She's The Captain

Our home is a volatile mix of conditions that, given the right environment and circumstances, could erupt into a full blow situation before you know it. Case in point… mix together one pouty cat and a counter full of stuff. Presto. Hot damn mess.

CJ typically sleeps next to me or on me and since the puppy Marigold arrived, the sleeping arrangements have gotten contentious. Of course, Marigold wants to snuggle with her and CJ isn’t completely happy about it. Last night, I just couldn’t take anymore and I made them both move away from me. CJ liked this even less. When she’s angry or just generally in a pissy mood, she will jump on top of counters, dressers, tables…whatever and begin to knock off the contents. She wants you to be fully aware that you are to blame for her unhappiness and therefore, you must suffer the pains of cleaning up. After I evicted them from my sleeping space, I drifted into a blissful, deep sleep. I’m pretty sure I was smiling. Then, as if by design, a large crash could be heard coming from downstairs. I rustled up. Took a quick inventory….did someone break in? Did I dream that sound? Another bang from below. Nope. It’s the damn cat. I reached over to check the phone. 2:18 AM. I got up and made my way thru the room to the stairs.

Condition 1 – The captain is a firm believer that plastic doesn’t belong in a kitchen. It’s not safe to cook in she tells me. I can’t warm up food in the microwave with it. Condition 2 – We have granite counters and tile floors in the kitchen. Condition 3 – The captain was FIFOing (first in, first out) the pantry yesterday as we prepared a grocery order and there were things on the counter. Glass things. And finally Condition 4 – Aforementioned mad feline.

I walked onto our kitchen and it looked as if something had exploded. She also is fascinated by light and in her parading around the counter, she accidentally turned on the light inside the cabinets that cast a little, chaseable beam for her to investigate. There were dishes, a few pots and my Yeti cup on the floor in a blast pattern. All of this was marinating in a pool of apple cider vinegar. Immediately, the smell tingled inside my nose as if someone had just handed me a pickle. Suddenly I realized, not only were my pant legs soaking up the vinegar, my bare feet were drenched, there was broken glass all over and I couldn’t see. I didn’t have on my glasses. Holy hell. See what I mean…..how quickly these things can escalate into a full blown perfect storm. Where was the family? Well..the captain was upstairs hanging on to a very excited puppy and trying to get her back to sleep. The kid. Well….She hasn’t been to bed before 4am for over a month. While I am POSITIVE she heard what had transpired, she was most certainly pretending to be asleep in her room and therefore unable to assist me in my peril.

Doing my best Stretch Armstrong impression, I reached the counter and grabbed up the paper towels. These are a precious commodity these days, but I would sacrifice the whole roll if it meant I could get out of this mess unscathed. I slowly began to get the mess under control. Dishes back into the sink for washing. Again. Glass cleaned up, floor cleaned up and everything else wiped down as best I could. She just sat there, about two feet away and watched me. CJ, the master of disaster. I finished up, almost an hour into my endeavor, and I climbed the stairs, stopping only to put my vinegar soaked pants into the laundry. I climbed into the bed, covered up and tucked in and let out a heavy sigh. As if on cue, here she was ready to curl up in her spot again. She nestled in. And went to sleep. If she could talk, i’m sure it would have sounded something like…”Next time you go running me out of my warm sleepy spot, you’ll think about that.”

Today, I will probably need a nap.

Had someone walked up to me a year ago and said….”Right after your 50th birthday, there will be a virus unleashed on the planet that is so aggressive and contagious it will cause entire countries to stop everything they are doing and you will be sheltering in place for weeks on end while the scientist and health care workers battle to develop a vaccine and save those that they can” I’m sure I don’t know what I would have said. I’d probably cautiously believe them. Only because the experts have been warning us for years about such a possibility. While I am not a hoarder or a prepper, I don’t like being caught off guard and I want to make sure that my family is prepared to weather the storm. We are ok. We’ve only left the house a handful of times in the last 6 weeks and each time we have a delivery arrive we follow the recommended precautions to the letter.

