Mentor in training

Another memory: about ten years ago, I was eating dinner with a group of friends, mostly my age except Liz, who is about fifteen years older. My friend Ann was struggling with how to deal with an opinionated and adversarial daughter-in-law after her son's marriage a few months earlier. (We've all heard about dealing with your mother-in-law, but more and more of us are discovering how difficult children-in-law can be, yes?) 

Liz, my older friend, had kids who had been married for years, but she listened without comment while we all commiserated with Ann over how difficult her daughter-in-law was being. We encouraged her to stand up for herself, not let the young woman manipulate her, etc. We were being supportive, because that's what you do with your friends.

Finally, Ann turned to Liz and asked her if she had any advice, since she'd been dealing with this for years longer than any of the rest of us. Liz said, a little sheepishly, "I think you should let it go. You're in this for the long haul. They've been married less than a year, and she doesn't know you or trust you yet. If you make a fuss about this now, it could be years before she gives you another chance."

Which led to dead silence because of course Liz was right. Then we all started laughing, because we were so far off base in our response. Why did I think Ann needed my opinion? My kids aren't even married!

Maybe I'm making too much of this, but it keeps coming to mind when I think about being a crone/wise woman. Liz listened. She didn't jump in with her opinion. She waited until she was asked for advice. (Oh, lord, do I have a hard time with that one.) She stated her opinion and her reasoning without making it sound like she was the ultimate arbiter of the right thing to do. She was talking about a subject where she had direct experience, and she knew what she was talking about.

In other words, she was helpful instead of overbearing. I could choose a worse role model.

(as always, the names in this story have been changed)

You Light Up My Life! You Give Me Hope! to Carry On!

As you know, I was raised Evangelical, and I spent a considerable amount of energy in my twenties extricating myself. Evangelicalism (the way I experienced it) is a closed system. When you're inside, it makes perfect sense. You can build elaborate thought systems within Evangelicalism and it all works. Or maybe you never think about theology at all because everyone you know and love is in there with you, so there's no need to ask questions.

But then somehow you get a peek at what's outside (possibly because the whole edifice is starting to crack). And if your brain works like mine does, you start investigating it, because you can't not do that once you know there's more out there. And before you know it, the whole thing has fallen apart. You can't go back, because you've seen outside it, and you've realized how limited it is in there. Why would you want to go back in that claustrophobic little box?

I still know and love many Evangelicals, though, so I am never able to leave it entirely behind. Weeks will go by when I don't think about it at all, and then there will be weeks like the past month or so where everywhere I turn, I'm surrounded by Evangelicals.

Sometimes this is good--it reminds me why I love so many Evangelicals. And to be honest, I feel at home among Evangelicals. I'm pretty liberal as far as politics and theology go, but I'm a conservative person. I don't like to party and never have. I've never used recreational drugs of any kind. I can have a really foul mouth when I'm angry, but most of the time I don't swear much. I've been monogamous since I started dating Dean when I was 20. Among Evangelicals, that would be unremarkable. In a group of people who were raised in non-religious homes, I look like Debby Boone.

So it happens sometimes that I find myself hanging out in person or online with Evangelicals and enjoying it. There's no chance I'd ever go back to Evangelical theology, but it makes me remember what I miss about the kind of closeness that is fostered by hanging out with like-minded people. And I get lulled into thinking, hmmm, really we're not that different.

Until some touchy subject comes up, and then I realize, OH. OOPS. Nope, this is not working for me. NOT AT ALL. In the past month, this has happened in three different online situations I've been following-- an online bookclub and two podcasts. We're going along just great, and I'm thinking, hey! wow! this is working! And then suddenly it's not. I can still listen/read there, but I'm no longer under any illusion that my opinions would be acceptable to them.

On a slightly tangentially related topic: here is a story from my past that I remembered while I was hanging out with the Evangelicals recently. I've mentioned the Popcast before, a podcast about pop culture whose hosts Knox and Jamie are sharp and funny, and also clearly Evangelical, although they aren't preachy.

