Starting Over

Congratulations! You figured it out! Yes, it's true... Smart Mouth Girl is back. Actually, she's been driving me nuts the last several months, prodding me to get back to the blog. I've been successful at ignoring her, for the most part, but lately she has found other outlets for her mischief, so I guess to be honest, I'm just trying to reduce the collateral damage by giving her limited access to the keyboard. 
Where do I begin? 
In the two years I have been absent, much has changed. I'll spill the details later, but the sum of it is this: I lost it.
I lost it and I didn't blog because hey, it was fugly. And ain't no body got time for that, right?
But I finally reached the other side and I think (hope) I'm ready to open the closet and let the skeletons spill across the web-miles. Fingers crossed, I headed for the computer this morning, armed with coffee and some serious musical inspiration.
Once I remembered my password, I entered my blog only to discover the entire internal layout has changed. It may look the same to you, but to me it felt as if someone had rearranged my dresser drawers. 
Sigh.
Starting over is hard. I forgot about that. But let's face it - I have lots of experience.
It's really, really good to be back, friends.
Here goes ...

A Roll of the Dice

This is my life now.... Palm Trees, Slot Machines, Casinos.... I remember six months ago driving through the snow in northern Utah, wondering if I would ever feel so far away from home again.

Now I know the answer.

And the funny thing is, I have the nagging suspicion this is only the beginning of the craziness. I think the next Great Adventure may be just around the corner. So, hang on. I'll tell you all about it. Just not now. Now, I have to leave for work. Hard hat - check. Steel toes - check. Security badge that says I'm allowed to go in the mine - check.

Funny. I never thought I'd be a miner.

Where I've been....

Can we talk?

I haven’t posted this because I didn’t want to ignite a three alarm fire, but 6 weeks ago I got the call that we might lose the ranch.  Again.  Only this time, there was nothing I could do about it. No money, no payments, no nothing was going to stop the force of nature.

I sat at my desk, head in hands, and stared at the wall. It's 2009 all over again. How could this happen?

So, that’s the main reason I haven’t blogged. I haven’t had one modicum of energy that wasn’t channeled into coping with the loss of the ranch.

Why? That’s what I need to know. Why does it matter to me? It’s a thing. A possession.

It is also the vessel that holds my memories. It is the soil that grew my family. It is the only thing I have that resembles a home besides my grandmother’s house, which I will never again live in.

This month I’ve really soul searched, trying to unroot the hold this place has on me. I don’t live there: may never live there again. And yet its talons reach into my deepest self, unearthing 48 years of need and loss and pain, turning them over like rocky soil, exposing them to the light of day.

Here’s what I learned: Get a note pad, you’re going to want to post this on your bathroom mirror.

It’s better to let it go willingly than to have it ripped from your bloodied fingernails.

I kept remembering a picture of my granddaughter, at 2, arms loaded with toys. She wanted up on the bed but couldn’t get up there without letting something go. Stubbornness seems to be a family trait, so rather than lay it down, she tried every other way of clambering up, always falling back on her diapered bottom. Frustrated, she stomped her foot and started to cry. My daughter leaned over the edge of the mattress.

You want up here?

Jaiden nodded yes.

Grace picked her up and set her on top of the bed.

A light went on in Jaiden’s eyes. All she had to do was ask.

God, I don’t want to lose the ranch. I know I can’t stop it. So do what you’re going to do. But I want it. I want to keep it. You know why.

I got the call Friday.

Safe for now. One more bullet dodged.

For now, I am a two year old, legs dangling off the edge of the mattress, little toys clutched in my hands, trying to remember why I didn’t just ask in the first place.

ETA

Smart Mouth Girl has told me if I don't get my butt back to the blog, she's going to take over. So, while I'm not going to blog tonight, I will promise to have something up this week. I'll either tell you about the latest adventures on site or I'll confess to my venture into ...
Nevermind. I'll just tell you about the latest adventures on site. Hold me to it, y'all.

Out on a Limb

I’m sorry I’ve been absent so long. I’m going on the third week of Hell Month, except my month is actually five weeks long. Today I only had to work twelve hours and when I got home I discovered I had extra time on my hands. What to do? I could clean my room. It’s a disaster. Or I could take care of business from home. But that’s too much like work.

I could climb a tree.

Yes. You heard me.

Climb. A. Tree.

This is what exhaustion does to you: it makes crazy ideas seem logical.

While changing clothes, I looked out my second story bedroom window and spied apricots growing on the tree that grows along the fenceline.

Apricots.

August.

They glowed orangish, tempting. Big succulent orbs of juicy fruity apricot-ness.

I tugged on my shorts and tennies.

