Doing What I Can Do

 

I was in the middle of a haircut when K., my fabulous hairdresser, looked at me in the mirror with her eyes wide. 

"You older women," she said. "I've never seen anything like it." 

I had just told her my schedule for the day: The much-needed haircut. Chair yoga at the rec center. Protest our senator's compliance in the destruction of our constitutional democracy. Lunch with friends. 

K. is a couple of decades younger than I am but she's started to regularly have coffee with a group of my age-sisters, and those women are fired up. For several weeks she's heard them discuss with wide-eyed horror the indiscriminate destruction of  America. Agencies and departments that keep us safe during times of war and disease have been cut (then, often, un-cut with an "Oops! Didn't really know what you did!). Our data has been made available to the shady characters and college drop-outs who delight in punishing what they consider disloyalty. In the name of saving money, the very agency charged with collecting taxes is threatened with massive lay-offs. 

It is insanity.

I have never really been involved in politics. Oh, I was a Youth For Nixon in 1968, before I could vote. Then I signed an "Impeach Nixon" petition as a freshman in college. 

Since, then, I've tried to trust the process. I always vote, and during the last election I wrote postcards to be mailed in swing states, places that reminders of voting options might have an influence. In Kansas, my own state? I knew the race was over way before election day. There would be a big red rectangle on the television results map even before polls closed. 

I had hoped, though, that our senior senator would provide a voice of reason as a clown car of cabinet appointments was announced. Surely he would see that these men and women were unqualified for the jobs they were proposed to assume. A vaccine deny-er as head of Health and Human Services? It must be a joke. A Fox talking head as the Secretary of Defense? Seriously? 

I trusted he would provide a vote to send these nominations back to insist on better candidates, because he's always been a man or reason and a good senator. Spoiler alert: He did not provide that vote.

But because I have friends and loved ones who are on the opposite side of the divide, I've kept politics out of my social media and my opinions to myself unless I knew everyone around agreed with me. I knew I would lose readers, and probably friendships, if I expressed my views.

The last straw of my silence was burned when the global security my father fought for in World War II began to be threatened. A true hero was ambushed in the Oval Office with outlandish claims and demands.

So when a friend said she was going to Big City to try to be heard by our senior senator, I gulped, grabbed my cane, and marched down the sidewalk to where we would almost certainly accomplish nothing. Husband sent the picture of this limping exit to our family.

I was correct in that we accomplished nothing. The senior senator was driven into the building in an SUV, completely avoiding our homemade signs urging support of Ukraine and demolition of DOGE. He acknowledged us exactly as much as he has acknowledged the thousands of emails and calls and letters urging him to help stop this madness before it's too late. 

But even though I knew we would not accomplish anything, I had to do something, anything, for my own sanity and self-esteem. How would I face Babies Wonderful One, Two, and Three if I left them a country that is despised and dysfunctional, and had done nothing at all to prevent that slide from greatness? 

Ann Lamott, perhaps the wisest of us old women who are fighting, wrote an essay in the Los Angeles Times letting me know that all of our souls are hurting. What can we do?

"We can start or join projects to feed and protect those most in danger now, meals and community organizing, getting to know each other. My friends and I recall going to Vietnam protests in the ’60s where 12 people showed up, but ultimately we stopped the war. Will large and small demonstrations make a difference? They’re good for the soul. We have to continue to act on our understanding of what is right. We need to perform acts of compassion that are missing in the current nasty public sphere."

I had intended this post to be funny: "Ha! Ha! We were so old and ineffectual!" I was going to caption the picture "Baby's First Protest." But the deeper I got into it the more I mourned what we've lost in just a few months, and how hard it will be to build back what has been destroyed. 

We are old, but we're doing what we can do. It may not be enough.

Do Not Drop or Throw

(I have buried the lead on this story. Please persist to the end.)

I think I was five, maybe six, years old when I got the best Christmas present of my life. 

I was not a particularly girly little girl--I preferred books to dolls--but somehow I had fixated on the idea  that tea parties were the height of sophisticated childhood activities. (I blame those books, which often featured little girls serving pretend tea to their friends and parents.) And not just any tea party--my wonderful tea parties would serve their pretend tea and pretend fancy cakes on real china doll dishes. 

Thus began my campaign for that year's Christmas present. I wanted real china doll dishes with the same single-minded fervor that Ralphie wanted his Red Ryder BB Gun With a Compass in the Stock, and I was persistent and unwavering in my insistence that this was the only Christmas present that would make me truly happy.

My family wasn't poor by any measure, but a single-income family of seven in the late 1950s was not likely to spend a lot of money on Christmas presents. Real china doll dishes would be on the upper end of the gift budget so I'm sure my mother tried to divert my attention to other possibilities--a doll, maybe? Or a game of some kind? She also was aware that I wasn't old enough to understand the concept of fragility. If I didn't break all of those dishes before Easter rolled around it would be a true Christmas miracle. 

Still, I was unrelenting. I wanted real china doll dishes, and my mother was a saint.

That Christmas morning, I unwrapped a green-striped box whose cardboard lid lifted  to reveal stacks of tiny plates and cups, a miniature serving platter and tureen, and even a pair of doll-sized salt and pepper shakers. If you have ever gotten exactly what you dreamed of but never thought would be possible, you know my excitement.

As I look back, I see that the import of the real china doll dishes was more theoretical than actual. I don't recall a single time my Much Older Sister and I had tea parties with those rose-painted cups, although I'm sure we did. What I was hoping for was to be the kind of person who wanted to socialize, to share conversation and friendship with other girls. I wanted something beautiful. 

I scrawled "DO NOT DROP OR THROW" on the lid in hopes my younger siblings (who could not read yet) would respect the box's precious contents. Against all odds, the dishes survived until, as I got older, they went into storage. I never forgot they were there, though, and I dreamed of the day I would have a tea party with my own little girls. 

Well. 

You know the next phase of this story. None of my four sons really appreciated the societal and psychological importance of tea parties, so the green-striped box remained in a cupboard. These sons grew up and married and began having my grandchildren. 

Baby Wonderful#1 and Baby Wonderful#2 are the most delightful, charming, smart, kind grandchildren ever. They are boys and I have loved them to distraction, even as my dreams of real china tea parties dimmed.

This week BabyWonderful#3 was born, and friends, it's a girl!

She is gorgeous and vocal and chubby-cheeked, with her mother's beautiful eyes and her grandmother's thunder thighs. 

And her first Christmas present from her Meemaw will be a green-striped box containing a set of real china doll dishes and the promise that some day we'll share pretend tea and cookies accompanied by giggles and love.

Do not drop or throw your dreams--they really may come true.

.

How Terribly Strange To Be 70

Sitting on the park bench like bookends.

I was 14 when Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends album came out, and I listened to it on repeat. The whole album is wonderful (Mrs. Robinson, anyone? or America?) but the Old Friends track seared itself into my very being. 

