fortunate discoveries by accident

I read an interesting article about a woman who went hiking with her husband in the woods not too long ago. He had a heart attack on the trail, far from help, and she remembered a public service announcement that advised her to do CPR in time to the tune Staying Alive (oh come on, hit the link, I know you want to. It's the BEE GEES!).

She did as the PSA advised, kept her head and  sustained her husband's life long enough for the pros to keep him that way more permanently (go ahead and click that link, who can resist a title that reads "Disco Tune Saves Man's Life").

And all that was pretty interesting to me, but the most interesting part came at the very end of the article. While the PSA advised viewers to pump at 100 beats a minute (the pace recommended to maintain a life) to the tune of "Staying Alive," the doctors themselves apparently sing a different tune. It also runs 100 beats a minute.

It's called "Another One Bites the Dust."

Talk about the glass being half full or half empty.

Back in the day, we saved our cans and newspapers and took them to the official recycling center. That place was never close to home and piles of recyclables would stack up, waiting and dripping and decomposing until there was "enough" to justify the drive. Recycling was a dirty but noble business.

Nowadays the collectors come to your door and take the recyclables away with your trash, but rather than being a community oriented, let's-all-pitch-in-and-do-the-right-thing activity, it has become an obligation filled with pious righteousness. Neighbors look at each other's bins and measure them against their own "yep, we're greener." Judgements are made about whether one reads newspapers or magazines and how much we're drinking and of what quality. Wine labels are quickly scrutinized through the slitted eyes of the dog walkers. Our lives, or at least the things we consume, are quite literally there for the evaluating, the night before trash day.

Being a private person I'm not a huge fan of this, but being a lazy person there is no way I'm going to give up the convenience of curbside pickup. I make this privacy trade off because at the end of the day I'm more lazy than I am caring of my neighbors' opinions. I collect our recyclables every day, sort like items into bins or bags and prepare them for the bi-monthly pickup. Wait a minute, did I say "bags?" Can one use bags for recycling? Why, that would be an ever so convenient solution for the weeks when we have been reading or shopping or drinking more than usual and cannot fit everything into our color-coded bins. It seems obvious to me, paper is recyclable, and putting paper inside of paper can't be a bad thing, can it?

Ha.

Yesterday, our trash/recycling day, I came home to find that while my neighbors recyclables had all been taken away, mine were left to languish, rejected and embarrassed, on the sidewalk. Rejected by the recycling demigods. They left our not properly sorted or stored or something recyclables on the curb as a warning to others: do it right, right being whatever we decide it is, or we won't take it away. (P.s. we won't tell you why.) Which prompted me to write this on my Facebook status: 

Dear Redwood City Recycling Czars: I sorted everything so nicely for you this morning. And yet you left it all sitting on the curb because it wasn't in your precious plastic bins. Here's the thing, when I'm recycling paper bags, I think it's ok to put them in paper bags. Is that so crazy?

Recycling bureaucrats, you are ridiculous. Perhaps you will like it better when you find my recycling in the garbage.

That's right, I picked up everything and put it straight into the garbage bin, seething. Two weeks of sorting for nothing but contempt from the trash police. Here's the thing: I know they sort all of the garbage at the plant. And I know they charge me for that service. So when I sort my garbage to keep the recyclables separate, I'm really just saving them money and time. I think this should be appreciated. Not with a discount, or even a thank you, but with a simple gesture: take it away from my house twice a month. And hold the attitude. 

Way to take the shine off a good deed, kiddies. I think you know where you can put your community spirit.

Speaking of trash police, did you know that San Francisco is literally creating such a force? I pay attention to this kind of stuff because it's only a matter of time 'till it rolls down the hills of San Francisco and into the suburbs where I live. The SF garbage collectors are  going to be allowed (in 2011) to write tickets to those people who do not separate their food waste into a special composting bin. The idea is to eliminate landfill (a very worthy goal), but there is also a nice, multi-tier revenue opportunity for the city: those who don't compost can be fined (up to $500) for not participating and those who do will have their compost sold to local farmers (up to $500 a truckload).

Have you ever worked at a company that composts? I have, and while it is certainly great for the outside environment, it is hell on the inside environment. Oh the smell. Oh the flies. It will take more than a bin to manage all of that.

Anyway, it's not like I'm going to do anything crazy like stop recycling (although it's tempting). I just figure I'm going to have to learn the rules (got any Kool-Aid?) of this new religion and do my best to follow them.

