"Spit On the Bad Guys" -- a Simonism

Yesterday, the two kiddos and I went to our community's holiday kick-off party, "Silver Bells In the City."  It's a downtown electric light parade, fireworks, lighting of the state Christmas tree, and many downtown events.


It was kind of fun, if you overlook the moment where I accidentally started driving the wrong way on a CLOSED one-way street -- right in front of a cop.  Whoops.

After the fun and festivities, we dropped by the grocery store to pick up some egg nog and frozen pizzas (dinner of champions, you know).  The Salvation Army bell-ringer was ding-donging away on the sidewalk. In the spirit of the night, I handed Simon a dollar to put into the bucket. 

After some shuffling and poking, he managed to get it through the slot in the bucket. He asked me, as we walked into the store, "what kind of army are they?"

I explained that they consider themselves an army of a sort, and their enemies are hunger and homelessness.  They provide food, shelter, clothing, and other help to those in need. 



Then Simon gave me one of those head-to-the-side looks, and exclaimed, "OH! I thought they were an army of people who went up to the bad guys and SPIT on them."

I paused, mid-step, and gaped at him.  "SPIT on them?"

"Yeah!  You know.  The Salivation Army!"

Catastrophization and Other Amusements

I wrote yesterday how I tend towards the "on the upside" in many situations.  I find the light at the end of the tunnel, the silver lining, etc. 

What I failed to mention was that "upside-ing" is my brain's attempt to avoid its natural state.
Catastrophization.  Or, as I usually think of it, "worst case scenario-ing."

Example 1:
My infant daughter, my first child, was amazing and lovely.  Wondrous.  But also didn't like to sleep for long stretches.  To say that I was sleep-deprived for her first year of life would be a ridiculous understatement.  My mental functioning was reaching alarmingly low levels. Which leads to:
THE STUFFED MOUSE INCIDENT.
Upon changing a nastily full diaper one afternoon, I blearily wiped the little bottom and powdered.  Then I glanced at the contents of the diaper --skittishly-- (I was not yet a seasoned mom, and such things grossed me out still).  I saw something.  Something ... fuchsia, perhaps.  Red.  I panicked.  MY BABY IS POOPING ODD-COLORED BLOOD!  SHE'S GONNA DIE!  Upon further (reluctant) inspection, it acquired a peculiarly unexpected form.  A mouse.  A toy stuffed mouse with pink ears.  It was maybe 3 inches long, and had been (pre-poop) rather cute. 
WHUCK?
A toy mouse? In the diaper?
My sleep deprivation led me to the obvious conclusion:  Somehow, she had managed to EAT THE MOUSE, and POOP IT OUT. Then I wondered, "How on EARTH had she eaten it and not CHOKED TO DEATH?"  I'm such a neglectful Mommy!  SHE COULD HAVE DIED OF CHOKING ON A MOUSE!  And then, how did said mouse make its way through her entire digestive system without tangling it all up.  OH NO!  What if it HAD tangled it all up and she was GONNA DIE because of the mouse-induced tangle-age?

At this point, I called my brother.  He had no children at the time, and therefore was less sleep-deprived than I was.

He, luckily, had more of his brain active than I did.  He pointed out the obvious.

Child had inserted mouse into diaper PRE-POOPING. 

Oh.

Then I recalled how I had taken to putting on her onesies backward because she tended to use her diaper as a convenient toy-storage device. (Reversing the onesie put the snaps on the back, rendering the onesie impermeable to her efforts.)

Ohhhhhhhh. 

Once I hung up, my adrenaline was still racing through me.  I eyed the poopy mouse, mentally cursing it for exposing me as the lunatic 'worst case scenario' person I was.

I rolled it up into the diaper and shoved it vengefully into the diaper Genie.  Buh-bye, poopymouse. 

EXAMPLE 2:
Setting: Our first house. Indiana.

I was very concerned with our first house.  It was adorable!  Well-kept.  Nice-looking.  It was home-ownership that had me weirded out.

So the fact that one corner of our previously dry basement kept flooding one summer had me extremely worked up. 
I worried about, oh, foundations cracking.  Previously-unnoticed underground lakes.  Sabotage.  Dogs peeing in floods of water-smelling urine?  I started to panic.  We knew that someday we'd move out of state.  WHAT would we put on the disclosure form?  "WELL, THE BASEMENT FLOODS RANDOMLY.  SORRY."  We'd never be able to sell the house!  We'd be stuck in Indiana FOREVER.  It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to dig out the house, bash out the basement, and re-pour the foundation! 

