Desert Magnolia

There is just something indescribable about feeling your muscles respond and pushing into the perfect running pace. It's fabulous. I love when it all comes together - form, air, energy, and efficiency. When all of the thought given to achieving each of those is gone, and the realization occurs. When it's the sun on your face, the blood flowing through happy muscles, the sound of regular, strong breaths. And the thought that 'I could do this forever if I wanted to' streams through your consciousness. Life is made up of a symphony of simple events, and a good run definitely numbers among those for me.

This weekend was Homecoming, and it was full of activities including soccer games, the dance, etc. Daughter played on Saturday, in a fierce game against a new high school. The battle was hard fought, but unfortunately lost. By one point. It was sad, but I was incredibly proud of the girls. They held their heads high and several were heard to say, 'Those girls are good. They wanted it, they earned it. Losing sucks, but if you have to, losing like that is ok.' Daughter was also voted Homecoming Queen. Seriously. How cool is that?? She didn't even tell us she was in the running. But she looks super cute adorned with her tiara...that's all I'm sayin'. Some of the best conversations occur between us spectators, on the sidelines, while the game is being played. There's the usual bitching about refs, in which I refuse to engage unless we're faced with a ref whose skills are endangering the girls' physical well being. There's the predictable 'soc...

It occurred to me that I've slowed my posting down a bit after my initial flurry. I'm guessing this is due to life being incredibly busy, my not being compelled to write about absolutely every boring event that goes on and other stuff. And then I realized something pretty cool. The same (unconscious) governing behavior that surfaces when I'm working on my novel, which makes me overthink and under write is attempting to edit me before I even get really rolling here. But I'm not going to stop. Even if I only write a little, and some would consider it, meh, in the world of posts. That said, a few items to bring you up to date. First, the daughter is playing really good soccer her senior year. Really good. And she's working hard to push beyond what she's accepted in herself before. Wow. All this and taking hard classes and anticipating college far away and generally shouldering a LOT. Go girl. And ask for help if you need it. Second, the son is about to ta...

Liability. It's what you owe on a balance sheet. It's what you try to avoid pretty much everywhere else. I mean, who wants to the be the liability on the 'idea team'? Who wants to be the spy whose time has come due to 'becoming a liability issue'? Nobody. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Today I went on an errand at lunch, and found myself in a department store. They have a jewelry counter, and sell watches, lots of them. Lots of brands, including the one I'd brought in for a new battery. But they no longer replace watch batteries. They outsource that to a kiosk in the mall with a name like FastFixx or something clever like that. The salesclerk was cordial, but I could feel snark right beneath the surface. I interpreted that as defensiveness, most likely developed over time as she's delivered the message to countless people who have, until this time, always gone there to get their batteries replaced. See, they don't want to be responsible...

JT is coming to town, and we're going. We're celebrating our anniversary, and we'll be joined by a whole group of friends. The concert is at Sandia Casino, a lovely venue, so that makes it even better. We've seen Gipsy Kings and Ottmar Liebert there. Both were outstanding in their own right. I really wish Michael Buble had performed there instead of at that hockey rink/arena way out in the Rio Rancho boondocks. He was great there, I can't even begin to imagine what he'd be like in a more intimate setting. Yikes. Pray it doesn't rain. While it seldom precipitates in this neck of the woods, we're supposed to have a surge of moisture sweeping through the state over the weekend. (eye roll) Oh, it's Friday. Today I got a grande cinnamon dolce latte on the way in to work, just because. Because I've somehow managed to almost survive this ridiculously intense week. Because I chose today to be a pink day...pink cardigan over jeans and my pink beaded...

Setting: a tempest of high desert proportions. A soccer game. Wind swirling, black clouds hanging ominously close to the ground, sheets of rain visible less than a mile north of the soccer fields. 2nd half of the game, other team is up by 1 point. The daughter gets fouled and ends up taking a free kick. A free kick. That's a kick around/over/through a line of the other team's players, aimed at the goal. The goal, of course, is to score. This seldom happens. Daughter squares her shoulders, takes a cleansing breath, spies a teeny tiny opening and shoots. A rocket. Right through the opening and into the goal. Then gets a charming smile on her face. Then gets high fived by everyone else on the team. And I do that little dance when it goes in, but not the one where the hips wiggle; that would be rude. Just the one where hands go up, fists formed, and a big smile comes. Parents came up to me and said, 'How can you stand to watch when she takes those?? I'd be a wreck! ...

It's hard to imagine the conversation that would have resulted in those ridiculous, oversized bull testicle looking things hanging from trailer hitches on trucks and 4x4's. It really is. What's even more difficult is to imagine someone, now sober, actually executing on the idea. Living in the Southwest means appreciating contrasts on a daily basis. The culture and the urbanism, the breathtaking, arid beauty of the high desert against the lush green of the river valley, the extraordinary ratio of PhD's to high school grads (due to the close proximity of not one but two enormous lab facilities), and so on. And then there's the element of the testosterone charged. That's present in any region, but here it often includes trucks....big ones, small ones, 4x4's, etc., but trucks are a big part of it all. Also boots, but we won't go there right now. I'm assuming the enormous hanging testicle facsimiles are simply an extension of this phenomenon. It...

A blog by a mid-lifer wouldn't be complete without occasional musings on the whole aging thing, so here ya go. My first in what may prove to be a series, over time, on my thoughts about this topic. First of all, the whole inside feeling young and perky and healthy vs the outside showing the ravages feels fundamentally unfair, but it is what it is. We sun, we laugh, we stress, we get too little sleep, we simply live , and, over time...lots of time, all of this shows. On our faces. Everywhere, actually. So what should we do? Should we refrain from life's roller coaster ride and live in a bubble sans sun, sans laughter, sans the complexity that makes the great journey infinitely interesting? I don't think so. One of my fondest memories of sun worship involves my Mom, and me at 9 months pregnant with my son. We oiled up, laid out, and for the first time in months my aches went away and I soaked up the lovely Spring sunshine. Which was actually kind of funny, when you t...

With Farrah's recent passing I was catapulted into nostalgia as I remembered how much she had impacted my life. Yes, mine. No, we weren't buds, but her influence resulted in me being cool for the first time in  my life. How? My feathered Farrah 'do, that's how. I had super thick hair that loved to flip sassily...and for the first time I looked 'styled' vs, well, you know, kinda ruffled. Suffice to say my Mom had cut my hair my whole childhood (with one exception that ended up in my looking much more like Dorothy Hamill than anyone had thought possible but fortunately that grew out).  It was awesome. I was content to have great hair, though, naturally I secretly yearned for the curves to fill out a bikini the way she did, as well. Hairstyles have changed through the years, and mine has gone from Farrah flip long, to pageboy length, to chin-length bob, to super short spikey. I'm now growing out a short cut, and am chafing. Seriously chafing. Here's...

When I was pregnant with my daughter it was brought to my attention that I was a bit tense, much of the time (the tense part, not the brought to my attention part). This was true. Why wouldn't it be? I had a 3 year old energetic son running around doing what 3+ year olds do, I was working and going to school, and I was pregnant. That combo will tense out even the most hormonally saturated happy-to-be-preggers among us. My Grandma, who is very crafty and gifted in the whole sewing/crocheting/knitting arena in ways I clearly am not, suggested I try knitting in the evenings to relax. Sounded reasonable, sounded like a good healthy way to let the stress of the day ebb away, right? In theory, yes. In practice, not really. See, what Grandma forgot was my perfectionist tendencies (which I'm proud to say have ebbed over time to a more manageable level..but don't ask Hubby because he might have a different opin because he calls things like he sees them because he's like t...