Author Archives: sara

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About sara

i live in michigan with my teenage daughter, my partner, and our three cats. i am a paralegal, legal manager and corporate governance specialist, and when i'm not reading contracts or maintaining the dusty archives of our arcane corporate history like some weirdly specific librarian, i enjoy knitting, books, running slowly, making candles, and bird-watching. i started blogging way back when I was an expat living in australia and in recent years have tried to be more diligent about keeping this space up to date and as a creative outlet for the things in my life that inspire me and balance my 9-5.

Great Times.

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When you have a blog, even a small, not-widely-read blog like mine, you have to be cognizant of privacy and common sense. I try not to exploit Miss L by smearing her face or stories all over the blog every day, for example, although it’s tough to keep her off altogether simply because she’s the biggest and most important part of my life. Most of my close personal friendships and relationships are similarly left unplumbed, because the relationships are more important to me than the writing material they might represent.

And, of course, work. No one at my workplace knows about my blog and I prefer to keep it that way, so I don’t blog much about my job or my colleagues. Of course, this leaves a LOT of my daily life unblogged, which is okay. I get by.

As usual, I point out my basic rules in order as preface to an exception post.

Widget Central* has employed me gainfully since 2002 and I really love it. It isn’t my passion, but my job and my coworkers have been the most consistent, stable part of my life for 12 years over 2 continents. Every bit of energy and joy I’ve put into my job has come back to me threefold in the form of financial independence and amazing, supportive friends, a second family. Not everyone can say this about the place where they make their living, and I am utterly, completely grateful.

Two of my great friends at Widget Central are currently interviewing candidates for an entry level position in their department and their stories are gratifyingly hilarious. MC Granola put the kaibosh on a football player from a major university because, as he said witheringly, “That dude is six foot seven. I’m going to tell him to do my data entry? MAYBE NO.”

The other day they pulled a resume out of the pile. At the bottom, the kid’s extracurriculars read as follows: “Football. Soccer. Sports. Family. Great Times.” For some reason, everyone except MC Granola thought this was the funniest thing they’d ever read and they just HAD to bring Great Times in for an interview, which MC Granola declined to attend. “I was right,” he told me. “That kid showed up in a polo shirt and the first question he asked was what his hours were going to be.” Someone, it seems, needs to school Great Times in the do’s and don’ts of interviewing.

I was reminded how much I love my job by today’s Thanksgiving potluck, sponsored by the Engineering Department. This potluck is hands down the absolute best work-sponsored event I’ve ever attended. The company provides the ham and the turkey and the engineers, once they are vigilantly discouraged from signing up to bring soda, cutlery, napkins, or rolls (we mark those easy categories off) do a thorough job of putting the remainder of the menu on a matrix and formulating grim assignments. There is nothing that makes me laugh harder than hearing them confer over the sign-up sheet when they think no one is listening. “Okay. We have two salads – a broccoli salad and a green salad. Clearly no one is going to eat THOSE. Who can do one of those sweet potato things? Dale? Okay. Now, it’s gotta have the little marshmallows cooked into it.” Dale: (offended) I KNOW! MY GOSH!! WHO WOULD BRING A SWEET POTATO THING WITHOUT THE LITTLE MARSHMALLOWS?!” “Okay, okay. Now. What else? Anyone up for something au gratin??”

We end up, perhaps not surprisingly, with an entire table of traditional American Thanksgiving items, and another table, which is inevitably the most popular, of gourmet Indian cuisine, from the other well-represented group amongst the engineers, and most people will say, as they are standing in line, confidingly, “Don’t waste your time on the turkey. You’ll get that next week. THE BUTTER CHICKEN IS WHERE IT’S AT, MAN.”