Take it away, Kermit

It's not easy being green.
It seems you blend in with so many other ord'nary things.
And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're
not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water
or stars in the sky.

Scene: Juju and I, waiting for Cassandre to get her rubber bands replaced at the orthodontist.

Juju "What number am I thinking of?"

Me, looking at her fingers "Four."

Juju "Grrrr! Okay what color am I thinking of?"

Me, remembering the red shirt she just brought home from camp today "Red."

Juju, scowling "Huh! What letter am I thinking of?"

Me "L!" (for letter, of course)

Juju, with a big, confused scowl on her face, "How did you KNOW that? What am thinking of NOW?"

Me "You're thinking about what you can think about that I won't know."

Juju "YES!"

Juju, as you may have realized, is somewhat of a daredevil. She loves to slide down banisters, jump speed bumps on her scooter and is trying her best to climb trees. It won't be long before she's tall enough to reach those lower branches herself, in the meantime she's trying to convince all of us to lift her up on our backs. Ow.

Her Kryptonite is water. When she was three or four years old, she was actively ignoring my demand for her to wear her floaty and to stop jumping on the pool steps. She was so stubborn, she refused to believe anything bad could happen. Sooner or later our pool experience was bound to end badly. In fact the odds of it ending badly were so high no bookie on earth would have taken them. Toddler + pool + can't swim x no sense of fear = disaster. Always.

I decided to let it end badly in a way I could control. I stood next to her and watch her jump on the stairs in water she knew was over her head. She didn't mean to go under water of course, she had simply misjudged her ability, and she slipped and ended up on the lowest step. I grabbed her up instantly and she spent less than a second actually under water. I hoped this would give her some common sense but no, to this day she refers to the event as "The Day Mama Let Me Drown."

Since then she's been very reluctant to go in the water with anyone other than me and she still hates her floaty. So we stopped going to the pool. The fight over the floaty and learning how to swim had simply became more trouble than it's worth. But she's six now. It's well past time for her to know how to save her own life, and it's officially time for some summer water fun.

I signed her up for weekly swimming lessons at my gym. When I first called about lessons I didn't know if she should be in level one or level two. The woman on the phone said helpfully, "Well, in level one the kids spend most of their time crying..."

Sold. Level Two.

Juju thought about crying in the car on the way over to the first lesson and she held my hand tightly as we walked to the pool. Right away I could tell that she liked her instructor, Katie, who is blond, cute and a very friendly teenager. A Big Girl. A Very Pretty Big Girl. A Very Pretty Very Big Girl Who is Being Paid to Pay Attention to Juju. Win!

Except for the actually going into the water part.

Me: "Juju, you have to take your shoes off. No really, honey. You can't go in the pool with your shoes on. Even though they're waterproof. Come on baby, let's take them off now."

Juju: silence.

Very slowly she takes off her shoes, but she does not let go of her towel, which she is wearing as a cape.

Me: "Now let go of the towel, baby. You can't go swimming with a towel, right? You can leave that with me, I'll keep it for you." Pause. "Come on Juju, let go. Give me the towel baby, it's time to get in the water. You'll see, it will be warmer in the water than it is on the side of the pool." Longer, more pointed pause. "Okay Juju, really. Katie is waiting for you. Do you want a time out? Juju? We're here for a swimming lesson. Katie wants to play with you and teach you how to swim, this is going to be fun! Okay ONE. Now TWO..." We almost never get to "three" in the timeout countdown these days, but we always get to "two." Testing.

She drops the towel, looks at me and takes Katie's hand. They step into the water together and I sit quietly on the sidelines. I try to make myself invisible without actually being gone. I want to watch, but I don't want to distract her.

It took Cassandre several weeks to put her face in the water when she was starting out (she had a rough time learning to swim too), so I didn't hold much hope that Juju would do it any faster.

Wrong. Juju the Daredevil did it within 10 minutes of entering the pool.

Is she doing what I think she's doing?

She's blowing bubbles!

She wants me to go with her to the ladies room. We don't hold hands and she walks ahead of me, but she is not quite ready to go to a strange bathroom by herself.  She still wants her mama.

We enter the stalls side by side. Now eleven, she is too grown up to share one with me. I can see her shoes under the dividing wall. White, strappy sandals with just the right amount of bling. Silver paint that looks like rhinestones.

I look at her feet, they are getting so big. She needed new sneakers the other day and we found out exactly how big: she's a size 4.

Only one and half sizes away.

