Sentimental Sunday 3.29.15

When discussing the difficulty of balancing of our attachments to things with the desire to simplify our lifestyles, my sister-in-law, Janet, advised me to take photos of items I struggled with letting go. I have carried this dress with me for 30 years... it is a thing, but it feels like a part of me. I loved it when I first met it's twin, in a size 12, when a customer dropped it off at a dry cleaning kiosk where I worked in Old Capital Mall, Iowa City, in Fall 1985. I loved the color. I loved the fabric - a light weight, fine-waled, cotton corduroy - a bit like velvet, but washable and sturdier. I loved the design, very feminine, and now as I see it, very classic, almost Victorian, and also reminds me of 1800's prairie fashion. While it was completely impractical, I HAD to have this dress. By luck, I found it in (almost) my size in the same mall at the Mark Henri store, and bought it anyway. I shudder to think of the percent of my income that I sacrificed for the love of a dress, that now I realize was so much more than clothing to me even then. I had to hem it and take in the bodice to make it fit, but thankfully I grew up in a family of fiber artists and learned these skills as I learned to tie my shoes and ride a bike. I first wore it to the Cocoa and Carols holiday event at Hancher Auditorium, for a holiday photo, and then for my spontaneously planned Valentine's Day wedding in 1986. After that I wore it to work, church, and the December wedding of a friend, but until today, had not had it on since the 1990's. I'm the same size, but my body is a different shape, so it's not really comfortable. It still isn't practical for my lifestyle and Steven made it clear he's not in favor of a retro-look photo for our 30th anniversary. So I'm saying goodbye to this favorite thing with a photo and story, and a nod to Luis Maldonado, whom I thought of as I wrote this.
#itsallaboutthings

Iowa side trip 3.21.15

An unplanned side trip on my way back from returning Kaylie to Iowa... I paid a visit to my primary school, Pleasant View Elementary, and (I think) the first church, Pleasant View Baptist Church, where I attended Sunday school in Bettendorf. Both are still in the beautiful country setting I remember, though now are skirted by luxury homes and the road is paved. I followed what is now Crow Creek Drive to Valley Drive to the trailer court where I lived, astounded it is still there 50 years later. I would love to know the story of how this little property has resisted being sold to developers for so many years, and I wonder if the public library still sends a bookmobile to visit there.
#‎myfirstlibrarywasabookmobile ‪#‎growingupIowan

Snow day

It's a quarter to 4 in the morning and I'm up with the snow plows. I had forgotten about writing a couple of the earlier posts. They are the ones having to do with the daughter graduating and being home. She was home for 8 months with no job and just a few weeks ago moved to the Quad Cities. She took everything she could fit into her little Ford Escort, including one of the dogs, and moved back in with Grandma Carol. It took her two weeks to find a job, though it's one for the paycheck and not a destination. Her dad and I cried the day she and the dog left, but remodeled her bedroom into a TV room a week later... just in time for the olympics.

We went without TV for over 10 years and now have channels we didn't know existed. With the winter olympics, choosing what to watch has been easy. I love the snow and ice sports and the special humans who compete in them. Curling rocks!

Rainy days and Saturdays

It's raining today... just a nice, light, steady rain. Enough so even if it stopped right now the back 40 would not dry enough to mow today. So it's an inside, do laundry, housework and brush the dogs sort of day. It's also a fiddle with the computer and write on the blog day. We're still a little damp from the early morning trip to the vet with the 3 dogs for heartworm tests and bordetella vaccinations. We also picked up the monthly doses of heartworm and flea and tick protection meds. Yeah, times 3 that was a $200 trip to the vet. But we love our dogs and we try to be responsible dog owners. Yet where is the line between responsible and excessive behavior when it comes to our furry friends?

We try to walk our dogs twice each day because corgis require plenty of exercise. Used to be I'd be out there in my rain jacket trying to wrangle 3 dogs and pick up poop while trying to manage an umbrella. Now the dogs are older and can settle for a quick pee in the downpour and wait for a break in the weather for a real walk even if it means they only get one today. Now, if I try to walk them in the rain, they look up at me with their ears dropping around sad, sodden little faces and even pull back toward the house in attempt to get out of the mess.

So I've been getting up and going to the window every 20 minutes or so looking for the rain to have slacked up, but no luck so far. I am on the 2nd load of laundry and I should start vacuuming the great fluffs of dog hair that waft across our floors and accumulate in all the corners and under furniture in our home. But it's nice to sitting here on the couch with the daughter, each of us tapping away on our computers while the rain continues to drip outside.