They started a discussion thread on Instagram recently about crazy things you did growing up because you thought God would want you to. Like praying for David Cassidy to be saved (although Knox and Jamie are probably too young to have any idea who David Cassidy is), or burning a book of horror stories in a sudden moment of conviction that Jesus wouldn't want you reading that stuff.

It reminded me that when I transferred from a Christian college to a secular university for my last two years of college, I destroyed my beloved cassette tape of Queen's album The Game because I thought if I had that music, I would be a bad witness for Christ.

Yes, I did.

Just wanted to get that out there, because on Friday one (or maybe two) of my Things will be about going to see the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. I don't have anything all that interesting to say, but this post is already long enough.

I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

Types, and my formative years

I think most of us around here are about my age, in our fifties, a few of us a bit younger, a few a bit older. So we spent our early, formative years in the pre-feminist era. Feminist ideas were hovering around, waiting for the match to spark the flames, but really, feminism, or at least the second wave of feminism*, didn't get started until the seventies when I was halfway through grade school and able to at least partially understand what the issues were.

So we're a funny hybrid. I can't imagine that anyone who reads here would argue against the basic ideas of feminism: outside some minor limitations of upper body strength, women can do whatever jobs men can do, if they are so inclined. Women should not be defined by their reproductive capabilities or lack thereof. Women are not here to be support staff for the important work that men are doing. We should be equally supportive of all human beings, regardless of race/gender/orientation/religion/whatever.

And yet we were raised back in the early 60s, in a world where the old ideas were still strong. Women could maybe have other interests on their own time, but really their primary job was either to be supportive of, or ornamental to, the "real" world of men. We weren't valuable on our own (which is why it was so supposedly awful to be unmarried), but only to the extent that we were helpful or pleasing to the men in our lives. And we raised children.

I was not raised to think that I could be of value just exactly as I was--a sometimes moody, sometimes dreamy, definitely shy, bookish, nerdy girl. How could that possibly be of value to the people around me? I believed that I needed to be cheerful, friendly, uncomplaining, and attractive (thin), to be of worth. I'd never even heard of being an introvert. It wasn't an option.

Whether or not that was what the people around me intended, that was what I picked up, and that was how I modeled myself. I developed a perky, enthusiastic social persona that sometimes worked, and often didn't, and that got me through my first twenty-two years of life. (Nowadays, I can tell when I'm feeling really stressed about a social situation, because I'll find myself pulling that persona out again. If you ever see me being perky, pull me aside and tell me to calm down.)

But putting on that cute, friendly act exhausted me. I still remember the night when it broke beyond repair. I don't remember the exact date, but in late August 1983, after I graduated from college, I was starting grad school for a master's in English, and I went to a meet-and-greet for the new grad students. There might even have been ice-breaker activities.

In other words, it was what I now think of as my worst nightmare. But I didn't know that then. I thought I was supposed to enjoy getting to know my fellow students. About an hour or so into it, I found myself uncontrollably on the verge of breaking into tears. I couldn't stand it for one more minute. I left early, drove myself back to my brand new apartment and cried for hours.

It was weeks, maybe months, before I could begin to understand why I was crying. But now I know: I had reached the end of being able to pull it off, the illusion that I was this eternally cheerful, outgoing person. That minor breakdown started a couple of years of deep confusion for me, culminating in my mid-twenties with the deepest depression I've ever experienced.

I ended up dropping out of grad school, and it wasn't until a couple of years later when I had a job and several months of therapy under my belt (yay for work benefits that include therapy) that I started to feel like I was putting myself back together. Or maybe putting myself together for the first time.

And it wasn't until a year after that that I learned about being an introvert.  It was like suddenly someone handed me a Get Out of Jail Free card-- I was flooded with relief. OH! THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME! I'M JUST AN INTROVERT.

And to this day, that is what I love about personality types. For me, the primary value is validation. Here you are, and you're just fine exactly the way you are. And 30+ years later, the Enneagram did the same thing for me in a different way, and that is why I am so fascinated by it at the moment.

I listened to a guy, an Enneagram "expert," on a podcast yesterday who said that the danger in using the Enneagram for validation is that it becomes an exercise in narcissism, and I thought: you only think that because you're a man. You've never needed validation. It was a judge-y and catty (and probably unfair) thing to think, but that's the first thing that popped into my head.