Safety caught me at the door. “Where’re you going?”

“There’s an apricot tree out there.”

Her brow furrowed. “So?”

“Get a basket or a trash bag or something.”

Awareness dawned. “No,” she said firmly. “No. No. No.
Hopping on one foot, I pulled the other sneaker over my heel. “Yes,” I said, “Yes, yes, yes.”

Fifteen minutes later, with branches spearing my breast, I perched in the fork of the tree. Damn fruit was all out on the ends of limbs, just out of my reach. Okay. Well out of my reach.

“You’re crazy, Stella.”

“I am NOT crazy. I want an apricot. I’m getting an apricot. That’s not crazy.”

“Why don’t you get one of these on the low branches?”

“There aren’t any on the low branches,” I snarked.

She moved into sight, biting into a perfectly formed, fuzzy, fruit.  “There’s a whole bunch down here on this side.”

Dang it. I didn’t look on that side.

Slowly I exited the tree, scraping my chest, elbows, knees and one leg all the way down to my ankle. Safety looked at the peeled skin and shook her head. “Pshss. You’re crazy.”

I don't know. Maybe she’s right.

A Tale of Hula Hoops and Toaster Ovens

In lieu of the traditional methods of weight loss which require denial and sweat and vegetables, I have decided to take up Contour Tanning.

Contour Tanning, or CT, is based on the artists’ concept that dark areas recede while lighter areas move forward.  Dark = invisible. Light = not invisible. Pretty simple.

With this in mind, I stood in front of the mirror and took a quick inventory of the things I wanted to make go away.  Thighs, inside and out. Wiggly inside of upper arms. Waist. Hips… ugh. I would like for them to disappear entirely, but that would leave me looking like one of those shimmering heat mirages. So, okay…just the outsides. The outsides definitely have to go.

Plan in place, I bought a pass to one of the tanning salons and, armed with ultra-dark bronzing lotion, I crawled in the toaster oven and begin the disappearing process.

Problem:

It is nearly impossible to expose those specific areas to radiation at the same time unless you are a pretzel. Notice I said ‘nearly’. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Lay on back. Flatten arms against glass on either side of torso. Twist hips and legs 90 degrees to the left. Bend knees or your spine will break in half. Bake 7.5 minutes, then rotate to the other side. Continue baking until skin is sufficiently browned and/or you are unable to feel your legs.

After one of these disappearing sessions, I was wandering through Walmart with my roommate in search of nourishment (we are single, and therefore hunter-gatherers) and we stumbled across a display of hula hoops. In a moment of weakness, I challenged her on the hula.

What was I thinking?

Hoops in place, we distanced ourselves appropriately and began to swing. Well, she began to swing. I took one half-hoop and froze, pain piercing my left hip.

Two days later, as I tried to explain the hula hoop incident to the chiropractor, I began to wonder whether those CT sessions might have played a part in my injury, but I could tell by the expression on his face that he was already sufficiently freaked out by the mental image of Hula-Hooping Grandmas and decided I would not further frighten him with my theory of CT.

Besides, I’m not sure it’s working the way I planned, anyway. I may think my hips are smaller, but when I try to squeeze by the filing cabinet in my office, I’m reminded (painfully) that reality supercedes illusion. In other words, I think I’m going to have to go back to the old fashioned way of doing weight loss.

Or maybe I’ll just move the filing cabinet.

Losing our Balance, Part II

Excerpted fiction - copyright 2011

The Wall.  I have this Wall, you see.  It’s at the cabin.  I started building it back when I first started losing my balance.  It was my first wall and my husband - well, now he’s not my husband, but he was my husband then - David, that’s his name, anyway David said I couldn’t do it, but that just made me want to do it more.  So I got Wesley to help me carry the rocks. Wesley’s my son.  He’s thirteen.  He’s—not here anymore. 

They say he’s dead.

You know, if Jesus can raise people from the dead, what’s the point in dying?  What makes it any different than, say, sleeping?  We sleep, we wake up.  When you’re dead you just sleep longer, that’s all.  I hate funerals. 

David always called it The Wall, like it was the Berlin Wall or something.  I hated it when he did that; we used to fight about it.  Married people fight about the stupidest things.  Funny, because I call it that now, too.  The Wall.  Only not Berlin.  It’s the Wailing Wall.  Because I cry there.  And I write things and when I pray, I sometimes put my prayers on paper and fold them until they are very small and slide them into the cracks between the rocks.  When the cement is wet, it works best, because then the words become part of the mortar that holds it all together.  And holding it together is important when you’re building a wall.

It’s also important to me.  Very important. 

Because I’m not that great at building walls.  And sometimes I lose my balance..