other side of the bed and nap some more? Who wakes up only to have a snack, swat a moth, and then find a patch of sunshine for the purpose of yet another nap to pass the hours until bedtime? It sounds blissful, frankly.

And I envy the cattitude. I find it oddly appealing, in a perverse kind of way. No worries about the economic state of our nation. No concerns about future provision. No caring about what others think of me. No need to feel the need to lift a finger. Not ever. No pretending to like someone I actually do not. I could just hide under a bed if I’m not feeling hospitable. Or look the other way and pretend they’re invisible. No feelings of shame or guilt. No shouldering others’ burdens. No introspection or character work. I could live in the moment and look out for #1. Complete self-absorption. That would be me, were I a cat. Me Me Me all the time time time.

Cats have the market on The Charmed Life, that’s for sure. And on some days, it appears quite enchanting.

"He Didn't Mind"

He’s a charmer, my six-year-old. Loving and demonstrative, out-going and buckets of fun. He’s a true people person. But sometimes his…creativity, his…..originality, his…..ability to think outside of the box can be taxing. Draining. Distressing.

Current case in point: He went down to the basement to play video games today after lunch, followed by the family dog. After half an hour, the dog came back up, followed by Little Squirt. And the dog had wet ears. And a wet head. And was wet on his back.

So this conversation ensued:
Me: “How come the dog’s wet?”
L.S.: “Because.”
Me: “Because WHY?”
L.S.: “Because I had to pee on him.”
Me: “You peed on the dog?? For Heaven’s sake, why??”
L.S.: “Because I had to go. Badly. I didn’t have time to come upstairs. And you told me never to pee on the carpet.”
Me: (Still trying to digest this info.) “So you peed on the dog?”
L.S.: “Mom, it’s okay. He didn’t mind.”

Hmmmm. It actually kind of made sense. The dog probably didn’t mind. And Little Squirt was just being conscientious about the carpeting, thus using the dachshund as a kind of portable latrine……It worries me that I’m beginning to find his 6-year-old rationale sane and reasonable. Please, anybody, help me.

Attack

I was right in the middle of reading Barbara Walters, “Audition,” when an ear-piercing shriek made me jump to my feet. Little Squirt came running into the house, crying in hysterics. Apparently, while playing with his cars in the grass, he’d encountered a mob of bees. They were already irritated that Rock Star had disturbed their nest while cutting the grass earlier in the day. Little Squirt was a convenient target for their wrath, and he was stung on his finger and head. And as I was examining him, another one ventured out from under his shirt, stinging him several times on his tummy.

He was given benadryl and ice packs, lemonade and chocolate chip cookies. He was made comfortable under his favorite blanket on his favorite couch to watch “Sponge Bob.” His Spiderman band aids, which magically heal every kind of ailment in Little Squirt World, were applied to the assaulted areas. But his feelings have also been injured by these vicious insects. He previously considered them his friends who loved to dance upon the flowers. Now he is afraid he’ll be attacked again during the night, and is insisting on sleeping with someone. Anyone. Butterfly, Rock Star, us; one of the Infallible Big People in his family, who he is certain will guard and protect him, should the angry mob come calling again.

In the meantime, Super Hubs is the courageous Bee Slayer, killing and banishing the insects from their prior residence. It is war and he will win. And I am playing Nurse, scrutinizing Little Squirt for any signs of distress. (Big sigh.) It’s always something. Even on a day when the sunshine is warm and the sky is at its bluest.

On Rescuing Robert

I have an instinct to rescue that borders on the psychotic. Neighbors who know this about me appear at my door with cats. I once harbored 6 in my house until I could find them permanent homes. I’ve taken in problem dogs…..little fallen birds…..even an odd-and-dying ficus that a friend no longer wanted. I once fed a possum for an entire winter, who subsequently refused to leave my yard for a year.

And people. If I had the Brangelina Budget, I would be flying to all four corners of the world at every whim, bringing back orphans. I really would. I have three internationally-adopted children at present, but room in my heart for more. Many more. (If you are Super Hubs and reading this post, please don’t have a panic attack. We clearly don’t have the Brangelina Budget, so relax and go have a beer.)