An awkward and insecure freshman in high school, I pitied those old friends sitting on the park bench like bookends. Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset. I wept that their lives had come to this as they reached age 70.

Oh, Paul and Art. I know you're not speaking to each other these days (or maybe you are?) but I'm so sorry you missed all those years of friendship. If you had you might have written a much different anthem. 

Last week a pair of old friends and I celebrated that this year we're all turning 70, and the week involved not one newspaper blown through the grass to settle on the round toes of our high shoes.* 

We are a different variety of old friends.

I have three friends who have been in my life since junior high. While I still regret that as a country kid I had missed the townie activities they shared in grade school, we bonded over pep club and music activities and warped senses of humor and the scandalous nature of Romeo and Juliet. After we graduated from high school we scattered to other lives, and it wasn't until we were turning 40 that we reconnected. Since then we've kept in touch and for the last couple of decades we're tried to get away for a couple of days every year. 

Our last big get-together, one that involved airline flights and a VRBO, was in January 2020. On that occasion we decided we were going to do A Big Trip the following year. Savannah, we thought. A place with activities and good coffee and a different vibe from our homes in Kansas, Alaska, and Colorado.

The following year, of course, those plans had been stamped with a big red "NOPE. NOT DOING THAT." We were sequestered at home, whipping up masks from left-over fabric in our sewing rooms, and no way were we taking a trip. So we began our own little four-person book club and have Zoomed monthly since then as we plowed through a variety of books I never would have read otherwise. 

Next year, Savannah, we kept promising each other as the years went on. And just as we were cautiously stepping out of our homes, blinking and shading our eyes in the sunshine, my hip committed ritual disintegration. It wasn't until this year that we could even begin to dream of a birthdays trip, and my recovery from hip replacement narrowed our options. (I'll be updating on that next post, I promise.) So we ended up close to home. One of the old friends had booked a trip to Japan during the same time period as our get-together and she urged us to not cancel, so last week the three of us were together for an Old Friends Turn 70 party..

One of our trio has a relative who works for a fancy-dancy hotel in the Big City near Small Town, and she was able to get us friends-and-family rates on the kind of lodgings I had always assumed I'd frequent when I was 70. And even though I'm still a couple of weeks from hitting that milestone, I am now claiming fancy-dancy hotels as a perk of my age.

For four days we ate our way through everything the Big City had to offer on a two-meal-a-day plus snacks schedule. We hit the art museum and toured a Frank Lloyd Wright house and wandered through the botanical garden. We stopped at famous local shops (Nifty Nut House, Spice Merchant) and were appalled to find out that one of the group had never tasted a NuWay sandwich (crumbled hamburger) so that afternoon's snack was root beer floats and a NuWay burger split three ways. 

The downtown location of our hotel meant we were able to walk much of the time and I managed to put 7,500 steps a day on my Apple watch. This doesn't sound like much, but my new hip was proud of itself. 

And we talked. We talked, and talked, and talked. 

How did we feel about turning 70? Mostly absolutely fine, although we are now much more aware that we need to be making good choices about how we spend our time because there simply aren't enough years left for everything on our bucket lists.

How are we physically? Not bad. But what are those weird bright-red bruises that pop up if we even think of brushing the corner of a cabinet door? And why won't they go away? Also, how much would it cost to get these droopy eyelids hoisted back up to where they belong? Have you figured out what to do about the nighttime leg cramps? Etc., etc., etc.

How are our families? Our hearts? Our souls?

We laughed until we cried about the dumbest things, including the time C. and I tried to get in the wrong white cross-over SUV outside the restaurant while D. stood watching us in bewilderment from her car three cars away. It was exactly the same kind of thing that would have had us in hysterics in high school.

In other words, it was nothing like the melancholy Old Friends ennui I had dreaded as a teenager. I would have marveled at how these friends, at an age I would have considered death-adjacent, are living with joy and energy. 

How terribly strange to be 70.

*Trigger warning: The lyrics of Old Friends may make you weep every single time you hear the song. (Or that may just be me.) 

Winifred and Me: A Five-Week Report

Back at the stove!

A couple of weeks ago, when I introduced the new friend who lives in my hip*, Winifred, I promised a blow-by-blow report of what I experienced in my first experience with joint replacement. I hope none of you Lovely Readers take it as an insult when I guess that many of you are either already at or approaching this event yourself. I mean, you are reading a blog. If you were cool and young (and I started to add "hip" to this list but, too soon) you would be reading this in Substack or as an Instagram post. 

The bottom line is that although my road to recovery has not been that of those who told me it was a piece of cake, and that within three weeks I'd forget I'd had surgery at all (nope, nope, nope), I'm making excellent progress. Last week, in fact, I cooked my first full meal since mid-August and it was not particularly onerous or exhausting. (One Pot Chicken With Rice and Caramelized Lemons, if you're curious, and it was delicious.)

So welcome, fellow limpers and groaners! I have two disclaimers to make before I dive into the nitty-gritty of my own personal hip replacement. 

The first is that surgery was five full weeks ago, and I was under anesthesia part of that day. Except for the moment I was emerging from anesthesia and was told that not being able to move my toes was perfectly normal (it is not), I remember virtually nothing of that morning, and only bits and pieces of the rest of the day. 

The second disclaimer is the most important thing I have learned in the past four weeks, and if I could write it in italics and boldface and a shockingly large font, I would. It is this: 

My experience is mine, and mine only. Yours, should you need joint replacement, may include two things that I have experienced, or several things, or nothing at all. It's like falling in love: You can prepare all you like but you won't know what it's like for you until you go through it yourself. Also like love, be aware that it can hurt but this isn't inevitable. 

Also, I am not a doctor. None of this, not one word, is intended as medical advice. Again, it is what I experienced and your own doctor may roll his/her eyes in horror at what you are reading. 

So. Let's dive in.

My surgery was the first of the day at Big City Hospital, and I highly recommend this prized spot. As the first of the day, I knew it would start on time and that I would have a few more hours of lolling around before the physical therapy crew came in to get my lazy new butt out of bed. Husband was not as thrilled about the schedule, since it meant we had to be on the road by 4:30 a.m. to make the 5:45 a.m. check-in time. Pffft. He had all day to nap. We arrived at the hospital on time, with the required walker and comfy clothes in tow.

As for the surgery itself, here is what I remember about it: (Crickets.)

That's it. Nothing at all. I assumed my (excellent) surgeon was doing the work, and had not subcontracted it to a first-year medical student, but honestly, he could have raffled off the opportunity in an NPR fundraiser ("Use cool power tools! Say STAT and mean it!") and I wouldn't have known the difference at the time. Because anesthesia is wonderful, I did not see him until I was mostly conscious several hours later.