Not from me, I'm a seven and a half, but one and half sizes from being able to shop in the big girl shoe department. My department. I know exactly how she feels because when I was her age, maybe even before I was her age, I felt the same way. Lusting after the big girl shoes.

The big girl shoe department is the Emerald City of department stores. Everything there is beautiful. High heels. Strappy sandals. Boots. Leather that smells deliciously grown up. Nothing that can be tied with laces, or more currently, nothing with velcro (the kids don't tie much anymore).

I look at her feet under the stall. Her pedicure, the one her grandmother gave her, has grown out, and her toenails are a little too long and slightly ragged. Shod in her strappy white sandals her feet look a little ambiguous. The shoes and the size are at a stage where it's not obvious: is she a child trying to be a grown up or is she a woman with dicey taste in shoes?

I know the truth of course, but she would love the idea that others might not know. That they might mistake her for a woman. She wants to pass. Not because boys or men would notice her (she hates boys and men make her uncomfortable) but because she wants to be big. She thinks she's ready for more even if she's not clear about more of what. Truthfully, she's not even sure why it's important to be big. It just is.

I understand this and I try not to do anything to dissuade her feelings. We walk casually by Emerald City together and I let her dream, just like I still dream, but not for too long. I'm not ready yet, it is too soon. I want to hold her hand. I want to take her hand and go upstairs to the little girl shoe department. I revel in the (increasingly rare) moments when she curls up into my lap like a child and holds on to my waist with both hands. For now we walk casually and we point out the shoes we dream of and won't buy today. 

These are the in-between days. They won't last nearly as long as I want them to.

I have one and a half sizes left.

Dear Disney,

I realize that it's hard to get past 60 years of tradition but really, do you HAVE to kill the mother figure in every freaking movie you make? From Snow White to Bambi, to Ariel and Nemo it's been generation after generation of matricide. On behalf of the mothers of the world, and especially the under seven set, I beg you to show some imagination and find a new plot device.

Sincerely,

The woman trying to get her sobbing six-year old to sleep

.

Outta here

P.s. Aside from the whole matricide part, which is not really matricide since she never actually has children, Up is a pretty good movie. Of course it goes completely over the top at times, the good are sooo good and the bad are sooo bad (oh look the Doberman Pinscher is evil, quel surprise!). But the humor is quite good and some of the scenes are terribly beautiful. Plus Ed Asner rocks.

So here at the fly shop we get to see all kinds of interesting and pretty things beyond rods and reels and the kids really love it when the boxes of new stuff come in. They can see the inventory before it goes on the shelves. The fly tying stuff is the best, with its brightly-colored spools of thread, yarn and feathers.

The fly tying area is, in effect, the craft area for the guys (but don't call it that). Instead of scrap booking materials we have vices, thread, tools, feathers and um, a very small amount of animal fur - rabbit to be specific.

While all the fishing we do is catch and release and the flies we use are artificial, we do use real materials - like feathers - in the construction of the flies. Most of these materials are foraged, or are by-products of other commercial activities. Rarely is something ever killed in the name of fly fishing.

Yesterday Juju was in the store, "helping" the staff unpack a box of fly-tying materials when one of the staff members, Ange, decided to play a joke on her. She picked up a rabbit skin and put it in front of her face "Look, Juju! I'm two faced!"

Juju was very confused and her face showed it. She held out her hands to receive the rabbit skin, which, since it was a face, came complete with ears and whiskers. The fact that it didn't have eyes made it even more freaky, if you can imagine that. With eyes it almost could have been some kind of weird, pre-stuffed animal (we've been to Build-a-Bear, we know that some animals need stuffing). But there were no eyes.

Juju looked at the face, then looked at Ange, then back to the face. Finally, she spoke, and with all the disgusted, outraged bewilderment her six-year old voice could muster, she said "Who ARE you people?"

Indeed.

Not eligible for Build-a-Bear

They come in a variety of colors - feet too!

Ceci n'est pas un Craft Room

P.s., Thanks for the title Austin! ;-)

Now that Cassandre and her friends are all online they send the craziest stuff to each other. For a while they were sending these awful chain letters and I had to explain to Cassandre that no one would get hurt, she would not get her wish nor would she get rich (or go broke) in five days if she did not forward the awful letters to 16 gajillion of her friends within 48 hours. Happily that phase is over and now they are sending other, funnier stuff. I wish I could embed this below, but you'll have to click the link.

I know you don't clean your screen very often and it's really hard to clean the inside of it, so here