(It probably has less to do with gender than whether or not you're already comfortable with who you are.)

Well, this time I didn't get anywhere close to where I wanted to go. In fact, I'm even further away than I was at the end of the last post. But this is plenty long enough. Have a great day.

* the feminism that swept the country in the seventies is called "second wave" feminism. The first wave was the suffragettes back in the early twentieth century. And the third wave is where we are now, with a plurality of different ways to be empowered human beings.  

Kitchen sink, because this post has a little bit of everything

1. You know how sometimes you run across a random object and you get practically knocked flat by memories and nostalgia? This week it happened to me with a box of hot chocolate packets. Since we live in the land of eight months of winter, when the kids were younger, I could not keep enough hot chocolate in the house. Every time they came in from sledding or skiing or even just school, they wanted hot chocolate. Even in high school they would dump a packet into their coffee. So whenever it was on sale, I bought a bunch. And of course you don't learn to buy less stuff when the kids are gone until suddenly it starts to pile up. I ran across a stash of three boxes of hot chocolate mix this week and it brought those days back so sharply it took my breath away.

2. I feel like I'm figuring some things out (finally) and I have to confess that the instigator of the positive changes I'm making is understanding more about my personality type. I know I keep harping on this, but it really has been helpful. The Enneagram thing-- I am enneagram #5, the Observer type-- has been the missing piece that has helped me put some things together. (for more posts about personality types, try the second half of this post and the first half of this one and this one. that's not even all of them.)

I still don't have my enneagram book, but the gist of what it said for number fives is that an observer's main area of growth is learning to break out of observer mode and participate to create the life you want. Obvious, right? But in a way, it was news to me-- I mean, of course if you had asked me I would have known that you need to participate in life, but I hadn't put that together with my natural reluctance to move out of my comfort zone, which is observing and analyzing.

3. The specific wording was something to the effect of "Fives naturally feel that they need to protect their inner resources by maintaining their distances as observers, but they need to understand that if they move out of their observer stance, there are resources and energy that will rise to meet them." The first time I read that, I stared blankly at the page and thought, "there are??? really? how come no one told me this?" So that's what started this latest round of positive growth. I may be almost 57, damn it, but I can still learn new things.

4. Example. Years ago, I was in a women's group that would pick a book and read through it together. We met weekly, and part of the meeting was check-in time, when each of us gave a brief summary of how we were doing. One of the reasons I immediately resonated with the type of Observer is because in situations like this, I always prefer to listen to everyone else rather than take my turn. I don't feel like I have anything to add-- not in a pathetic way, I just would rather listen than talk (until something sets me off and then you can't get me to shut up). So I always ended up going last, because really I didn't want to say anything at all.

At some point after many months of this, one of the women said to me that she thought it was unfair of me to always wait until last to take my turn as if I thought I was more important than everyone else. I was speechless, since she had so completely mis-read what was going on in my head. I don't remember what I replied, but I probably totally blew it because I didn't know what to say.

5. Now that I have a better understanding of being an introvert and an observer and a thinker (as opposed to a feeler) and an obliger, I have a better way of understanding the dynamics of what is happening in group situations like that. Although I still probably wouldn't know what to say to that woman (who actually stopped speaking to me and dropped out of the group shortly thereafter)(that's how I know I blew it). So I've been working on better ways to be part of a group, but it's hard for me to break out of the role of observer. Work in progress. But at least I understand better what is going on now.

6. OK, I goofed up. On Friday I told you about my sous-vide cooking adventures, and I told you perfectly cooked chicken breasts register 140 degrees, but I was wrong-- it's 150. And the package of chicken breasts I opened tonight said quite prominently on the label "Cook thoroughly to 165 for safety." So, use your own judgment. I'm still doing 150 because they turn out just right. If I die of salmonella poisoning, you'll know why.

Apologies to those of you who are email subscribed (as far as I know, I have no way to tell who you are), but I had to go back and fix that, and it took two tries. Also I forgot to tell you that sous-vide is pronounced "soo-veed." So now you know.

7. And I did not even come close to finishing my mini reading challenge-- I did finish Calypso, so I made it through four books, but then the boys came home a day early and I didn't finish the fifth one until yesterday.