Fortunately he checked in with Husband in the waiting room when I was still snoozing away in the recovery room. Husband was most impressed that (excellent) surgeon took all the time necessary to answer any of Husband's questions. Husband also remembers that I waved as I was rolled down the hall from the recovery room to the orthopedics wing, another moment I do not remember. The orthopedics wing, by the way, was an excellent place to spend the next 24 hours. (Some fake-joint patients leave within hours; my clotting issues won me an overnight stay even though this is still considered an out-patient procedure.) All of the personnel on this hallway only deal with zippered hips and knees so they truly know their art. They knew what is run-of-the-mill and what makes them say "Hmmm..." They have the best advice on pain meds. In my case, they were total sweethearts.

The physical therapy folks I would not describe as total sweethearts, but they know their job and their job is to get me up and moving when that was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do. (We had been pre-warned about this--"You're going to love everyone you meet there," our joint replacement class leader told us about the orthopedic wing staff. "Well, not the PT people," she added. "You're not going to like them at all.") Surgery was in the morning, and by early afternoon I was out of bed and walking down the hall. There is an up side to this seemingly-cruel forced march: No need for bedpans. If you can walk 100 yards, you can get that hip over to the bathroom.

I was hoping that the 3:30 a.m. alarm would mean I would sleep well that first night, but apparently the good nap I had in the operating room caught me up on all the sleep I needed. As always, hospital sleep is the worst. The mattress is the worst. The pillows are the worst. The long, long night watching the digital clock on the other side of the room is the worst. On the advice of the nursing staff I had taken pain meds before I "went to sleep" (ha!), but even that did not help.

Speaking of pain, I will make all veteran joint replacement patients jealous by reporting that I had almost no pain. I believe I took three pain pills, total, and those were prophylactic before PT sessions. I know; I've just destroyed all the sympathy I had built up by having a complication but this is to reassure y'all that pain is not necessarily the worst thing every replacement patient will face (see also: foot drop, as discussed in a previous blog post).

But morning comes! And with morning comes more PT. This time I walked 300 feet and climbed up and down a fake four-step stairway. I learned the phrase "Good foot first going up, bad foot first going down" and have repeated that phrase a minimum of 7,000 times since. Then the physical therapist gave me a photocopied sheet of exercises to repeat at home, and a warm good-bye hug (ha! Physical therapist, remember?) and I was cleared to go home. 

Tomorrow, or whenever I get around to it: First days at home.

*That sounds kind of creepy, but the alternative to thinking of Winifred as a friend would be thinking of her as a foe, and that seems counterproductive.

Meet Winifred!

 

My surgeon apparently favors the button-and-zipper incision.*

What a cliffhanger! 

When I left you three weeks ago with a photo of Tom Walz's Award-Winning Tater Tot Casserole, I had intended to be back within hours with news that I was an award-winner as well, having earned the prestigious A+ Hip Replacement Patient Stellar Recovery Award. 

Spoiler: I am not an A+ Hip Replacement Patient Stellar Recovery Award winner. But I also have not failed hip replacement recovery--maybe a solid C shading toward C-? 

The good news is very, very good. Here are the things I feared most, in descending order and warning my sons that this list contains TMI:

1. Death. I probably had a higher awareness of this possibility than most hip replacement patients, given my clotting disorder and the distinct shadow that passed over my (excellent) surgeon's face when we talked about this. I distinctly remember our conversation: "You won't even be aware of it if things go wrong," he said. "I'm the one who'll have to tell your family you didn't make it through." Well, alrighty then.
2. Anesthesia-prompted dementia. My mother, the Best Woman Ever, went into her second knee replacement with slight signs of dementia but came out of the anesthesia fighting the IV and catheter and convinced President Lincoln was in the next room. She never completely recovered. I had discussed this with the surgeon and anesthesiologist and they assured me that if I were not already showing dementia symptoms this was unlikely to be a problem. Still...
3. (TMI AHEAD) Post-surgery constipation. I know. But IT'S A THING!

I was able to rule out two of those three things within moments of waking up post-surgery. I was alive! President Lincoln was dead! And...well, the third concern was still concerning but a few days later, checked off the list.

What I had not known enough to fear was emerging from the procedure with a dropped foot. In fact, I didn't even know what a dropped foot was. As I foggily emerged from la-la land in the recovery room, my first words to the nurse were "I can't move my toes. Is that normal?" And she looked me straight in my still-slightly-crossed eyes and lied through her teeth: "Oh, yes, that's perfectly normal." 

Mmmm...not so much. 

As my dear Lovely Girl #2's orthopedist brother was able to explain, dropped foot is a known complication of hip replacement, and happens when the sciatic nerve is stretched or damaged. This long nerve runs from the base of the spine to the foot, and when it is mad it can stop talking to the foot. In my case, that means I can push my toes and foot down normally (think of pressing on the accelerator) but I can't lift the toes or foot (think or lifting the foot back up off the accelerator). It's a very weird feeling: I tell the toes to lift, and nothing at all happens. 

Think of how you move your foot when you take a step--you lift up the front part, hit with the heel, then the front part lands. In my case, walking is more like having a raw pork chop attached to my ankle. To take a step in the first few days after surgery, I basically lifted my knee and kicked that pork chop out in front of me and watched it go SPLAT! on the floor. 

So, LG2's brother told me, this is a known complication even though it only happens in about 1% of cases because I am super-duper special. The silver lining is that it almost always resolves, but the attached cloud is that nerves are the slothful turtles of recovering cells and this could take a long time, that I should think in terms of many months. 

My (excellent) surgeon also reassured me that the pins-and-needles I was feeling were an good sign--the nerve is trying to fire, it just hasn't gotten its act together. 

A few days later I was fitted for a carbon fiber AFO (ankle-foot orthosis) brace that slides into my shoe and gives my foot enough substance that I walk with a fairly normal gait, or as normal as one walks three weeks post-hip replacement. Sadly, the brace means that I had to order shoes a size larger and wider than my already-substantial feet normally require. When they arrived I burst into tears. "It's progressive degradation!" I wailed to Husband. "Now I'm having to wear clown shoes!" I do believe Post Partum Depression might also apply to hips.

There is good news on the recovery front. A few days ago I noticed that I can lift my toes a tiny, tiny bit off the floor. And by tiny, I mean you can barely slide a sheet of paper under them, but that's progress from three weeks ago. And the nerve firing continues to be intense, and has ramped up from its original 10 decibels to about 500 decibels. (I know, I know. Pain isn't measured in decibels, but this has very much felt like something that can be heard.) Again, that's good. My (excellent) surgeon was quite sure that the nerve wasn't cut, but hip replacement is not a delicate operation and he believes the nerve was stretched.

So I am here, and healing, and getting better every day. Tomorrow (or soon) I'll write about the "normal" parts of hip replacement I've experienced and the positives, of which there have been many. 

I just wanted you to know that Winifred is installed and working great. See how beautiful she looks? 