The kid completed the driving class by the end of February and was supposed to be driving with an instructor so she could get her permit. Well, all that is on hold. So, I told her that over the weekend, we could begin her at home training. I would teach her how to physically drive the car and she could then feel more confident driving with the instructor later. Saturday morning, I went out to move the little green car down to the street so that we could begin our training. Click…click….click….I tried the Jeep. Click…Click…Click. At first, I thought … what the hell?!? Is this the bermuda triangle? Then I remembered we haven’t really gone anywhere. The Jeep battery just needed a charge. I put it on the charger and it was good to go. The battery for the green car would require a replacement. I got online, ordered the battery and drove the 5 miles over to the parts store where a big fella carried my new battery out and loaded it into he back of my truck. When I got home, I informed the kid that her driving lesson would begin with some basic Auto Maintenance 101. How to change a battery. While this was not a part of her plan, she correctly assessed that it was necessary in order for her to get to drive. She did fine, learning how to pop the hood, remove the bar holding the battery in place and removing the terminals. Putting the new battery in was a challenge. I explained that there is an order for hooking the battery back up and that it may spark a little if….that was all I needed to say. She was 15 feet away from me. I suspect she wanted to watch in case something blew up in my face, but be far enough back so that she was unharmed. She stood there nervously giggling with her hands half over her face. Then I heard her ask….”Can’t I just call you if this happens?” “NO!” I replied. “I’m going to be on a beach in Maui. You need to learn!” She returned to the car…slowly. The first lesson went fine. Learning how to comfortably seat yourself into the car and acclimate yourself to the cars dashboard and features. We adjusted mirrors, seat and steering wheel. Then it was a circle or two around the Rec center parking lot. That was plenty for day one. She’s going to be a lead foot. I can just feel it. I politely reminded her….”AAA will come out and change a tire, bring you gas and a new battery. But they won’t get you out of jail for driving 75MPH in a 35MPH zone. And neither will I.”

The Medlin School of Driving….education mixed with a healthy dose of fear and anxiety.

It’s a holiday. It’s Sunday. It’s really hard to know this. If it weren’t for the calendar right now, I couldn’t tell you one day from the next. Easter is here and this is really not where I expected to be. I guess we are all feeling that right now. From my vantage point in the Little Green House on the Hill, it’s kinda surreal. I’ve decided not to watch so much news coverage. What difference does it make really. All I need to know is when it’s over. But then, will it really ever be over? What will over look like?

I think it’s also important to be real right now. When people post on social media, they usually only tell the good side. Show the best photos. Crop out the messy room, paint a pretty image with frilly words. Life isn’t always cropped. Here’s the real deal. Even in a happy house…things can get ….tense.

The captain hasn’t been feeling her best these last few days. Sometimes the new knees just don’t want to behave as they should and she gets achy from the days activities. Yesterday, I could tell she was feeling it. She hit the couch about 6pm and decided to take a nap. Before she laid down, she put the easter eggs on to boil. Bailey, our oldest pup roams the house freely. He typically needs no chaperone. Alex, the middle child, is usually with the kid..hold up in her room and either sleeping or watching Law and Order SVU. Yesterday, at two different times of the day, both of them managed to make their way into the area where the cats eat. There they helped themselves to two heaping bowls of IAMs dry cat food and two plates of Fancy Feast each. The cats were furious. I could have sworn I heard Sherbie use a four letter word and it wasn’t meow. It was a comedy of errors really. I thought the captain had Bailey in with her. Sherbie pushed the kids bedroom door open and Alex took advantage of the opportunity, Now, I knew what to expect. In about 8 hours or so, things were going to get…loose. Cut to Sunday. The holiest of Sundays too. The captain decided to make her grandmas recipe for Tuna-Pasta salad. It’s really tasty. So here’s the thing though. For the last 12 hours, our home has smelled like boiled eggs, tuna and gassy, cat food eating dogs. Yankee Candle doesn’t make anything strong enough to cut that smell. These are the days i wish I really could go “nose blind.” The issue with opening the windows? Pollen! Holy crap it’s stout. I’m 2 seconds away from wearing my N95 mask inside the house.