This was supposed to be short because I didn't start it until 11:15pm on Monday night but it ended up long. I'm hopelessly wordy. Have a great day.

7ToF: the small screen, the fox, and the always looming pot luck disaster

1. The TV is frequently on at our house, but I would still say we are not big TV watchers. (And fwiw, when no one's watching it, it's off. There are few things that irritate me more than having the TV on in the background when no one is watching it.) About half the time, we watch sports, or one of MadMax's outdoors shows. (You would not believe the obscure outdoors skills that have entire series devoted to them.) Also, there are two shows set to record on the DVR (Modern Family and Big Bang Theory). But we're not really addicted to those-- if we miss them, or don't watch for several weeks, I don't even think about them. Also, there were brief periods early on when we were addicted to Downton Abbey and Arrested Development, but I lost interest after a season or two. And that's about it.

2. I'm not opposed to TV by any means. We have in the distant past been absolutely devoted to various shows-- a couple of iterations of Star Trek, Moonlighting, Northern Exposure, Lois and Clark, and there was some obscure detective show that came to its end when one of the stars shot himself with a prop gun and died-- I can't even remember the name of it. (see I told you, a really long time ago. the most recent one of those was mid-90s.)

3. But for some reason we haven't been immersed in a TV show in a long time. There are so many shows I've heard are good that I've never ever seen: Scandal, The Good Wife, Parenthood,The Gilmore Girls, Friday Night Lights, West Wing, Alien, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.... (After finding this list, I could go on and on.) I actually like the idea of binge watching seven seasons of a show in a weekend, but on the rare occasion when there is a weekend we could do it, for some reason we never do.

4. So it occurred to me recently, the last time I was really addicted to a show was for the most part before we had kids. So.... maybe this is something that will return when we are empty nesters. Maybe we will spend every weekend binge watching TV shows until we are all caught up. It could happen. Let me know if you have any likely candidates.

Now that we've exhausted that topic.... moving on.....

5. We have seven chickens, and we have a fox. Seriously. Dean saw him/her waltzing across the driveway as he was leaving for work recently, and MadMax and I watched her/him make her way across our neighbor's yard last week. Our neighbors who live in full view of the field-next-door can see the fox family in their den. How can this be? Why aren't our chickens disappearing to feed little foxlets? We do shut our ladies in at night, but they wander around all day. My favorite theory: I think Ms. Fox tried one time (we do have one chicken that mysteriously developed a permanent limp), and our little flock ganged up on her and fought her off. You go, girls.

6. Just so you know I did it, here is the First Folio. I have to confess it's a little underwhelming in person. You enter a darkened room, with several spotlighted poster boards of information about Shakespeare and the folio, and in the dark at the far end of the room is a glass case with a 400-year-old book in it. It can't be exposed to light. It's cool to see it, but to be entirely honest, the workshops I attended on teaching Shakespeare were much more interesting.

7. I took an enormous pan of chili mac to the band banquet/potluck this week. Every time I carry a big dish of food into a potluck, I go right back to a bad moment from college. Sophomore year, my friend Angela (named changed to protect the innocent) was taking an upper level Spanish class. Her final project for the class was to cook an authentic meal from (some-spanish-speaking-region I can no longer remember). She cooked all day. There were several dishes, so she asked me to help her carry them from the kitchen to the classroom (I wasn't in the class, she just needed help transporting the food). I grabbed the main dish, I think it was in a crock pot, and off we went. About halfway there, I dropped the entire thing. Yes, I did. Her final project, which was to be graded, and which could absolutely not be reproduced with a magic wand, dumped right there on the linoleum. *buries face in hands*

Ever resourceful, Angela saw that the food was mounded up on the floor, so she scooped up the part that wasn't touching the floor, dumped it back in the pot, and off we went. I was so utterly ashamed and embarrassed that I have no memory of what happened next. Did I go back and clean up the mess? Did anyone get food poisoning? Did she pass the class? I have no memory, except I remember it ever single freaking time I carry a heavy dish of food.