*The surgeon did not actually use a button-and-zipper incision. That is not a thing. This is my denim skirt making its presence known in the X-ray from my post-surgery check-up. But if button-and-zipper incisions do become a thing, remember that you read about it here first!

The Newest Addition to the Family

Tim Walz's Award-Winning Tater Tot Casserole, now in my freezer

If I had told you a few decades ago that I have a new haircut, my toes are freshly pedicured, and my freezer is full of casseroles, you would have been beside yourself with excitement: The baby must be due!

Believe me when I say that I am looking forward to tomorrow with practically the same mixture of excitement, apprehension, and HOLY COW THIS IS FINALLY HAPPENING adrenaline that marked those four pre-Boy days. Throw in a similar amount of pain and reluctance to bestir myself from the recliner and you've probably guessed what's going on in the House on the Corner:

We're expecting a new hip!

This is not actually something I dreamed of when I was a little girl. Not once when we were dating did I say to my soon-to-be husband "I really, really want joint replacement some day." But here we are. And getting to this point has been a journey, as we motivational speakers say.

It began two years ago when I was seated in a low chair watching a movie with friends and stood up to discover that my right hip had handed in its resignation during the closing credits. An initial diagnosis of a groin pull (seriously?) was followed by physical therapy (ouch!) which was followed by an MRI report that began "Severe osteoarthrosis of the right hip joint is noted with diffuse cartilage

loss, marginal osteophytes, and associated severe reactive marrow changes in
the acetabulum and right femoral head." 

My medical license is expired but that did not sound good, so it was off to an orthopedist who translated: "Your hip is shot," he informed me. 

That put me on the road to hip replacement, which in this case turned out to be not a smooth superhighway but more of a Missouri state road. It was exceedingly bumpy. During the 18 months since we discovered the old hip needed to be put out of its misery, the surgery was delayed for several months while I dithered about whether things were dire enough the replacement was needed, followed by an actual date for surgery which was crossed off the calendar when my pre-surgery check-up found a glitch in my EKG which required a cardiologist work-up (everything's fine, nothing to see here, but non-emergency specialist appointments take a lot of time), then again when I decided things were going too smoothly so I tested positive for Covid between the two June weddings. Then my orthopedist had the nerve to prioritize a vacation with his family over my surgery (how DARE he?) and...well, you get the idea. 

Now the big day is almost here, and I have prepared obsessively. I have two walkers (one for upstairs, one for downstairs), a shower chair, and meditation podcasts for relaxation. Knitting projects, books, and television to binge during recuperation. Throw rugs have been removed to lessen tripping danger, the risers under the bed are gone for easier ingress and egress, and Husband has a lovely variety of frozen casseroles to heat up for dinners.

We even have taken a joint replacement class together, which reminded me that the last time a class leader referred to him as "Coach" we were in a Lamaze class. 

Most of all, I have my encouragers in place. So many loved ones who have watched me limp around with my blingy metallic blue cane are praying and cheering me on. And because I have some weird complications that most patients don't have (think idiopathic clotting issues) I'm aware that this surgery is not the run-of-the-mill standardized parts operation. During the single-digit hours of the night when I do all of my worrying, I have wondered if I should write "In Case I Don't Make It" letters to my family and friends, letting everyone know that I've lived the most wonderful life and each and every one of them has played a cherished role...and then the sun comes up and life goes on. 

I'll be fine, and if what I have been told is true, that hips boast the easiest recoveries of any joint replacements, I'll be out taking walks just in time for cool fall temperatures and changing leaves. I can't wait. 

I think I'll name it Winifred.

Not at All Smokin' Hot. No Less Delighted.

 

One of my sassier friends (Hi, A!) was a bigwig at a convention I had been scheduled to attend when we found out that Boy#4 and his Lovely Girl had chosen that weekend for their wedding. I emailed her, and laughed at her reply: "My love to you. And happy blessings on the weddings and the *smoking hot* mother of the grooms." She reminded me after my last blog post that I had promised pictures of this presumed hot-itude.

Well. 

The problems with posting pictures of oneself is that this is absolutely the most blatant, most pathetic, most eye-rollingly cringey way to force people to pay compliments. 

This is not what I'm looking for, but I get it. Ever since I entered the possibly-someday-might-be-Mother-of-the-Groom realm, weddings have focused me like a laser on what the women in the front right pew of the church were wearing. Long dresses or tea length? Blingy or subdued? Hats or no hats? If you are, or may someday be, an MoG, you want to know the how's and why's of the dress code.

This is, after all, the sole responsibility of a MoG: You must show up clothed during the wedding. (I'm ignoring, of course, the other responsibilities delineated in "Wear beige and shut up," because as if.) 

Friends, I spent more hours in the six months between engagements and weddings fretting about what I would wear to those two weddings than I did deciding what I'd wear to my own wedding. (My mother's dress. Boom. Done.) Frankly, I spent more hours fretting about this than deciding who I'd marry at my own wedding, but that's a story for another day.

The first three months I worried about dress length. Then I worried about which color. Then I worried about relative gaudiness. I spent hour after hour Googling "Mother of the Groom Dress--Long" and completely borked my social media algorithms to the point that I never saw anything but shininess and cleavage on my FaceBook ads. (Rabbit trail: Are other Mothers of the Groom as interested in let-it-all-hang-out dresses as my ads were indicating we are? Because, huh. That day has passed for most of us, sisters.)

Anyway, in March Husband decided he'd had enough of hearing me bemoan my impending nudity at two church weddings. We were heading to a weekend with the grandsons (and their keepers) in the Big City and he suggested we stop at a mall on the way. I was not a fan, since I'm famously hard to fit off the rack, but whatever. I wasn't making any progress. 

People, I married a genius! We walked out of the mall with two dresses, one that was found for me by the same saleslady who found me my dream dress for the Boy#2/Lovely Girl#2 wedding five years ago, and a second dress that practically threw itself at me after I had tried on a variety of ill-suited (So. Many. Sequins.) and ill-fitting (So. Much. Cleavage.) options. 

But did I stop fretting? Of course not. The second dress, although I thought it was beautiful, was not really compatible with the color palate of the intended wedding, so I kept looking. I ordered dress after dress to hang on the doorway to the guest room, trying them on and sighing. 

Poor Husband learned to not give an opinion even when asked. 

(Flowered Dress)

Him: "What do I think? It definitely fits the idea of the wedding theme better than the first one. Would you be able to wear a shrug or something, since I know you're uncomfortable with bare arms? It's a real possibility. What do you think?

Me: "I HATE IT!" 

(Sequined Dress) 

Him: "What do I think? Well, I think you're beautiful no matter what you wear."

Me: "I HATE IT!"

(Chiffon Dress)

Him: "What do I think?.........How about going out for supper so you don't have to cook?"

Me: "Okay."