JD is a small, unassuming engineer who wears an Indiana Jones hat and drives a battered black van, which has earned him some suspicious glances from the other Widget Central employees who automatically associate ‘van’ with ‘creeper’. However, JD’s double life is not as a perp, it’s as a wedding singer, and the van is essential for hauling his musical gear. At our Thanksgiving potluck, he sets up his keyboard and regales us with tunes. It is one of the happiest days of the year, to sit and stuff oneself with samosas and pecan pie, and see a table loaded with the previously unforeseen talents of the Engineering Department. Who knew that T-Mac could whip up that Tupperware of homemade whipped cream? (“That’s not butter?” “No, Dale, not butter.”) Who knew that Dale himself could make a ciabatta that could make you cry? Who knew that JD could sing with an Irish lilt in a traditional ballad and then smoothly shift gears, with the appropriate snappy patter, into “Rambling Man”? I could sit there all day eating and listening, and looking around at my Widget Central colleagues and feeling like these really are Great Times.

 

“If clouds are blocking the sun, there will always be a silver lining that reminds me to keep on trying.” ― Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

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11.2014 whiteout

**warning – this post is full of utter misery and feeling-sorry-for-myselfedness. you’ve been warned.**

For the past year and a half, I have tried to focus on the silver linings, and choose good cheer and optimism over being glum, but some days are just plain bad and there’s nothing you can do about it. For example, yesterday.

Yesterday, Miss L woke up sad before she was even out of bed, still all warm and cuddly and sleepy and – sad. Cheerios cheered her up, as did her new fur hat that makes her look like a teddy bear, but when it came time to drop her off at pre-care, she just didn’t want me to leave. And there were tears, and there was her visible struggle to be brave, which is a terrible thing for me to witness, watching her draw her six-year-old self up and face things when I wish I could just take her home and put her back into pajamas and save her from having to face anything. Then there was me crying in the car on the way to work and being late.

My boss told me that I have to give a presentation to the same committee that saw me fail horribly a couple of months ago, and although I didn’t even twitch, just stoically said, ‘No worries’, on the inside I was stamping my foot and screaming “WHAT?!!” I just wonder what the fucking point is. I know everybody has to do things that they hate and fail at and despise every day of their lives but DAMN. You would think blatant, visible failures would at least have the silver lining of not having to do it AGAIN but I guess the universe has a little more humiliation and degradation to expose me to, so I will turn the other cheek, dress up, and get my ass kicked by my own self YET AGAIN.

Yesterday, my stomach felt a little unsettled before lunch but I thought it was just the lingering aftereffects of an emotional morning, so I went and tried to work out anyway. I gave up running after a pathetic mile and got on the elliptical with a roiling stomach and my friend came in and got on the same treadmill and busted out many miles at a sprint pace with no visible strain and I wondered how I can possibly call myself a runner.

By 4.00 I was full on nauseous and had my space heater on full blast, but still found myself shivering. Outside my office window, the snow scoured the bare lot and the polar vortex came down inexorably, and there was a whiteout on the drive home. I got home, and after having only juice and an apple all day, I dumped some Cheerios and toast into my protesting stomach and climbed into the hottest bath I could stand.

My bathroom is sunny and is the home for most of my houseplants, partly because of its exposure and partly because it has a door I can close to keep Emmett and Sarge out. This weekend, one of them got into the bathroom and chewed up one of my plants and barfed it back up and made an enormous mess; I’d blamed Miss L for leaving the door ajar. (“WHAT!!” -Miss L. “You must have, the boys can’t open the door themselves!” – Me. “Sarge can open the door!!” – Miss L. “That’s ridiculous.” – Me.) Well, as I shivered in my bath Sarge meowed violently at me from the hallway, and then proceeded to open the bathroom door and saunter in. (“WHAT!!” – Me.) This is a bad thing, Sarge figuring out doorknobs.

I was in bed by 6.30, freezing and sweating, and by 8.00 the Cheerios and toast had come back up (sorry, graphic, but true.) Emmett had knocked another picture off the wall so I’d locked the cats out of the bedroom and Sarge opened the door at 10 and brought up a section of the rubber basement flooring to gnaw on contentedly. I had fever dreams of being in Paris and then getting ready to run a race somewhere wind-torn and barren, and not wanting to see someone that I knew would be there; I woke up soaked in sweat but finally warm.