Surprisingly, she still speaks to me, and in fact, it's possible she will tell her side of the story in the comments. :-)

There you go. Have a great holiday weekend, and for God's sake, if you're going to a potluck, carry the food carefully.

P.S. As several of you who read here will remember, our wedding was Memorial Day weekend thirty-two years ago. Happy anniversary to us!

7ToF: the world's gonna wake up and see / Baltimore and me

1. Since I seem to have lost my enthusiasm for fiction these days, I've been reading memoirs. There are so many good ones out there you could read forever and not run out. When I get to the end of my current TBR list, I'll pass along the best ones. If you've got any recommendations, let me know. My favorite so far is Indian Creek Chronicles by Pete Fromm, the story of the winter he spent 40 miles from a paved road babysitting a couple million salmon eggs. Or maybe Upstairs at the White House, written by the guy who was the chief usher at the White House from Roosevelt to Nixon.

2. Some of you may remember my stories from back in the 90s when I was involved in several women's circles that were exploring feminist spirituality (this post, for example). It's a phase of my life that I'm not really planning on revisiting, but there was some genuine searching going on, and I loved those women and our group meetings. One of the things I loved most was the smell. You would walk in and there was this spicy scent, maybe a little bit of sandalwood, a little patchouli, a little cinnamon, but I could never find it when I was standing in front of the incense section of our tiny new age store. I looked for it off and on for years.

3. A couple of days before we left on our trip, I was wandering around our local beauty supply store looking for sample sizes of various toiletries for our travels. I've heard about Kenra hairspray for a long time--in my mind it's the original fancy, expensive hairspray, and I've heard many women swear by it-- but I'd never tried it because it's so expensive. But it was on sale, and the trial size was $7, so I thought what the hell, and bought it. I pulled it out of my bag in Mexico and sprayed it on, and OMG, there was that scent. The smell of 90s New Age feminism that I'd been looking for all those years was hairspray. Made my week.

(for the record, it doesn't work as well as the cheaper stuff I get at Target, but it does smell better.)

The rest of these are my Weight Watchers update, move on all ye who are not interested.

4. So, Weight Watchers. Still doing it, still working, although slowly. I can't tell you how happy I am about this. Other than post-pregnancy, I've never successfully lost more than about three pounds in my life. I only joined WW as a last-ditch effort, one final thing to try before I gave up and moved on to size 16. But after the first couple of weeks (which were admittedly awful), it hasn't been bad, and it's working. I've been losing a half a pound to a couple of pounds a week for three months now (with, admittedly, the occasional week where I go up a half pound). I'm more than halfway to my goal.

5. The main thing I've learned is that I eat too much. I live with two athletes, guys who can eat massive amounts of food without gaining weight, because they exercise like crazy-- Dean is a runner/skier/tennis player/hiker/biker, MadMax is a skier/lifter/thrower. I never ate anywhere close to as much as they did, so I didn't think I ate all that much. But once my body adjusted to the new way of eating, I realized that I was eating way less than I had been before and not really feeling hungry.

6. My one big complaint about the program is --and I think this is probably true of most diet programs-- it's really easy to start seeing food as the enemy. That's not built into the program-- you can eat whatever you want on WW, as long as you account for it in your points. But there's certainly a flavor of that in some of the conversations that happen at meetings.

I'm not going there. Food is not the enemy. I don't want to get to the point where I can't enjoy food, where I panic at the idea of gaining a pound or two on vacation, or can't eat a piece of my own birthday cake, or feel bad about having a margarita with my friends. For all of human history, food has been part of human celebrations, part of the joy of socializing with people you love, part of the celebration of being on a bountiful planet with amazing resources. I need to lose some weight, but I don't ever want to get to the point where I can't enjoy good food. I just needed to cut out the crap, eat nutrient dense food, and stop stuffing myself (which I didn't even know I was doing, see #5.)

7. I'm getting up on a soapbox here, but I really think this is important. I think it's why so many of the people who were so vocally enthusiastic about the program back in January are no longer there. If you deny yourself, deny yourself, deny yourself, eventually you're going to binge and/or quit. On the other hand, if I eat healthy most of the time, I seem to do just fine if I have the occasional bowl of ice cream, or a piece of bread out of the bread basket at a good restaurant (my theory on bread-- if it's good, and fresh, I'm eating it. It's the boring, supermarket stuff I can live without).