Not counting the dozen or so dresses I tried on in the mall, our mail carrier began to routinely drop off boxes from businesses that cater to mutton dressed as lamb. Finally, a random Amazon search was the surprise answer: The wrong-colored dress I loved at the mall was available in navy blue--and navy blue was the color of the men's tuxedoes! Woohooo! 

The Mother of the Groom at the final two Weddings of the Century was definitely not smokin' hot. Clothed and appropriate would be more suitable adjectives. But I loved both dresses, and was comfortable and celebratory for hours of hugs and dozens of pictures. Worrying about how I looked did not enter into my complete delight at the occasions.

Tepid and delighted are exactly what I wanted to be.

Perfectly Different, and Perfectly the Same

So how was June for you?

The residents and former residents of the House on the Corner had an unbeatably splendid June. Over the course of 15 days, the number of Lovely Girls who have committed themselves to our Boys doubled, leaving us to post the "Out of Stock" sign in the Unmarried Sons Market.

Scheduling two weddings and one international honeymoon over the span of three weekends would seem to be the height of insanity, but, oh Dear Reader(s), this was joy not just doubled--it was tripled and quadrupled and multiplied exponentially. 

When our final son was born, a well-meaning friend looked at the fourth of our big-headed, bald, bouncing boys and laughed. "You don't have babies, you have a series of clones," she told me. Post-partum me, who had known their diverse personalities with each kick, did not appreciate that assessment. I was more than a little miffed because I knew then what I know now:

They are the same, but they are different.

All of the Boys are funny and smart and kind. They are "competitive but not particularly athletic," as one rehearsal dinner toast described them. They are sensitive and discerning, and they do not suffer fools gladly. 

Also, they are different. Our Boys include extroverts and introverts. Thick-skinned and emotions-on-the-sleeve. Decisive and deliberative. 

But they have one indisputable trait in common: They all have chosen and been chosen by extraordinary women. All four have married women who resemble each other in the best of ways--funny and smart and kind, hard-working and beautiful, competitive and discerning. They're just the same except in the many ways they are different--extroverts and introverts, quiet and more exuberant, night owls and early birds. 

The two June weddings mirrored those same-but-different couples. Both ceremonies were set in historic stone churches with late-afternoon sunlight streaming through stained glass windows. Both couples chose traditional vows and held each other's hands as they promised to love, comfort, honor and keep each other in sickness and in health. At my request, both couples made my mother's favorite hymn part of their ceremony. 

The two events, though, were reflections of each of the couples. One was a Texas-sized celebration with a glow-stick-lit banger of a dance. The other was small, intimate, and all but a handful of the guests were related to the couple. That reception featured a jazz trio and a trivia game. 

They were, in other words, personal and perfect. 

At the final rehearsal dinner the three already-wed Lovely Girls chose seats next to each other. That didn't surprise me; I am humbled and grateful that they genuinely like each other so much. I was moved to tears, though, when each, in turn, welcomed their new sister-in-law on the eve of her wedding.

They know that marrying into our clan is not for the faint of heart, that four Boys can be, well, clannish.

But just look at the pictures at top of this post. Make note of the wide smiles, and the beauty of the day, and take particular note of the joy in those faces looked at each other. Their delight lit up the rooms. It was the same at the weddings of the first two Boys.

Our Boys love and are loved by loveliest of Lovely Girls. That's the only sameness that matters.

Chiefs Victory Celebration

 

Now that we live in five different states the MomQueenBee all-clan celebrations are technology-assisted sagas--text threads with shared reactions, memes, re-tweets, links. As last night's game drew down we depleted our annual allotments of exclamation points and fireworks emojis, then exchanged video captures as all four Boys pulled out their bottle sabers to open what I am quite sure were celebratory bottles of 7-Up. 

The bottle sabers don't emerge every day: The Fours' saber has been moved a couple of times and wasn't immediately at hand so Lovely Girl#4 pulled out her high school twirling knives in order for that state to be represented in the celebration.

But when the hoopla had almost died down, Lovely Girl#1 sent the perfect benediction to the event, a three-text interaction between an almost-4-year-old and his dad.

"(Baby Wonderful#1) was awake when (One) went to check on him because of the fireworks. But also One wanted to remind BW that the win record during his lifetime isn't normal."

Then she sent the picture you see of the baby monitor that shows a loyal Chiefs fan whispering to his son, whose superhero cape is hanging next to them. 

"Then they watched fireworks out the window."

Thank You. Amen.

All of us who are mothers begin praying the moment a child is born. Whether it is to God (as I do), or to Allah, or to the universe, or to the unknown forces of nature, we ask blessings for our beloved one.

Let this child be healthy. Let this child be happy. Let this child be kind. Let this child be loved.

Let this child find someone with whom a life can be shared fully and joyfully. Please.

Allow me to introduce Lovely Girl #3, the answer to decades of this mother's prayers. 

Saturday morning it was Boy#3's turn to call and say the magic words--"LG#3 is here with me." Those have been the key opening phrase when each of the Boys have called to let us know they've become engaged, and in each case I believe I've screamed and cried and laughed. 

I had prayed so hard for this moment.

This Lovely Girl and Boy#3 had met during the pandemic so getting to know each other was not easy. Between social distancing and not living in the same city, their courtship was one that developed over time and space. They discovered they both loved travel and board games and cooking, and, eventually, each other. 

Husband and I met her as shut-down restrictions were easing but that meeting was in a park followed by masked ordering of ice cream eaten outside. And still, we drove away grinning from ear to ear. They were so clearly The One the other had been meant to find. 

But there was still one hurdle left. 

Our family is not for the faint of heart. We are loud and competitive, opinionated and unreasonably fond of puns. I admit that I was nervous before we made plans for an all-family Christmas last year. LG#3 is much like me in that she needs solitude to recharge. Would we be too much for her?

I shouldn't have worried. She may not be as noisy as many  all of the rest of us, but she's strong and compassionate and loving. She's smart and funny and thoughtful, and matches us toe-to-toe on competitiveness. She sees what needs to be done, and quietly does it. 

And she loves my son.

As I hugged her before she got in the car to leave, I whispered to her that I hoped she'd be back soon. I don't remember my exact phrasing, but I told her I felt like we'd been saving a place for her for so long and she had finally arrived. 

So when she and Three called Saturday to let us know they were engaged and are planning to be married in June or July next year, I screamed and cried and laughed. 

I had been praying for her since he was born. 

Thank You. Amen.

Welcome to Where You Already Belonged

 

Boy#4, Husband, and my Younger Younger Brother have incessantly whined about occasionally pointed out an injustice of life: Their presence in the world is not nearly as documented as those of their older siblings. 

They may have a point.

All of these wonderful men are the youngest in their families, and the youngest almost always is woefully underrepresented in non-group family photos. That was especially true in the days when those men were photogenically young, before smartphones let moms carry their cameras in their pockets. 