I suppose the silver lining is that I am home today and after a mostly liquid diet, broth and ginger tea, I was able to brush my teeth, which is a huge improvement, and it looks as though I will finish Tana French’s “The Secret Place” today as well, which has been a really great book. (I love Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad.) And maybe tomorrow will be better. No, tomorrow will definitely be better.

11.2014 duck stream

 

chaos, havoc, and the first snow.

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11.2014 me n em

I’ve had cats in my life ever since I can remember, starting with Blackie, who died, I think, and followed by Bunsy, Abigail, Collier, Maggie, Salem, and, now, Emmett and Sarge. Every single one of these cats was weird. I don’t know now whether all cats are weird in their own ways, or if we just tend to get the weird ones. But Abigail lived in two rooms for most of her life, and Collier ate the string from those old plastic drawstring shopping bags. Bunsy tried to steal an entire Thanksgiving turkey and only liked my father. Salem had a nervous stomach and couldn’t bring herself to poop in the litterbox. Maggie was just a good true cat, and when she passed, Emmett and Sarge (aka the Chaos and Havoc twins) came into our lives.

11.2014 em suitcase

Emmett is a Very Bad Cat.

He is a thin, spotted, Bengalish kind of cat, with a freckled face and muddy colored eyes, and an enormous plaintive yowl that doesn’t match his slender frame. He is prone to bursting out any open door and making runs for it, into the garage to hide under my Camry or onto the front porch or garden. Luckily, he doesn’t entirely know what to do once he gets where he is going, and tends to stop and MRRROWWWWW his confused triumph, allowing me to snatch him back up. He jumps on people’s shoulders (including a hapless appraiser visiting the house) and climbs curtains and chews plants and finds his way onto narrow ledges and the tops of open doors. He is also charming and affectionate and a lap cat and just wants to be close to people, and I love him enormously which allows me to tolerate his most recent fascination with pictures hanging on the walls. If he stands on his hind legs, he can push framed pictures hanging on my stairway and make them swing and sway, rattling them against the walls at all times of the night. For a long time I laid awake in bed cursing silently because I was NOT going to chase him around the house (he finds this very merry) at three AM and I was NOT going to be reduced to taking MY PICTURES off the walls because of a SMALL EVIL CAT.

Yeah, so, I took the pictures off the walls.

11.2014 sarge superman

Sarge is a big, fluffy, mellow dude with some unfortunate habits as well. He is a fetcher cat, so his passionate love is little fur mouties (mice) that he chases around the house when thrown, and brings back to be thrown again. He can do this all day long. I wish he WOULD do this all day long, because the alternative is him feeding his slightly addictive chewing behaviors. Once he shredded up all of the flip flops in the house, he started in on the rubber floor mats under the treadmill and weight bench in the basement. I’m afraid his stomach and intestines are full of noxious chewed rubber, although from the number of times I hear Miss L shriek from the basement “MOMMY I SEE BARF” he fortunately doesn’t seem to be able to digest it.

They look sweet in this little kitten picture, don’t they. This was the second day they came to live with us, almost a year ago. The thing I remember most about this picture is that Emmett is quite damp because he had just taken a leap into Miss L’s bath and then freaked out and zoomed around the house spraying water.

boys

 

**

This week saw the first snow. Nothing stuck, but once again, the view from my office window was grey, scudding clouds and blowing snow. It feels like the majority of my life in that office is spent looking at that same weather, with just tiny fleeting intervals of other landscapes, summer blues and greens and autumn golds. So my outside work is done. Last weekend, Miss L and I gathered up the last of the leaves, repaired the compost bin and winterized it with layers of newspapers and mulched leaves. We trimmed back most of the garden beds and moved the woodpile from the old spot in the back corner of the yard to the new steel log rack on the back patio, two steps from the back door. She was a grand helper and helped me with birdfeeders and raking and gathering. I spent an anxious day calling snowplow companies and finding most of them booked up, and had just resigned myself to a winter of do-it-myself snowblowing when one company called me back. So let it snow.

11.2014 first snow

Lunch.