Word geek extra: Google tells me "eat healthy" is now considered correct, even though "healthy" is an adjective and it's being used as an adverb. I know I'm not the only grammar goddess around here, so I'm feeling a bit defensive. I did have "eat healthily" in the previous paragraph, but changed it because The Google says it's OK. :-)

So, packing up my soapbox.... Sorry to rant at you. Have a great weekend, and celebrate spring with some good food. And a margarita.

the case of the disputed sofa. or couch. whichever.

About twenty years ago Doug and I decided we needed new living room furniture. We'd been making do for years with a sofa and loveseat that we'd inherited from my parents. I really loved the look of it, but it was literally falling apart. If you put any pressure on the arm of the sofa, it came off.

One thing I learned early on with Doug is that although he is not as opposed to shopping as some people, he does not want to go to every furniture store in town to make sure that the furniture we end up with is the absolute best option in our price range. That's my style of shopping. I shop fast--I can tell within five minutes of walking in a store whether or not I need to stay and look harder--but for a major purchase, I need to be sure we're getting The Right One.

So I pre-shopped. I spent a couple of afternoons going around to every furniture store within reach (which involved a fair amount of driving, because furniture stores aren't exactly thick on the ground around here). I narrowed it down to two choices and took Doug with me to decide. The two choices just happened to be at a store in another town, so it was a bit of a production to find an afternoon he was free, make the drive, entertain our five-year-old, etc etc.

We arrived at the store, and --in a move that would not surprise me now, after thirty years of marriage, but did at that point-- Doug didn't like either one of the sofas I had picked. The sofa he wanted was that one, over there. Which I didn't really like.

We whispered and hissed at each other and made no progress. We decided to take a break and go get something to eat, then returned to the store still without a decision. I finally agreed that we could go with that sofa if we could get different fabric. But that was a special order and a special order was going to cost a bunch more and take six weeks. And we had come all that way, and for some reason I felt like we needed to buy something that day.

So I caved. We bought the sofa I didn't like. I was pissed about that sofa for years. I am not exaggerating. We ended up in marriage counseling a few years later and it was one of the first things I brought up.

The counselor said something that seems so obvious in retrospect that I can't believe I didn't know this, but I didn't: if you're at loggerheads, keep going. If we couldn't find a sofa we both liked at that store, it was time to go to another store. Sometimes you have to make a decision right that minute, but usually decisions aren't that urgent.

The other thing I learned from that marriage counselor is that caving in is never a good idea if you can't do it gracefully. If you're going to be angry and smoldering with resentment--and I was; I'm embarrassed to admit I could be that petty over a piece of furniture, but believe me, I was-- it's not worth it. Better to keep arguing (oops, I mean discussing) than to give in and seethe.

That was complete and utter news to me. I had been raised to keep the peace, and I'm a middle child, so if there's any truth to the birth order stuff, I'm a peacemaker by nature. It had never occurred to me that sometimes you should keep arguing (oops, I mean discussing). Never crossed my mind. Of course you have to argue/discuss/fight fairly and use good communication techniques, but still: you keep disagreeing until you figure out a way to resolve the disagreement. Or else you just keep disagreeing without pretending you agree.

So there's my bit of marital wisdom for today. I only have two further things to say about this story. One, I'm not sure why I'm telling you this because just about everyone I know who reads here has been married or together as long as we have and you probably learned this a long time ago. It's just what came to mind when I was thinking of a topic this morning.

Two, what is the difference between a couch and a sofa? I thought maybe it was regional--I've lived enough different places that I can no longer keep track of who says what where. But according to everything I found, sofa and couch are exactly interchangeable everywhere in the US, although I did find one article that argued that a sofa is slightly more formal than a couch. Arbitrarily I went with sofa, although there's nothing formal about our house.

That's all. The cruise was fun, and I had a great time with my mom. I'll tell you more about it on Friday.

blonde and proud

After not writing a new "real" post in almost a month, I had several ideas for this week's Tuesday blog post. But they were all about ISSUES, and I'm sure that you (like me) are sick of hearing about ISSUES. So I will tell you a story instead.