Also…forget trying to eat well on quarantine. It’s not gonna happen. Let me be clear. I’m eating well. By well, I am referring to quantity. I am more than doing my part to clean out the pantry and freezer. This of course has me feeling heavy and tired. Add to that the incredible guilt I feel right now. Guilt because I hope I’m doing what I should at work, at home, for society to recover. If I had the skill set, I’d be out there helping the nurses. I can’t even apply a band aid correctly. I feel like I should be doing something more. I’ve donated money to buys masks and stayed at home unless picking up supplies. Then I have my mask, hand sanitizer and follow the protocol precisely. But it’s stressful. I can feel the weight of it. I picture this crazy little germ in dark, microscpoic Ray-bans and a trench coat, just hiding out and waiting for me to slip up. All it takes is one door knob. Someone pass the Doritos while I stress eat myself to death.

So…to summarize….I’ve been reduced to an overly smell sensitive, over eater with confidence and guilt issues. Hopefully this will end soon before I become permanently agoraphobic. But since I can’t end on a down note, no matter how tense it is at times…the captain opened the door for the Easter Bunny this morning and he left me a Lindt Gold hollow chocolate Easter bunny. YES! I may just have to nibble his ears off and fill him full of Woodford Reserve. CHEERS! and Happy Easter!

This week feels like it’s been 20 days long. Seriously. Yesterday it felt like everything I touched was destined to go directly to the crapper.

The captain and I have our own work spaces. She is in one end of the house and I in the other. This is strategic since we both are on conference calls throughout the day and we need to minimize the noise. Since the kid is basically asleep until 2ish, she is no concern noise wise. The animals though are having to adjust to our sharing of space. Let me explain.

Yesterday, I had a fairly light day in terms of scheduled meetings which was ideal as I was working on a process map and needed to concentrate on the boxes, steps, connectors….all the fun things that make working with Visio a pure joy. Now…to be fair….I love my job and I enjoy this part of it a good deal, so I wasn’t complaining at all. Work was going well and then Sammie, our Orange tabby jumped up on the desk and proceeded to lay flat down on the desk between the laptop and me. This resulted in not only a ton of orange cat hair all over my workspace, but also a very long line of the letter ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp. (She was rested on the keyboard). I stopped for a moment to scratch her chin and rub her head. I believe it’s important to be mindful of these little opportunities to appreciate love that comes you way. That is subject to change as the days roll on. I picked her up and set her over on the table that looks out over the front yard. She immediately focused on a fat bluejay. I went back to work.

The sky outside started to darken and I noticed that i could feel a breeze coming thru the window where the cats were perched. Our old dog Bailey was asleep on the floor behind my chair. Bailey is a well-behaved, sweet and gentle fella. Until there is a storm. Then he becomes a raging 3 year old hopped up on pop rocks and needing a nap. Sure enough, a large clap of lightening and thunder rousted the old guy and he flung himself under my desk. In the process, he pushed the power strips against the wall, shutting down the power to everything on my desk. Remember the map I was working on….gone. My email drafts…lost. My project plan updates…zero. Yes, I was multi-tasking. No, I didn’t auto-save. I bent down to coax him out. He was not a fan. I physically got down on the floor and pulled him up at which point he stood…..farted….and slowly strolled out of my office. Once I caught my breath, I went back to work.

In the grand scheme of things, these issues are very minor. There are those who are struggling to work, homeschool one or more kids and try to take care of their households with food and clean cloths. I’m not complaining. But I don’t quite like the term “new normal”. This isn’t permanent and it’s certainly not normal. It’s our present situation that hopefully is temporary. Although….given the opportunity to expel his personal brand of noxious fumes directly to my face..Bailey would make it a regular occurrence.

I sat on the old wooden swing. It was creaky and weakened by the years of salt air blowing off the ocean. Honestly, I half expected to find myself ass down in the sand before too long. I just didn’t know that I trusted the integrity of the wood. But after a few minutes, I settled in and began to take in the sounds around me. Waves crashing, seagulls fighting over a scrap of food…I took a deep, mindful breath and I knew in that moment that when we returned home from this place, our world was going to be different. I didn’t know how much.

We’ve been in the house now for 3 weeks. Tomorrow starts week 4. We are both working from home. Thankfully, we still are employed. So many are not. We’ve been trying to support our local businesses as best we can from the living room. School is virtual. Life right now…is virtual. This virus is unlike anything I have ever seen in my lifetime. It’s horrific and vicious. It has us all pinned inside and praying we don’t touch the wrong doorknob. I believe in science and the ability of those who understand how to combat such things. I have faith in those who know how to lead and are working around the clock to make sure that we are getting the information we need. They are keeping the lights on.