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Because when it’s one of the last sunny, mild days before predicted snow later in the week, and you have an hour before your next meeting, you just have to slip out to a Coney Island, sit at the counter, enjoy a great salad, and listen to the chatter around you.

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in dreams begin responsibilities

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I dreamed the other night that I was standing on a beach up north with someone I don’t know very well. It was a winter beach, cold wet packed sand, waves whipped to white foam under a slate grey sky. We stood in watchful silence and then I turned, and as far as the eye could see along the horizon, a string of boats, freighters and trawlers and steamers, flowed slowly but inexorably into the harbor.

“There must be a storm,” I called to my companion over the rising wind. “They are all coming into the harbor, where it’s safe.”

Caught up in the blur of a month of thankfulness, and finally breaking down to listen to ‘Eat Pray Love’ on my commutes, mixed with a dose of full moon magic, and a dream about boats in a harbor that I just can’t shake, I have started to ponder the concepts of prayer and manifestation. I agree with many of the concepts of spirituality expressed by Elizabeth Gilbert in her book, and I also feel that, like her, I suffered catastrophic destruction of relationships that forced me to face certain concepts.

I was forced to face my own weaknesses, faults, and failures. I am not the best at maintaining personal relationships, I know this. I struggle to keep up friendships and to show people that I love just how much I love them.

It forced me to accept that people will break your heart in the most crushing ways, and disappoint you time and time again; and that people will show you transformational kindness and staunch support, love and joy, in equal yet entirely unpredictable measures. There will be those who break you, and those who stand by you holding you up, and those who do both. Most times, I didn’t accurately predict who would be whom. And I didn’t expect that it would be so difficult for me to accept help when it was offered.

I had to accept my starting point, and what a paltry, indefensible position it was. No help for it;  I had to build, brick by brick, from there, and the only way to do that was from a place of grace, and forgiveness, for my own failings and for the hurt, disappointment, and abandonment I felt inflicted on me by others. I had to put everything behind me to move forward, and by and large, I feel I’ve done that. I am still a work in progress at forgiving and letting the past be the past, but I know the critical importance of it, and I work on it every day.

I had to forgive myself, too.

It forced me to accept that during all of the events of the past several years, I was not alone, and that although I chose the hardest, most exhausting paths to climb, there was a pattern to the events of my life, and grace, and that grace came from some other, higher source than my own limited self. Every time I fell down and said, I can’t get up, something forced me up. Though heavily we bled, still on we crawled. (Coldplay)

Like Gilbert, I have viewed prayer with skepticism. Actually, until the last year or so, I’ve been so uneasy with the concept of personal happiness that I actually felt more comfortable when I was unhappy, because then I didn’t have to fear the other shoe was about to drop. I suppose, for some reason, I never felt that I had earned happiness, peace, and contentment. When you don’t believe you deserve things, you don’t pray for them, and also, like Gilbert, I felt that praying for things was incredibly inappropriate. Why would God (whatever your concept of God is) care what I wanted, or needed, in the grand scheme of the universe? How can you look at the utter chaos and tragedy, the mass destruction constantly occurring on unthinkable scales throughout the world, and feel like God can care about my personal sadness, my needs?

I don’t have the answer to those questions.

But one thought resonates with me. It is David Lynchian, from reading one of his books on Transcendental Meditation. He is a bit cagey about a lot of the elements of TM, likely because it’s a “pay for play” program, but he reiterates time and again that meditation (prayer, we can call it) is not just a selfish endeavor. If we are to be viewed as a whole entity, if even one small dust mote in that entirety is happy, and at peace, it can spread, it can vibrate like a tuning fork. I think Madeline L’Engle writes about this too, sort of, in her Wrinkle in Time trilogy – the little farandolae who choose to sing with the universe rather than swirl ragefully, the tiny star that glows against the creeping darkness engulfing a planet.