A couple of times a year, I round up various tchotchkes and run them through the dishwasher--the green glass bottles I use as bookends, a cup and saucer from my grandmother's dishes, a decorative plate my mother-in-law brought us from France, etc. They get cleaned up shiny and new without me having to dust. Because HOUSEWORK. 

So this afternoon I decided to do that and breezed around the house gathering stuff. Loaded it all in the dishwasher and fired it up. A couple of hours later, I came back to unload and saw this when I opened the door: 

ewwwww! what is that???

I had no idea why a sticky, semi-solid brown substance was coating the floor of the dishwasher. It was nasty, though.

Then I started pulling things out of the dishwasher and they were all coated with this weird, gummy substance. I was starting to get seriously grossed out because it was icky and it was all over everything.  

Had there been some weird food thing still stuck to one of the dishes?? had the coating melted off the brown utensil holder I almost never wash?? what in the world would do this??

Then I found this:

Seriously, HOW DID ONE OF THE DOGS CRAP IN THE DISHWASHER? I was so grossed out I could hardly bring myself to touch it.

Except then I noticed IT HAD A LABEL. A Crate and Barrel label. And it was suspiciously solid. And then it dawned on me that I had PUT A CANDLE in the dishwasher. 

A brown candle. A candle shaped like a pine cone that had dust in between the pine cone bits, because how in the world was I going to get it clean? why, put it in the dishwasher, of course. LIGHT BULB! I even remembered to put it on the top shelf! Because if I put it in the bottom rack, it would MELT!

Seriously, y'all. Dumbest blonde moment ever. I pulled out the, um, turd-like object and ran the dishwasher again just to see if the mess would disappear so I could pretend this never happened. The wax does seem to have melted off all the dishes, but that waxy brown coating on the floor of the machine? Apparently that's going to have to be scrubbed off by hand.

Oh, yeah. A frickin' genius, that's me.

quien es mas moral?

A couple of years ago when I went to visit my mom in Texas, I went with her to her Sunday School class at her Southern Baptist church. There were about 40 people in the class, mostly retirement-age couples. The guy who taught the class was obviously a very intelligent man, with interesting things to say. I even found myself jotting down notes for a couple of possible blog posts.

But when he was almost done, he said something that caused me to stare in disbelief. He said (probably not an exact quote): "It's a good thing I'm a Christian, because if it weren't for the fear of eternal damnation, you better believe I'd be out there sleeping with every beautiful woman I could find."

I'm not making that up. He might have meant it as a joke, because it got a laugh out of the audience, although in my memory, it was mainly male laughter.

But I was shocked. First of all, the guy is delusional. The number of beautiful women out there holding their breath waiting for the chance to jump him as soon as he decides to cheat on his wife? Probably zip.

But putting that aside, he couldn't be bothered to be faithful to his wife out of loyalty? out of commitment to their lengthy marriage? or, geeze, let me think here....because he loves her? The only thing that is keeping him from hopping in the sack with the first willing babe he could find is fear of hellfire?

The whole idea is so screwed up that it still ticks me off two years later. His wife was sitting right there in the front row. Lesson One in how not to humiliate your wife: don't publicly announce that the only reason you're faithful to her is because otherwise you're afraid you'd burn in hell.

You can probably see where I'm going with this. In yesterday's post, we had Dan Savage and the Savage Love community, addressing some pretty outrageous situations, yet doing their best to make ethical decisions based on fairness and respect. Mr. Sunday School Teacher would undoubtedly consider Dan Savage to be an immoral pervert, yet he is basing his ethical decisions on fear and questionable theology, and in the process embarrassing his wife half to death.

Which one would you go to for advice?

Mini-beers, donuts, and trust

I was raised Southern Baptist. Unlike some Southern Baptists, my parents were never strict teetotalers, by which I mean that you could occasionally catch them at a dinner party self-consciously holding a glass of wine. There was rarely any alcohol in our house, though, and I don't ever remember them serving it to guests.

Ha—that reminds me of a story. One of the moments when I was most embarrassed by my parents, in the way only a snotty recent college grad can be, was the weekend of our wedding back in 1984. My parents had invited the wedding party and various family friends over for a barbecue.