But here's the thing.
The mystery.

It only ever flooded on the day after a beautiful day.  A clear day.  No rain. 
How, then, is it flooding?
Where in the hell is the water coming from?

This happened again and again.  All summer.  Gorgeous, dry summer day.  Beautiful night.  WATER EVERYWHERE the next morning.

Then I clued in to another mysterious coincidence.
It was ALWAYS the morning after I had mowed the lawn the afternoon before.

How is this possible?  HOW?

I put my tired-out, freaked-out brain to work.

Then one night, after I'd mowed the lawn, I heard a sound outside.  It was midnight.  A-HA, I thought.  OUR WATER MARAUDER IS HERE.  I shall find out the TRUTH!  Armed with my glasses, a big butcher knife from the kitchen, and my slippers, I slinked out the side door, hearing .... a noise.  A... spraying noise.

There, on the corner of the house (the 'flooding corner') was the bracket that held our garden hose.  Which was looped neatly on the bracket, getting it out of the way when I had mowed the lawn that afternoon.  With the watering timer still on it.  Turning on promptly at midnight.  It only turned on when it was dry outside.  At midnight, for an hour.

I sighed, lowered the butcher knife, and turned off the spigot.  I looked up at the Indiana midnight sky and wondered if this kind of thing happens to everybody.  Then I sighed again, and went back to bed.

"But on the Upside..." Bleaching Hair, and Flat Tires

I am a hopeless "on the upside-er."  I can almost always find some obscure positive in a negative (true calamities, unfortunately, make me want to smack myself with the horrifying positives I find.).

Example 1:
Today, I'm giving myself highlights in my hair.  It's with one of those caps that you pull the strands through.  I got it all set up, pulled through, and so on, and got the gloves on.  (Rather I put on ONE glove.  I never seem to put on both at once.)
Then I mixed the little envelope of highlight powder (read: Clorox, I think), mixed it with the little bottle of activator, and added in the little squeezy tube of "hair protector," which is probably just glue.

Mixmixmix.  Spread it all on my hair (the stuff sticking out of the cap).  THEN.  Then? I happened to glance over on the counter.  THERE WAS ANOTHER PACKET OF BLEACH POWDER.

Whoops.
So I added a few drops of water to the bottle of activator and shook it to death, and poured the leftovers into the little mixing bowl thingy, and squoze the little tube to get any remaining driplets of that out, and added the extra packet of powder.  Stirstirstir.  Swear to self. Stir.
Then, with the OTHER glove, grab random handsful of the mixture, which is suspiciously doughy and dry, and smear it into and (hopefully) let it meld with the OTHER gloop on my hair.

As I stood there in the bathroom, willing my hair to not turn orange and/or fall out, I thought, "Well, on the upside, I have TONS of hair.  If it all falls out, my hair will be so much less DENSE and will dry faster!"

------------------------
Example 2:
  Child #1 was in 1st grade, and Child #2 was in preschool.  Got Allie to the bus for school, and took Simon to preschool.  Dr. Smartypantz took the minivan to the airport to go to Iceland for a conference. It's January in Michigan.
Got back home, did things around the house.  All is well!
Looked up, and realized that it's time to go get Simon from preschool, 5 miles away.
Car will not start.
January.
New to town.  Know no one.
Too late to call a cab.

Do I panic?  NO!  I figure, call Allie's school.  Inform them of my issue, and ask the wonderful teacher who lives down the street to please keep Allie with her, and then drive her home and keep her until I arrive back home.  Sure, no problem.

THEN.  Call the preschool.  Inform them of the quandry.  Ask if Simon can stick around with them for 20 minutes or so while I make my way over there.  Sure, no problem.

Go to garage.  Get out wrench to attach bike-trailer to 10-speed.  Throw a few blankets in the trailer, since it's roughly 0 degrees F out.  Child chills easily. Add one more blanket.

Get on bike to ride over to the preschool 5 miles away.  Tire.  Is flat.  PANIC? NO!!
Walk/run bike and trailer over to the gas station 1/2 mile away (on the way to the preschool, thankfully), and try to get air.
Did not bring purse.  Need quarter.  Panic?  NO!  Search ground for dropped coin, when the gas station attendant takes pity and manually turns on the air for me.  WOOT!
Fill tire.
Ride bike to preschool.  Forgot gloves.
Panic?  NO!
Sweater sleeves, when pulled down far enough, can be like mittens.
Did not realize it was actually uphill for much of the drive.