I know these are grandiose concepts to justify prayer, and I know it’s likely melodramatic, but this is the way that I’m slowly becoming a bit more comfortable with the idea of a conversation with my God, and the possibility that perhaps it is okay for me to pray. To start, though, I’ve tried to approach this through the concept of work on myself, and manifestation. I don’t want to ask for things – I don’t want to ask God to bring me someone to love, or material fulfillment, or ultimate wisdom. I don’t even want to ask for things to be easier. I just want to have clarity about what I’m working towards, to view the future as an unknowable work in progress with nothing to fear, rather than a dreary unfolding of days spent alone, buying cat food and wine. I want to be happy in the present moment, be happy with what I have and the person that I am. Honestly, until I can accomplish those things, until I can dream my own life, I don’t know that there’s any point in me asking for anything else or having anything or anyone new in my life. I’ll just be repeating the same old patterns. So maybe that’s my prayer these days, maybe that’s my first step.

And you know, it seems to be working. I am much happier than I’ve been in years.

how to survive november in the northern hemisphere

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With a fire, and bread dough rising.

11.2014 fire

I am practicing my fire-building skills, but I think I am going to need more wood for the winter. I also need to start thinking about a snow removal company. My badass homesteading skills do not extend to snowblowers.

It is sleeting outside, and there is another polar vortex (the first of the season! aww) bearing down on us early next week. I have chili in the crockpot. I should have been doing a Turkey Trot today but the time change, and the hours of darkness, have diminished my mojo. Today, all I want to do is hang out by the fire, make things, and watch the play of weather outside of the den windows.

I’m trying a simple five-ingredient French bread recipe, to cautiously dip my toe back into breadmaking. I love the idea of homemade bread but I’ve never been successful at it. I’ve tried a starter, but my sourdough is never sour. Finally I gave up, until I heard this on NPR a few weeks ago. I waitlisted the book at the library, but it fired up my desire to bake, so we’ll see how it goes.

Sarge is helping relax today. We wish you all a happy, relaxing Saturday to sharpen your saw, as they say at Miss L’s school. xo

11.2014 sarge

 

“Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children’s approach to life. They’re people who don’t give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought – sometimes it isn’t much, either.” – walt disney

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I am home from several days in the Happiest Place on Earth, and you know what? It was happy. Despite the crowds, and the exorbitant outlays of cash for souvenirs and toys, Harry Potter wand & robe, autograph book to stalk princesses, and $10 hot dogs (well, it had bacon on it) – it was happy. I felt as though for a brief few days, my concerns and troubles were left at the gates, and I lived in the moment in the park, only concerned with when our next FastPass started and whether we could handle a 40 minute wait for a ride or a princess autograph. Miss L had a great time. GB & I fell back into our normal mother – father rhythm and for a few days, it was sort of just the three of us again, which was a strange feeling, but not unpleasant, fleeting as it is.

Emmett & Sarge were livid that we’d been gone so long, and have spent the last day following me around closely to ensure that I don’t plan on leaving again anytime soon. The time changed while we were away, and we came home to bare branches and spindly November light. The days are short and darker now, and soon, the outside chores left undone will have to stay undone. I still have things to finish, but tonight I built a fire (a successful fire) and I have a striped cat lounging protectively at my elbow and dinner is in the oven and the darkness is pressing on the glass.

take my hand and run.

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My shin splints are gradually getting better, although I am still feeling the tenderness during the first mile of my runs, and babying them a bit. Definitely an improvement over a few weeks ago. I’ve gotten serious about my training and am back on the track towards my 20-mile a week goal, but being patient and increasing only a mile or a mile and a half a week (last week I logged 12.9). I will likely try to do three or four shorter runs during the week and a day of cross-training (think squats, one-legged squats, lunges, core training, the elliptical) mixed with a long run on the weekend. There are a dearth of half-marathons in the deep winter months in Michigan, but I will be shooting for a March half at the Ann Arbor marathon and if all goes well, maybe a full marathon next fall at the Sleeping Bear. In the meantime, my next event is our traditional A2 Turkey Trot. My Crossfit friends are doing the Iron Turkey (a 5k and a 10k back to back) but based on my conservative approach to my training and shins, I’m sticking with the 10k, which will still be a challenge, I’m sure.