The beautiful brunette in today's picture could make the same complaint about my practices as a blogger. Back in the day, I introduced every Special Guest that visited the House on the Corner, making sure to ease them into an online presence bit by bit before they were engaged to one of the Boys. Thanks to my unforgivably lazy blogging practices these days, though, today there is no easing:

This is Lovely Girl#4!*

Four years ago last month we were on a dream vacation in Costa Rica. We had hoped that the entire family would be able to go, but Lovely Girl#2 was newly pregnant and Boy#3's teaching schedule made an October vacation impossible. So Boy#2 and Lovely Girl#2 joined Husband, Boy#4 and me in a trip that was equal parts Peace Corps Memory Tour and Rich Tourist Vacation. It was awesome.

What we didn't know was that the week before we left Four had gone on his second date with someone he already was suspecting would be special in his life. We talked about every possible topic on that 17-day trip--life, love, politics, career--but because he is inherently cautious he did not mention that the night before we left he had cooked dinner for this woman. In fact, it was months before he told us she existed.

Between Four's caution and Covid shut-downs, it was many more months before we met her in person, even more months before she visited the House on the Corner for the first time.

But, oh, she was worth the wait. 

I wish I had blogged those first visits because I don't remember the details. I remember loving her laugh, and being relieved that she was so easy to talk to. I remember finding out that, like Lovely Girls#1 and #2, she is smart and funny and dark-haired and her only sibling is a brother. I remember tearing up as I watched her and Boy#4 together, loving each other. 

Since then she has become part of the family. She was the activities director for the all-clan week we spent together last summer, and wrangled spreadsheets and schedules of activities appropriate for ages two to 68. She is the good humor, the huge smile, the hugger and spoiler of all of us. 

Four years is a long courtship, though. We gently, then not so gently, encouraged Four. "You know," we told him, "if you two broke up we'd miss you terribly."

Every phone call or visit home we speculated whether this would be the occasion for some kind of announcement. Spoiler: It never was.

Then two weeks ago, they FaceTimed us. They were on their way home from Costa Rica, where Four had finally carried out a romantic tropical proposal at the foot of the volcano near where I had lived more than four decades ago. As the Lovely Girl grinned and held up her be-ringed hand, I shrieked, then cried a little, then smiled and laughed until my face hurt. 

Husband was the one who summed up our feelings when he texted her later though.

"It's great you're becoming part of our family, realizing you really are already."

Welcome, Lovely Girl#4.  We've been waiting for you. 

*I know--she's the third Lovely Girl to join the family, but she is partnered to Boy#4 so she becomes #4.

The Fall

 

My father had been angry with me when I left the farm the last time. 

I had just extracted a promise that he would use his chair lift to get to his bedroom, his office, all the rooms that are inconveniently located on the second floor of his beloved farmhouse. The chair lift was installed after a hip injury a year ago, and in that year he had used it exactly twice--both times to move baskets of laundry to the second floor.

But aging, even for someone who is as amazing as my 96-year-old father, is inescapable. 

I had spent a few days with Dad, and saw that his navigation of the stairs was becoming shaky. I had watched him pause on every step to grope for the next. And I knew his cardiologist had told him he should be using that chair lift. 

"Dad, I'm going to ask you to do something hard. I want you to promise me that you'll use the chair lift," I said.

It really wasn't fair to do this. I knew Dad couldn't refuse direct requests from any of his five children, so we don't often present ultimatums. This was a promise, not a loose agreement that could be circumvented by "I'm sure she didn't mean ALL the time," or "She would want me to keep up my leg strength." But I pinned the promise down: The chair lift every single time up or down the stairs, with an extra lap at the wellness center to keep up the leg strength.

We had already seen the worst that can happen in a fall--fourteen years ago my mother fell just three steps down into the garage, but she suffered a traumatic head injury and died the next day. 

So Dad promised, but he wasn't happy. When I hugged him good-bye as I left for home later that day I told him how sorry I was that he didn't want to do this, but that I loved him. He sighed and hugged me tighter. 

"I love you, too," he said. "I'll get over it." 

I thought of that moment when the text came from my brother last Tuesday. Dad had fallen in the garage and they were on their way to the emergency room. A few hours later we knew he had broken six ribs in his back, near his spine. 

As I made the cross-state drive toward the hospital I was struck by how the landscape had changed in just the few weeks since I had last been there. Late August was still full summer, bright and glaring and hot. But now the sun is lower and fields and trees have taken on the bronzes and muted greens of fall. Road shoulders and ditches are riots of wild sunflowers, final splashes of color that are the annual gaudy announcement of imminent winter.

One week after his fall, Dad is doing shockingly well. His hospital status has moved to swing bed rather than acute care, and he surprised his physical therapist by acing several proficiency tests. He's in pain during transition (up and down from chairs, coughing) but otherwise comfortable. And he was delighted to have me with him, and had put his pique about the chair lift behind. 

Now we're talking about what kind of accommodations need to be made to be able for him to stay at home rather than in an assisted living setting. We want him to be happy and self-directed, but we want him to be safe as well.

We are in a different season.

Who? Me?

 

I have spelled my name out approximately eight gazillion ninety-eleven tantillion times in my life. 

That is probably a conservative estimate, especially for someone whose name is only about an eighth of an inch off the center line of middle-of-the-road, but believe me when I say that pretty much no one can reliably spell it correctly without my help. My first name is actually quite common but its spelling is one of two accepted variants, and if I'm being perfectly honest, probably the less common variant. I grew up with a surname with one tricky option, and married into a surname that I've seen misspelled at least a half dozen different ways. It's as if my name were Betty Davies (it's not). That's not what you think of when you hear the name spoken.

That's why I was just a tad surprised when I opened the email from the Hampton Inn Meridian at 11 p.m. Saturday night. 

"See you soon, Betty Davies!" it gushed. "Your reservation for Mar-11-2023 has been confirmed!" 

Hey! Good for them! They spelled my name exactly right!  But if you check your calendar you'll see that last Saturday was March 11, and at 11 p.m. I was in my nightgown multiple states away from Meridian, Mississippi. Also, the reservation was for two adults and two children and unless we've entered the multiple-universe world of Oscar-winning movies there was no way Husband and I would be multiple states away from the office with corporate tax deadline only four days in the future. Also, our children have pretty much passed the days of sharing hotel rooms with their parents. 

So Husband, who was (shockingly) working on a tax return in the next room, heard my shriek:

"Oh, no! My credit card has been hacked!" 

One of the best things about being married to a CPA is that he's dealt with a lot of Stuff when it comes to all things financial, so he checked my credit card online while I fretted and paced. No charges had shown up, so he called the card company to make sure.

"If the charge hasn't shown up, this is probably a phishing scam," the nice customer service rep reassured us. "Don't click on any links." 

Even though I had passed that exceedingly low test of tech savviness (no link clicking for me), I wasn't reassured.