There is a homeless man in my town that I have been stalking. I believe he needs my help, even though he doesn’t want my help. He has told me so. Several times. But I still try to help him realize his need for my help. It’s crazy.

His name is Robert. I met him in my town’s library one cold and snowy winter, about 4 years ago. He was sitting in the corner by the newspapers, where a couple vagrants tend to congregate in our local library during the frigid weather. I was selecting books for my then-toddler, when I heard Robert coughing. He was a nice-looking man about my age; unkempt and wearing a scruffy coat. As I watched him, I thought about how, when I am sick with a cold, I can go home and take cough medicine, and huddle under a blanket on my comfortable denim blue couch, and have toast and tea. And I wondered if Robert had taken cough medicine….or had eaten dinner the night before….or if he’d even slept in a bed. And before I could stop myself, I went over and asked him his name, and if he was hungry. I had a warm, fuzzy fantasy that I would buy him breakfast at a diner, and, over bacon and eggs, he’d gratefully tell me his story. We’d become fast friends. I’d take him shopping for new clothes, and help him find a job and a place to live. Then eventually, when his life turned around, perhaps he’d get married and have a family, and ask me to be the baby’s godmother..….

”No,” he said without even looking at me. I stood there, uncertain of what to do next. “Are you sure you’re not hungry? I can get you something to eat,” I persisted. “No,” he said, without looking up from his paper. I stood there idiotically for a few awkward moments. And then went back to the bookshelf, confused, because I didn’t believe he wasn’t hungry. Why would he turn down a meal? And then I felt mortified, because maybe I had hurt his dignity with my naive and simple offer. Did I do wrong?

The next time I saw him, it was a few weeks later. I was on a Date Night with my husband, and, as we were walking into a restaurant, I spied Robert sitting on a bench across the street. So, to Super Hubs sheer horror, I shouted a greeting to Robert, and ran over and invited him to join us on our Date Night. To which he refused, and I persisted, and Super Hubs grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the restaurant, and then lectured me over dinner about my bad judgment and codependent behavior and utter disregard for safety and blah blah blah. I barely listened because I was thinking about how I would box up our leftovers and then bring them to Robert after our date. I was a woman on a mission of my own appointment: TO SAVE ROBERT. I begged Super Hubs to drive around town after dinner, while I looked out the window holding the leftovers, searching for Robert and calling his name. I never did find him again that night. He was most likely at the local police station filling out a Restraining Order against the Crazy Blond Stalker Woman who kept trying to feed him. But I heeded Super Hubs advice, and stopped trying to push my unwanted charity. Still, I worried.

I continue to worry about him. Especially when the evil Chicago Winter rears her vicious head. What becomes of Robert then?

I see him every so often around town. I caught a glimpse of him yesterday as I was driving down the highway. He was sitting on a bench alone, wearing his bulky winter coat, even though the temperature hovered around 70. I wondered about him, and about his story. Perhaps he was once a tiny child who sat on his mother’s lap while she read him nursery rhymes. Did he have dreams, like my little boy, of becoming an astronaut or a race car driver? Did he ever grow up to have a good life that he loved? And what went so tragically wrong that he ended up homeless in my Chicago suburb? Was it hard luck; poor choices; adverse circumstances? Perhaps a little of each?

Robert is undoubtedly somebody’s son….or brother….or cousin….. or father. Yet he sits alone, whenever I see him, wearing that grimy coat and a look of hopelessness. And it breaks my heart! I want to help him. No, I want to rescue him….save him. But I cannot. And I hate that I cannot. I hate it to the core of my being.

But what I do know is that Robert is a dearly loved child of God. And somehow, he is surviving. Without my help. So I need to put aside my Mother Teresa Complex and my compulsive deliverance tendencies and just wait for opportunity. Maybe there’ll be another time when I can offer help to Robert, and he’ll accept. Or to someone else. Human suffering impacts me deeply. It brings out my Inner Rescuer. So if I can’t rescue Robert, maybe I need to take myself to the animal shelter and see about another cat….