I love this Turkey Trot, by the way. There’s always a steel drum band at the first turn, and whenever I hear them singing ‘Turkeys Do the Conga” it makes me laugh.

I’m trying to build my tolerance for a lot of treadmill running, since the winter is predicted to be as bad as last year, and that means a lot of snow, ice, and subzero temps. I’m a cold weather runner by nature, but there was no way there could be safe, healthy outside running for a majority of last winter. The snowfall was record breaking and paths, roads, and sidewalks were generally drifted, barely cleared, or ice-covered. This is in marked contrast to a couple of years ago, when we ran outside all winter long, thanks to mild temps and limited snow.

It’s discouraging how much my running speed and endurance have decreased, thanks to that long snowy winter and an injury-prone summer. I went out for my first over-4 mile run a couple of weekends ago, and found a great new place to run (Island Lake in Brighton, MI). I don’t usually look at my watch during long runs, except to note miles if I need to turn around at a certain spot, and instead try to find a comfortable, easy pace that I can keep up without walking. It was a spectacular bright fall morning, cold and golden, and for three quarters of the run I had that great feeling of my body as an engine, disconnected from my mind and my thoughts. This to me is the ideal running state, when my body does what I’ve trained it to do without fuss and my mind is free to wander – I’m not focused on muscles or breath or discomfort or distance. I paced myself slowly and consistently, but when I got back to the trailhead I was optimistic that I’d turned in a pretty good time. I checked my watch and gah!!!!! Yes, I’d made it without walking, feeling very comfortable and easy, but I’d run on average a whole minute slower per mile than last year’s training pace (so about two minutes per mile slower than my target race pace). GAH.

I know I’ll get it back if I keep applying myself consistently, training smart and with dedication, but that’s why running will break your heart, right there. 🙂

In the meantime, we are off to Disney. Pray for me, o fellow Introverts.

greenfield village halloween walk

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10.2014 jack o'lantern

My dad’s loathing of crowds is notorious in our family. One of my favorite grievances from childhood, which I dwell on with regular morbid enjoyment to punish him, is the memory of taking a boat ferry to Mackinac Island on a lovely summer day…only to be confronted with an island full of tourists. My dad struggled gamely for a few minutes, we bought ice cream cones, I was enjoying a butter pecan in a waffle cone, and then bam. The huge influx of humanity evaporated his patience and just like that, I was being told to THROW AWAY THE WAFFLE CONE so we could get back on the ferry to the mainland.

As I get older, my attitude toward crowds is very similar. I still can’t imagine throwing away a perfectly good ice cream cone to escape them, but I find that large crowds really detract from my enjoyment of anything, and unfortunately, we experienced that this past weekend.

We are taking Miss L to Disney over Halloween weekend as a surprise, and although I know she’ll love it, I was starting to feel a little sad that she wouldn’t get the traditional Midwest trick or treating experience – the cold air, the fallen leaves, a sky full of stars, the crushing bummer of having to wear a coat over your costume. So I bought tix to the Halloween Walk at Greenfield Village.

10.2014 greenfield village

Greenfield Village is pretty awesome, but in my mind I always confuse it with Crossroads Village, which we frequented as children, and which is a little more rough-hewn, so to speak, than Greenfield Village. I was imagining more dusty tracks and rough edges and maybe a chill coming over the fields, a more genuine experience.

Pros:

  • The Halloween walk is a mile of hand-carved jack o’lanterns winding through a really amazing historic village.
  • They had a great old film reel of ghostly cartoons, all in black and white.
  • Parking wasn’t much of a problem.
  • The staff was decked out in amazing costumes.

Cons:

  • The crowds.
  • There were exceptionally long lines for the 10 treat stations and the treats were sub-par. If I’d known we were standing in line for a Twizzler, or a mini-Snickers bar, or a Halloween-themed postcard, of all things, I’d have bought a bag of treats ahead of time and doled them out to Miss L myself.
  • The crowds.
  • The crowds.
  • The crowds.