Life support

We brought the daughter home yesterday. It was both a happy and sad time for me. Happy she graduated from college and is coming home to her new life. Sad we had to leave her grandma without a roomate for now. For the last four years her grandma has been at the core of her support as the one who lives only a few miles away from campus. For the last two years Micah lived at her house and commuted to campus. Having Grandma that close by is one of the reasons that Micah finished each semester on time and graduated in 4 years. I often think of and am thankful for the countless trips she made back and forth across the river to picking up and droping off Micah for classes, work and fraternity meetings. Thank you, Carol, we couldn't have done it without you!

Graduation Day

Well, the daughter is graduating from college tomorrow. No small feat considering she dropped out of high school for 3 years and graduated from college in 4. Okay, so she was learning during those years she chose not to go to public school. She actually got her high school diploma by working on courses and taking tests online through a fully accredited program. But she was her own teacher during that time. The courses she liked, she would get through in two weeks. The ones she didn't would take her 2 or 3 months. In all it took her about 2 1/2 years to complete. After receiving her diploma she decided to do a senior year at the local high school just to get back into the classroom and enter the social scene. The school was very cooperative in allowing her to do this and she did very well there. She was about 1/2 way through the year when she started thinking about colleges other than a nearby junior college. She took the ACT and got a decent score and ended up being accepted to a nice Midwestern private college. And 4 years later (has it been that long!) here we are.

I wouldn't advise every kid to drop out of public school. In fact, most of them are probably better off there. Our girl, however, was always a little behind her age in social development and very shy outside our small circle of family and friends. I was so worried she would drop through the cracks socially or be drawn to the wrong crowds. She was perfectly content to stay at home for those years and develop and learn at her own pace. Luckily we live in a state where we could just declare ourselves a private school and we didn't have to contend with the truant officer. Not everyone thought it was a good idea, however. But some of those folks will be attending her graduation this weekend.

No she doesn't have a job and she'll be coming home to live in a house that has spent most of the last 4 years as an empty nest. But she's got a college degree and has spent 3 months in Eastern Asia. She's upbeat, self assured, interesting, and educated. Her dad and I really wish some of her former teachers could be there on Sunday. From her 1st grade teacher who complained that she was too messy and forgetful to her 4th and 6th grade teachers who wanted her diagnosed with ADD. It would be so nice to say, SEE!, See what my baby did!

New treads

The fact that it's still very much a man's world was made astonishingly apparent to me when I blew out a tire on my morning commute on I-88 yesterday. I went out to get in my trusty 2001 Ford Escape and noticed that the left front tire was low, so I searched out a station that had a working air hose (I had to stop 2 places). Putting air in the tire, I noticed that the valve stem was a little cockeyed. Okay. Decision. Do I take it over to Farm & Fleet now and be late to work today? or do I chance getting there today and make arrangements to be late whereby having the tire checked out tomorrow?

So I gambled... and lost when my tire failed at the 107 mile marker. First phone call: My boss, a man (albeit a very nice, mild mannered guy). Second phone call: My spouse, a man (albeit also a very nice, mild mannered guy). Third call: My insurance agent, (also a guy), to get a recommendation for emergency road assistance flat tire fixing. I don't really know what kind of guy my insurance agent is, just that he has the same first name as my brother, Scott, and Scott wasn't in the office yet. Now, before I could even decide who to call next, and not even 5 minutes had passed, an Illinois state trooper was approaching in my rearview mirror. SAVED! By yes, a man. He was very personable and told me I should stay in the car with my seatbelt on while the HELP Truck was on it's way.

I did so, and the HELP Truck arrived in about half an hour. HELP Truck Driver: A man, of course. Though I did spend some time analyzing whether I thought a woman could do the job... hauling the heavy jack off the truck and carrying it to the vehicle in need, getting the lug nuts started, warding off come-ons and sexist jokes from stranded motorists. Anyway, HELP Truck Guy (actually I found out from the paperwork that his name is Doug) cracks a joke first thing after looking at my tire and says it's only flat on one side. I thought it was a nice ice-breaker and he got there soon enough that I wasn't actually late for work yet. Doug was very pleasant and efficient, put on my spare, told me how to drive on it, and I was on my way in just a few minutes.

When I got back to town after work I went straight to Farm & Fleet where a nice young man (who was pleasant enough even though very busy) sold me new tires. And then another (you guessed it) man put the new tires on my truck. In the meantime, I called my woman-friend and her spouse (one of the most mild mannered and pleasantly geeky guys I know) picked me up and drove me home so I could feed the dogs and myself while waiting for my new tires to be installed. What would I have done without my little support club of men to help me yesterday? Me, the once-caustic feminist? Thanks guys.