So Husband put his phone on speaker and called the hotel number.

"Hampton Inn Meridian! How may I help you?' Husband explained to the nice lady who answered the phone that I had received a reservation confirmation, and gave her the confirmation number.

"Yes, we have that reservation, and it looks like...you're already checked in?"

That's when I shrieked the second time. 

"NO! I'm not checked in! That's me, and I'm in Kansas, and I'm not in a hotel in Mississippi!" 

The poor clerk was non-plussed. 

"But you used your credit card and checked in. And the room is paid for. And you're here." 

Husband made shushing gestures at me and began asking questions she couldn't answer. What was the home address of the people in the room? What was the credit card number?

Finally she told us that the credit card was a MasterCard, and the last four digits were XXXX, which isn't a card owned by any of us folks in the House on the Corner.

"Well," she speculated, "maybe there's just someone else out there named Betty Davies." 

I corrected her firmly.

"There's only one MomQueenBee, and that Bee is in Kansas in her nightgown at this very moment."

Bless her, the clerk told us she'd check into the issue and call us back.

An hour later she called back with the astounding news that there is someone else out there named Betty Davies, with the exact same tricky spelling variations of my first and last names. 

"I checked her ID," she told Husband, "and it definitely matches the credit card."

Well, I'll be darned. The next morning Husband handed me a stack of papers printed out from one of those internet people searchers. 

Not only does one Betty Davies live in the House on the Corner (me), another Betty Davies lives in New York, and another Betty Davies lives in Georgia, and another Betty Davies lives in Indiana, and another Betty Davies lives in New Jersey. The Betty Davies who lives in the House on the Corner (me) actually has two nearly-identical listings in this report. And the more-common spelling of the first name plus the correct spelling of the surname show up in Florida, Wisconsin, Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, South Carolina, and three places in New York.

While I was deeply relieved that my credit card was secure, at least for the moment, there was the slightest twinge of disappointment at how many other MomQueenBees are scattered across the country. I guess Margaret Mead was right: 

I am absolutely unique, just like everybody else.

The Top Half of the Photo

 

So much ketchup in my refrigerator

This post is a follow-up to one I wrote almost two weeks ago, in which I promised the rest of the story in a post "tomorrow." HAHAHA! Isn't it nice to know that in this world of constantly shifting expectations and mores, some things never change? In my defense, time is rushing so much faster as I age that I'm not sure "two weeks" and "tomorrow" aren't the same thing.

Anyway, in my last post I bemoaned (albeit bravely, don't you think?) the way our much-anticipated gathering of all of the chickadees back into the House on the Corner turned out to have some empty chairs. That part of the celebration was completely stink-o.

But go back and look at the last post and move your focus to the top half. That's the part that symbolizes how much fun we had in spite of the gaping gap left by the Covid exposure of Boy#1, Lovely Girl#1, and Baby Wonderful#1. (Also, Husband would like me to correct the last post's identification of the flu-ridden and therefore late-to-the-party parties as Boy#4 and his Dear One rather than the Boy#2 clan. This continues a 35-year-old tradition of my calling the Boys by the wrong names. So sorry!)

Anyway, I had the most amazing realization midway through our holiday week: It turns out that there comes a time in your children's lives when you don't have to entertain them. They entertain you. 

This isn't only because the crew now includes an adorable toddler who is beginning to talk and calls me Meemaw and adores Beebaw. Husband and I should have paid closer attention when friends told us we aren't in charge of choosing grandparent names, that the budding babbler would do that. Certainly I wouldn't have chosen Meemaw, which brings up mental images of a snaggle-toothed hillbilly in a rocking chair. Hearing the original "Grandma" and "Grandpa" emerge in translation from this wee one's mouth, though, is absolutely precious and endlessly endearing.

Even after the wee one had gone to bed, the entertainment didn't stop. The three Boys and their beauties organized activities to keep us together, even though a wonky hip was hobbling me. One night, for example, we spent hours doing taste tests. 

Friends, I never would have imagined how much fun this would be--like wine tastings for tee-totaling parents, without the hangovers. For two hours we dipped mini-hash browns into different brands of catsup, licked peanut butters off spoons, sipped orange juice (from concentrate and not from concentrate), and nibbled onion-and-sour-cream potato chips.

We are a family of, shall we say, strong opinions. We are brand loyal, and know deep down that our preferences are undoubtedly correct. But what do you know? If we don't have the brand names in front of us, it's a lot harder to be persnickety. After years of arguing for their personally preferred peanut butters, Boy#4 and his Dear One discovered they had top-rated the other one's brands. The moment was fraught.

Noooooo!

We disagreed on much. Some of us have palates that preferred a vinegary ketchup; others preferred it sweet. Two of us are rabid fans of the store-brand peanut butter. But we also agreed on much. "Natural" peanut butter is a crime against sandwiches. Ruffles are the finest style of potato chips and Pringles are...not. Three containers of ketchup earned their way into the refrigerator but the Great Value did not. 

And when it was over the next generation cleaned up the dozens of little plates and put the tasting spoons in the dishwasher, and generally got the kitchen ready for the next meal. Which they would cook, and that right there is another level of wonderful. 

We also spent one evening in a rousing session of Monikers, which was the perfect intergenerational game, except for the answers that made Meemaw blush just a little. 

Being the Old Folks is not always ideal. I very much regretted that the cursed wonky hip kept me from playing on the floor or taking walks with the wee one. And the one meal I did cook was not so good, with the only reliable specialty I claim (dinner rolls) falling victim to expired yeast. I would have checked that when I was younger.

But, oh, young parents, just wait. There will come a day when you are not the one responsible for the logistics or the food or the entertainment. Then you will sit back and look at your children having fun without your orchestration, and it will be the best. 

There's no comparison..

Counting the Blessings; Rolling With the Rest

 

A scroll-down representation

Today's beauty shot is the most recent one on my camera roll, and it makes me laugh ruefully. In some ways it's a scroll-down representation of the Christmas goings-on in the House on the Corner. 

As you look at it, hold your hand up to your eyes so that your fingers only reveal the serene, well-ordered reading nook that is one of my favorite parts of our newly-remodeled kitchen (the process of which I completely neglected to blog, but the results of which I love soooooo much). The nook is the ideal place to snuggle up with an afghan and a book, and to glance up often at the pictures of loved ones I've packed onto the south wall. 

Now move your hand up so that the mission chair and reading lamp are covered and all you see are bags and bags of trash, half-filled cartons of pop, a deflated air mattress, and a roaster still greasy with the remains of our holiday ham dinner. 

That was Christmas around these parts. It was a combination of perfection and wow-that-stinks. Here's where I must once more tell you young moms to hang in there. A quarter century ago I would have let the wow-that-stinks parts completely erase the good moments. It was PERFECTION OR BUST! for me, and I'm here to tell you that Christmas perfection is a myth. 