I don’t typically discuss politics, religion, or money. I won’t pretend to tell you how to raise your children and I don’t care what you do behind your closed door. What I can do is share my observations with you about whatever catches my attention. Please understand that I am not making light of the situation we are facing. It’s really therapy for me to laugh at myself and if you get a chuckle out of it…well….ok.

There is no other animal on the planet as ruthless, calculating and utterly lethal as the 15 year old teenage girl. It’s true. This current batch is really a nasty one too. It’s the eyes. Once the specimen raises from its slumber …somewhere around 2pm in the afternoon, it struggles to fully open the eye lids until just before dusk. During this period, you will be peppered with a variety of speech styles. The lazy, monotone droning that sounds like the words are being ripped apart as they pass over the teeth. The hyper-active, high pitch ramble that sounds like a covey of birds squawking all at once. The house smells like dirty laundry and zit cream. Once the eyes are fully open and pupils dilated from the ambient blue light of the iPhone, the specimen settles into a “zone”. While in the zone, it can hear and see NOTHING except TikTocs. This lasts for several hours. Then, as if by magic, the teen disappears into her space. We send the dog in with her. I don’t really know if that’s wise. But we think he’s smart enough to find his way out if he feels threatened. For a brief period, there is quiet. And then…she emerges. Starving and wide eyed. Nothing is sacred. If it can be consumed without effort, it’s fair game. This basically means…chips, frozen fruits, or cheezits. Maximum effort is reserved for things like Ramen or a microwaveable burrito. For the next 5 hours or so, we are subjected to the visual and audible assault that is “American’s Next Top Model”. Oh. My. Aching. Ass.

Being in this environment now for these three weeks… these three, excruciatingly long weeks…has been a learning experience for me. I have to say, I feel as if I’ve completely honed my survival skills. I’ve mastered the “tune out” skill. What was that you say? I don’t know. I’ve TUNED IT OUT! I’ve also accelerated my learning in the fine art of selective bitching. I mean, let’s face it. I have a lot to work with. It really could be one big nag fest up in here. I chose my battles like a seasoned General, striking at the heart of my enemies advancing front. I often lose, but I’m getting better. I’m telling you…..it’s the eyes.

There is something to be said for balance. A natural coexistence between you and the planet. After my many years here, I am still struggling to find it. Oddly enough, this strikes a particularly ironic chord for me since my generation is supposed to be “the middle”. This had held true for most of my life to date. Never the best at anything, but never the worst. Not the smartest, but average intelligence on most days. The middle ground is where one should find balance I thought. And yet, here I am. Completely out of it. You may say….”if you want to be better, try harder.” But then that would also throw off the balance, shifting time and priorities from one effort to the other. Nope…I am convinced that it’s time I face the reality. There are things that I just suck at. To put a finer point on it, it’s organization. There. I said it. It is difficult for me to exist in a space that is cluttered. My brain doesn’t want to function. I get agitated. My hands get restless and my brow furrows. And if you really want to see my head spin, put stuff around the room that I could potentially bump into. Holy hell. Today, I am off work. It’s MLK day and I wanted to spend it remembering Dr. King and taking the opportunity to do something to improve my life. Enter….organize my office. This room is a mixture of action figures, comic books, guitars, guitar parts, books, ball caps, candles and art supplies. In short, everything in my head realized in tangible objects. This issue is….its a mess! I guess that says a lot about my head too now that I think about it. I started with the books. But then that led me to want to organize the shelves, which was made more difficult by the displacement of all the stuff that was there originally. Let me also point out that I have been educating myself on the idea of minimalism. I’ve read up on the subject. I also read Maria Kondo’s book on Tidying up. The problem is…It all brings me joy. I love my guitars. I can’t choose just one ball cap. Who doesn’t need   a 12″ tall Aquaman with bendable joints and a trident? I know I can store my movies in the cloud. But I like the feel of a blu ray and the sound it makes when you close the little drawer on the front of the player. It all stays. So…back to the original issue. Organization. I put things into piles of like objects. So all of the things I mentioned above are in little quadrants of the room in piles. And here I am, in the middle of them. Agitated and feeling a headache coming on. I suppose I could hire a professional organizer to come in and assist me with my vision. But then, they would likely tell me that I expect too much. A clutter less space where there are things only when I need to access them. And likely, too many things at that. Which leads me to the second revelation of the day. Not only do I suck at organization. I suck at asking for help. So here I sit. Time passing steadily by. The longer I am here, the less stressed I become about it. I can feel the middle coming on. The balance that comes from acceptance of who you are and admitting it.