I gingerly approached them about serving beer at the barbecue. I wouldn’t have been too upset if they had said no—because what a great story to tell to the amusement of the groomsmen, none of whom were raised in the Bible Belt—but to my surprise, they said they were OK with it, and my dad even drove twenty miles or so out of our dry county to a liquor store to buy some beer.

He came back with mini-beers.

8 oz cans of beer--do they even make these anymore?

I think they were called ponies. Now, a pony is a half-keg, but back then a pony was a half-size can of beer, probably eight ounces. They looked like little toy beers. Dean and the groomsmen--like most college students--had plenty of experience with beer. They were so bemused by those little cans they hardly drank any of it, and my parents were left with a couple dozen mini-beers that they probably eventually threw out or gave to the neighbors. Who knows, I never asked.

Anyway. The point is, my parents never drank much alcohol. Behind that was a deeply, deeply embedded suspicion of the addictive properties of alcohol. Sure, it was OK to have a couple of drinks a year, but more than that and you would inevitably find yourself sliding down the slippery slope into alcoholism, unable to hold a job, stay married, or take care of your children, etc etc etc. And that exact sequence of events occurs often enough that their opinion was never really challenged.

Once I grew up and left home, I quickly got over that when I discovered the joy of an ice cold beer after a hot, sticky company softball game. Then I discovered the value of a pitcher of margaritas shared with girlfriends, or a slowly sipped shot of Grey Goose, or a microbrew with pizza, or any of a number of other harmless occasional uses of alcohol.

But that said, I’ve never been much of a drinker. I could count on one hand the number of times that I’ve finished two drinks in one night. And I rarely have more than half a dozen drinks in a month. I just don’t think about it. So I’ve never really challenged my own inherited fear that if I let myself break my own loose rules—only drink at night, only have one—I will inevitably turn into an alcoholic.

This is turning into a long story. Sorry about that.

About a month ago, I came home from the second or third meeting of my noontime Ulysses reading group, and I was so stressed (for many reasons, but if I explain I'll get way off track) that I couldn't figure out how to de-stress. Suddenly it occurred to me: I am 53. I am a fully functioning adult. I can have a drink to relax.

Oh, boy, another part of me thought. Here I am at the top of the slippery slope. If I do this, I’m on my way to being one of those housewives that is drunk and disheveled in the middle of the day. But I did it anyway. I fixed myself a drink, and sat down in front of the window and watched it snow while I drank it.

And you know what happened? Well, that day, it made me sleepy and I took a nap. But long term, you know what happened? Nothing. In fact, about two weeks later, I suddenly remembered that I had done that and hadn’t given it a thought since.

Huh, I thought. Well, that’s interesting. I guess I don’t have an addictive personality. Which may seem like no big deal if you grew up in a family where drinking was no big deal, but to me, it was like this cascade of calcified assumptions dissolved away in a matter of minutes—assumptions about alcohol, about people who drink, about what would happen to me if I cut loose in the middle of the day like a crazy person.

I had a similar experience during Lent when I let myself eat whatever I wanted for a few weeks. A couple of times I decided I wanted old-fashioned donuts, so I’d go out and buy half a dozen. Then I’d get them home, and I’d eat three of them. Three donuts is still plenty decadent, but you know--I didn’t eat all six. I wasn’t even tempted to.

What I discovered is that if I trust myself, I can trust myself. The old-fashioned donuts were totally awesome—especially if I drive all the way down to the grocery store south of town where they make them from scratch—but they’re not something I want every day. In fact, after letting myself “gorge” on donuts twice during Lent, I may not eat another one for months.

Which is making me question some deeply held fears I have about myself and food. For years now, I’ve approached food as an enemy. If I give in, if I let myself eat what I want, I will blimp out. I will never stop eating. I will eat until I’m sick. But what I discovered was the opposite. If I give myself permission to eat what I want to eat, I usually make pretty good choices. Once I ate my way through the inevitable overblown reaction to deprivation (which took about three weeks), I discovered that I can pretty much trust myself when it comes to choosing foods. And that's a good thing to know.