So I'll tell you the wow-that-stinks parts before anything else, because these were not inconsequential. 

When the Boys began establishing homes of their own we began sharing holidays with the families that were now theirs by marriage. Every other non-pandemic year the Boys and families are here for Christmas; every other year they're here for Thanksgiving. This was our Thanksgiving year so Husband and I spent Dec. 25 by ourselves, watching movies and eating Chinese food. The festivities would really begin Dec. 27, when the ENTIRE CLAN would begin to pile in! I restrained myself from adding an additional dozen exclamation points to that last sentence, but just know that the last time we all were gathered in the old crappy kitchen it was to announce that Baby Wonderful #2 was on his way. Baby Wonderful #2 now is within spittin' distance of turning two years old, so you can do the math. And if it wasn't exciting enough to have all the Boys home, we would also have four girls, not even counting me, for the very first time ever! 

It was so much wonderful I couldn't bear it. 

If you look back to the middle of that last paragraph, though, you will begin to see a tiny little dark cloud developing on the horizon. Are you noticing that before they were to come to their mama and daddy's house, our kids were spend time with the extended clans of their families-in-law? Unfortunately, two of those tiny little dark clouds blossomed into the cumulonimbus variety.

Boy#1, Lovely Girl #1, and Baby Wonderful #1, spent Christmas Day sitting next to a relative with a cough, and sure enough, that relative spent Boxing Day morning swabbing her nose and watching two lines appear on the rapid Covid test. Boy#2 and his Dear One spent Christmas Day with a relative who had tested positive for flu, and sure enough, soon Two was coughing up a lung and shivering with chills. There was no possibility those in Covid quarantine would be able to attend, and the flu guy would need quick bounce-back.

It was beyond disappointing. This was going to be the first time Baby Wonderful cousins were to meet, and they're now old enough to interact. It was going to be a return to normalcy, a reward for the years we've endured missed holidays and postponed celebrations. 

But while I don't want to minimize the wow-that-stinks, and I do not at all minimize the hurt that scuttled holiday plans caused this year, for me (and I am only speaking for myself) age and the pandemic have softened my need for perfection. Half a loaf is better than none, after so many years of no loaf at all. In our case we got three-quarters of a loaf: The flu guy did bounce, and was here with his Dear One for the end of the week. The Covid-exposed sidestepped the infection at home.

There were many, many moments during the past week when I found my eyes unexpectedly filling with tears of gratitude. Sitting in the New Year's Day church service in a a pew completely filled with my family. "Playing" the piano with a toddler who giggled and imitated me. Opening gifts that were so heartfelt and thoughtful. Being with grown-up children, who have chosen to love each other. 

We talked and talked and laughed and laughed, and when we waved goodbye through the fog Tuesday morning we knew again how blessed we were, even though there hadn't been a moment when the underlying "If only..." wasn't being felt.

Tomorrow, if I don't get too lazy, I'll talk about the top half of the picture. That's the one that went mostly to plan, and was everything I had hoped it would be. 

Well, except for the holiday dinner rolls, which I made using yeast which I apparently bought before the pandemic. They did not rise at. all. and wow, that stunk. But everything else? 

Perfection.

This Is Not a Political Post

I had hoped to write this post yesterday, but yesterday I was a useless bag of bones. As I had suspected, I am no longer able to work a 14-hour day then bounce back with cheerful energy the following day. 

Tuesday I did something I've wanted to do since the first time I cast a vote: I donned a pin identifying me as an official poll worker and spent the day helping voters carry out their democratic duties. And even though some of my candidates won and some did not win, I left the polling place more hopeful about the future of our democracy than I have been for some time. 

If you don't want to read through a whole slather of words (and just who has been slathering you with words while I've been on break?) here's the bottom line: 

This election crew in Small Town was absolutely dedicated to making sure every single person who showed up had a chance to vote, and that every legitimate vote was counted correctly, and that every vote count was reported scrupulously. 

And just as importantly, of the 450-plus voters for whom I checked credentials, there were exactly two persons who made a single partisan comment, and those two comments were non-threatening and non-specific. 

Friends, this was not at all what I expected. I read the news, listen to radio reports frequently, and occasionally watch commentators on television through splayed fingers. I saw the balaclava-masked armed "observers" looming over the ballot boxes in Arizona. I had been horrified by the traction gained by the Big Lie concerning the 2020 election. What was the truth?

So it was an easy decision when I was contacted about being a poll worker. My flexible, mostly-retired schedule can now afford a day off so I went through pre-election training. There I asked an innocent question: Should I bring my knitting for the lulls during the day? I remembered when my mother was a poll worker in the rural township where I grew up, which had a total of (if I'm remembering correctly) 27 registered voters. She did most of her Christmas knitting on election day. The burst of laughter let me know that this isn't the case in Small Town. 

I showed up at our 6:00 a.m. report time packing my lunch, snacks, and a day's worth of coffee. By then the senior members of the election team had set up the voting stations, but I opened the first sealed bags of ballots to get them ready for early voters. Then I was assigned to my spot as a Poll Pad judge, got a quick tutorial on the iPad-based ID verification system, and we were off and running. 

"Every voter who comes in and wants to vote will vote," we were told. If there's a problem with the registration, such a name change from the driver's license to the voter registration because of marriage, or someone is voting in the wrong location, the voter would need to fill out a provisional ballot to be counted separately. This process has the side advantage of cleaning up voter rolls--a change of address for the next election is filled out on the spot. 

Every single voter had to be identified with photo ID, and every single voter had to match name and address to the registration rolls before being given a ballot and casting a vote. 

When the polls opened at 7 a.m. voters came in like the tide, snaking through the crowd control stanchions like cranky travelers working their way to the ticket counter. The room was packed. But by 7:27 a.m. (I checked my watch) every one of those persons had been verified and moved on to voting. For the rest of the day, although traffic was steady, we never had more than a dozen or so persons in line and almost everyone moved immediately to a verification clerk. Not one person I verified was peevish or nasty. 

By the time I left the polling place at 8 p.m. I was ready to be done, but I also had a new perspective on our elections. Here are my take-aways from a day on the election frontlines:

1. People are interesting, and a driver's license is a great ice-breaker. I complimented one man's flowing beard and handlebar mustache and he pulled out his business card--as Santa Claus! Santa votes in Small Town!

2. Voters want their votes to count. Provisional ballots take slightly longer than regular ballots, but I didn't see anyone walk away from the process. (I don't guarantee this across the whole election, only what was observable from my piece of the process, but I'm fairly confident this statement holds.)

3. Election workers at our polling place are top-notch. Every vote was crucial to us, and we all wanted to be impartial irrespective of our personal views.  

4. Democracy is important, and we may yet be able to save it.

Also, I am now old and creaky and my wonky hip and knees do not like long days. But I'll be back for the next election if I'm invited. This is important work, and I want to be part of it.