Thank you Dr. King. If anyone had the best words, it was you.

“You will change your mind; You will change your looks; You will change your smile, laugh, and ways but no matter what you change, you will always be you.” MLK

The morning came way to early and we both, the captain and I, struggled to get upright and get moving. She had an early meeting and so I would stay at the house until the kid had successfully boarded the bus. That kid has some kind of GPS tracker on the bus. About 98 percent of the time, she manages to walk down the driveway at the exact moment that the bus pulls up to a squeaky stop. It’s uncanny really. It does however, arrive after the captain and I would typically be gone. So we rotate. On the 2% possibility that the kid is off her game and misses it. This morning, this task also included taking the dogs out to do their business and feeding them breakfast. No worries. I got a shower, got dressed for work and headed downstairs. Our youngest pup is almost 3 and is the size of a John Deer riding mower. He’s silly, full of energy and about 90lbs of good times. I opened the door and he flew out into the hallway to greet our old dog and me with his happiness. Our house has a laundry room. I use it as a staging area to get their leashes on and ready them to go out. It’s not a large space. With both the washer and dryer, cabinets and shelving, there is just enough room to go from interior door to exterior door and that’s about it. I realized that somehow, the pup had gotten his harness in a twist. I bent down to fix it. That was mistake one. He thought that meant it was play time. For the next 15 minutes, he and I twisted and turned in a cage-style match that would rival anything seen today on the WWE. The old dog was an unfortunate bystander. Like the old man at the rock concert trapped in a mosh pit. Finally victorious, I attached his leash and out we went. As I waited for the events for which we came to take place, I realized mistake number two. My dark grey sweater and my black pants. The white dog hair covered me like a blanket. It was everywhere. He may as well exploded in the room. I brought them back in and as they ate their chicken and rice, I rolled…and rolled….and rolled….Next time, I’m going to walk to the bus with the kid, covered in dog hair and maybe barking. I never want to miss an opportunity to embarrass the teenager.

Thank you universe for monday mornings, white doggies and lint rollers.

A good “to-do” list can be your best friend or your worse enemy. At the risk of sounding pompous, I will say that I am at expert level when it comes to list making. Like so good that I even scare myself. Multicolor, completed tasks that have been painstakingly thought thru and completed adorn the pages of countless spiral notebooks in my office.  The secret is to know your limitations. Understand each task and what it will take to complete it. Then make a plan. It’s ok if you go for the low hanging fruit first. Everyone likes to feel accomplished. The important thing is that you remember…it’s just a list and it will likely never be done. But if it gives you purpose and focus, it’s a healthy tool.

And so here we are. On a blog site. Because creating a blog was on my to-do list. First let me say that the “so easy” promise on the web hosting site was a total fabrication. I actually had to use the online chat assistant. Once I finally got the hosting site to work, I spent WAY TO MUCH time trying to come up with a theme, images and layout. I totally blew that one. Now that I know, I’ll work on making it better as we go along. Just like leftover spaghetti. It gets better and better.

Tomorrow is the first day back to the real world for the captain and the kid. I can already tell that it’s going to be awesome! The kid hasn’t crawled out of bed before noon since Nutcracker season ended and the Captain decided to participate in the “Dry January” movement. The sobering reality that life starts before brunch is about to commence.  The captain will assimilate quickly. She’s tough and driven. But the kid…well…i see slumped shoulders and olympic worthy eye rolls in our near future. Dragging herself along the floor like a sloth and making low, angry groaning sounds. I went back last Thursday. It was quiet, but kinda nice too. I got a good bit done and I hope that tomorrow, I won’t feel so stressed. I’ve already cleaned out my email. My voice mailbox is empty and I have already started next week’s to do list. To be honest, life is pretty good. The Patriots lost, I got the majority of my list for the weekend completed and I  chose NOT to participate in dry January. Cheers!