It was PROHIBITIVELY crowded and by the end of it (a winding mile walk is a lot for little six year old legs) we’d lost her mask and been dangerously close to being trampled several times. There was a vague promise on the website of the ‘Headless Horseman galloping out of the fields’ but this was just shtick as he merely stood near a fence and bantered with the crowds.

10.2014 headless horseman

Miss L was polite about the experience, but non-committal about wanting to do it again, and by the end of the night, we were both very happy to take our donuts home and get under a blanket on the couch. She was tuckered out from the crowds and the walking; I was a little bummed out about the crowds and the overall slick, unenthusiastic nature of the proceedings. I love autumn and I love Halloween, and I feel like people are so desperate for an authentic, historic, mystical, autumnal experience that they will stand in long lines for mass produced entertainment, crowded hayrides and pumpkin patches entirely devoid of sincerity, to achieve it. Go walk in the woods, for Pete’s sake, or visit a real farm, or just spend an afternoon raking.

The whole crowd experience, and Miss L’s lack of enthusiasm about it, and my own perilously squeezed patience with the masses, has made me more than a little apprehensive about Disney this coming weekend…We shall see.

10.2014 pumpkin tree

moments

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10.2014 spot

1. Lunch with a Loved One. Miss L’s new school has been such a better fit for us and we couldn’t be happier with her teacher, her pre-care and after-care, and the overall environment. It’s a Leader in Me Lighthouse School that operates on the Covey principles, and the kids and staff take it seriously. (I overheard Miss L playing with her stuffed ponies recently, and she was rewarding one of them for ‘being a leader of himself’.) This week was Book Fair and Lunch with a Loved One, and Miss L got over her fear of mascot ‘Spot’.

10.2014 sarge in the sink

2. My last big presentation was Wednesday and the room was full of people. In a bit of a departure, I decided that I wasn’t going to rehearse or practice my already familiar slides. If my biggest flaw is nerves, I reasoned, I had to just say ‘I don’t give a fuck what any of these people think of me’ and stand up and do it. Now, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone else, and it probably will never work again, but this time, it DID. I wasn’t nervous at all, no tremors in my voice, no quavers. I’m the first one to realize when I stink, but this time I was pleased with myself.

10.2014 eclipse

3.  GB & I were discussing the mechanics of safely watching the partial eclipse and he reminded me that there is a welder’s helmet in the garage. One of the benefits of having a house still full of my ex-husband’s stuff (I know, it’s weird, I think he’s working on it) is having access to items like that. I watched for a little while but ultimately realized how slowly the whole process went and even with the welder’s helmet it was still pretty painful to look at. Still, I do like the interaction that my ex-husband and I have at times. We laughed about the welder’s helmet and it’s nice to make each other laugh. Even though it didn’t work out between us, it reminds me of why we were friends in the first place, long before marriage and Miss L.

10.2014 monahans

4. I didn’t get to run much this week, and I feel a little anxious about that, but sometimes you have to choose companionship over fitness, so instead of using my free lunch hour on Friday to exercise, I went out to lunch. My running buddy M and our colleague MC Granola and I don’t eat out together very much, but we have a few Ann Arbor places that we love, and are very compatible in our food choices and conversation and music. We listen to the rap channel on satellite radio and hit Casey’s, or Chela’s, or, as on Friday, Monahan’s Seafood (see above – M graciously photographed me with the lobster). Monahan’s is a seafood counter in the Kerrytown market, there are daily specials or the standard salmon burgers or crispy fish sandwiches. Everything is fresh, beautiful, amazing, you order over the counter and there’s only limited seating, so we take our food out into the adjoining courtyard. On Friday the weather was mild and autumnal, almost chilly but not quite; the sparrows fluttered around us for crumbs and the gardens were turning orange and brown, fading hydrangeas and ivy on the mossy brick walls. The Kerrytown Chime sent clear round notes floating across the Historic District, and when we were done, we wandered over to Zingerman’s for coffee. We lingered on the corner then, talking idly with our coffees, and letting Ann Arbor bustle around us, bell notes and leaves falling around us in the mild breeze, unwilling to say goodbye; and then we drifted apart, calling goodbyes, the moment broken and dissipating, time always moving.