Preschool calls cell.  "Where are you?"
"I'm (puffpuffpuff) ON THE WAY!"

Child sounds worried in background.

Get nearly to preschool, when Teacher Down the Street calls.  "I'll come there and pick you up.  It's insane for you to be riding a bike in this weather. And it's going to start snowing any time."
YAAAY for Teacher Down the Street!

Get to preschool.  Realize I've sweated entirely through the back of my thick down-filled jacket.  Ew.  It's all wet now.
Simon is fine, but disappointed that he doesn't get to ride in the trailer in the snow.

Teacher gets there.  We realize that the bike/trailer will not fit in her car.
Panic? NO!

I leave the bike and trailer inside the school entrance, willing to take my chances.  Leave a "please don't steal my bike, since it would really make a bad day worse" sign on the bike.

Look down.  Realize that bike tire is flat again.

Go home.  Call garage and ask them to come tow the car.  Pour a drink.


"But on the upside, IT COULD HAVE RAINED!"

[Edit: My darling brother pointed out that this makes me look rather Pollyanna-ish.  And it's true.  Until you read my NEXT post (which hasn't been written yet) about the evil OTHER side of this phenomenon.]

Ugly Soup: The Disguise

Remember how I said I made Ugly Soup with leeks, spinach, carrots, and squash all pureed together?

Well, does the disguise work?

My House, It Screams

Last night, I was in a frenzy.  This happens sometimes to me.

Several years ago, I actually was ready to call the gas company because I kept getting dizzy in the kitchen.  Until I realized I didn't have a gas range.  I was spinning -- literally spinning -- in circles in my kitchen.  Putting dishes away.  Cleaning the counters, cooking, checking on kids.  Spinning.  Over and over again.

Yesterday, I was doing basically the same thing, but all through my house.  I cleaned the garage.  I straightened the living room.  The bathroom.  The kitchen.  The hallway.

Why do I do this?

Because my house screams.

When there's too much audio stimulation, I feel jangled.  I can practically physically feel it.  For a person who makes her living by playing and teaching music, this is a bit of an inconvenience.  There are some kinds of music I just can't handle because of the intense jangling.  Metal.  Percussion on a large scale.  Some kinds of jazz.  It's like being attacked by sound.

I have realized that I can hear (with my mental, emotional ear) visual clutter.  There are reasons that my bedroom is done in white on white, with maybe touches of sea-green.  I need silence sometimes.  It's really very much like turning down the volume on a radio.

So, when I look into the back yard, I hear the hose yelling, "HEY! I'm still HERE!  You need to put me awaaaay!"
In the bathroom?  "I'm an empty toilet paper tube!  I'm collecting germs and hair behind the toilet!"
The living room chatters. "Candy Wrapper!  Right here!  HAHAHA!" "Dog fur!  Aaalll around the edges of the rooom!" "NEWSPAPERS! NEWSPAPERS! NEWSPAPERS!" "Hey.  we're a stash of dirty socks.  bet you can't find us!'

Hallway.  "Towel! Right here! Maybe getting moldy!' "ONE shoe.  I don't know where my twin is. Sorry. NOT!" "Dirrrrt smeared on the wall!  Think of the germs!"

Get the idea?

Now, think of what it's like when you're holding a tiny baby.  One who is constantly, incessantly crying.  Screaming.  You pace.  You pat.  You cajole, sing, plead.  If you thought it would help, you'd stand with the baby in the shower.  You'd sit on the dryer.  You'd sing "Copacabana" in Swedish.  You'll do ANYTHING to get this baby to chill out and be quiet and happy and smiling.  Or better, sleeping.

You'd spin in circles, doingdoingdoing anything at all.

I want to get my house to stop crying, to stop screaming.  So I cajole.  I scold.  I yell and pat and futz and snuggle and thwack and dust and vacuum and wash and scrub and brush.

And still it yells at me.  There's never a moment of absolute serenity.  It murmurs.  It whines and whimpers. It coughs, clears its throat.  It shifts, twitches, grunts.

So yesterday, after an afternoon of flailing and whatnot, I decided to go to bed.  I ascended my stairs, ignoring the whispers of the clothes on the floor, the dust in the corners, and got into my white-on-white bed.  I looked at my white-on-white textured walls.  I glanced at my sea-blue drapes.  I sighed and enjoyed the quiet.