Between two places

All week long I've been moving into my new condo one car load at a time. I intended to stretch it out over two weeks, but I'm not good at in-betweens. The Rose blood in me demands all or nothing, now or never. So I was up at 7 this morning loading stuff into my car, shuttling back and forth all day. Two friends from church came by in the afternoon to move the only things I couldn't get in my car - bed, desk, couch. Made a few trips to Home Depot. One trip to Goodwill, too. Though that didn't go as planned, since I came back with a car as full as the one I arrived with. The idea is to scale down, but I just cannot resist a thrift store bargain.

Managed to get quite a bit set up around the new place and even made time for dinner and a quick walk with a new writer friend.

Tonight I sleep for the first time in my new place. I always love the first night. It's like being on vacation and being home at the same time.

Later in the week I'll post some photos and a few updates on Adventures in Home Ownership Part Deux.

Jack and Jan

My grandpa swears it happened the instant he spotted Jan on campus in her pink sweater and black skirt. Always a sucker for a classy dresser, that Jack. On one of their first dates, he took her dancing at Balboa Pavilion. In my imagination, the scene has the sepia tones of a World War II film.

Jack in his snappy sport coat and wingtips, endearing her with his unbridled laugh and calling her “Jannie Mae” though he hardly knows her well enough for a pet name.

Her flashing eyes match the near-black of her hair in the ballroom glow. She’s demure. He orders a drink and forgets about it when the band strikes the first few notes of a favorite tune. He jumps from his chair and lets out one of the loud guffaws that charges from deep in his chest when he’s truly pleased.

The bandleader has read Jack’s mind and he has no choice but to dance, though he’s not much for the contagious twirling of the era. He holds her close in a shuffle, only occasionally coinciding with the beat of the music. No matter. She’s distracted by his warm breath on her ear as he sings along. She blushes to match the sweater she wore the day he fell in love.

I wasn’t there. But I don’t have any trouble imagining my grandparents as young lovebirds. They've been like that my entire life. How do you stay so in love for 60 years? If Jack and Jan sold the answer, I’d be the heir to a tremendous fortune.

And I’d give it all away just to know their secret.

Bell Ringers

This news just in from the “Why didn’t they think of it sooner?” department:

A Charlotte high school is putting sensors in the helmets of its starting football players so they can tell how hard their noggins get conked on the field.

“Getting your bell rung” is what the players call it, and from what I hear most just consider it part of the game. For some reason, high school football coaches are just now realizing that hard smacks to the head can lead to brain injuries. . . ?

If you want to know how fragile the brain is, ask any family member of an Iraq War veteran. Or you can ask about my dad’s accident sometime. Heck, you might as well just ask Steve Young. . . didn’t his career end because of one too many bumps on the head?

Now I’m a big fan of watching a football game on a cool fall day (preferably at Cougar Stadium with a thermos full of hot chocolate!) But I really don’t know why mommas let their boys play the sport. Brains are a scary thing to play roulette on.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this Charlotte team now that players and coaches will know exactly who’s head is getting hit, and how hard. Up til now, they’ve just watched for the tell-tale loopiness that comes with a concussion. I'm curious to see if they end up pulling more players from the field or changing the way they tackle. . .

Score one for the computer science nerds!

Rainy Days and Frizz Days Always Get Me Down

By the time Tropical Storm Fay arrived in Charlotte today it had been “downgraded to a tropical depression” as the weathermen keep saying. Depressed is how I’d feel, too, if I were downgraded. And it’s precisely how I feel today in the face of growing evidence that I’m destined to look like a Q-tip for the duration of my stay in the south.

Mind you, this frizz-fest is not a result of running around in the rain. It’s a result of the mere presence of rain. Leaving home this morning, my coif was flat-ironed to perfect straightness along the front and sides. I heard the rain splashing violently outside my window but somehow convinced myself that with an umbrella, I could preserve the straight hair I slave for and covet in others.

The reality of humidity is finally sinking in. (Yes, I’m a slow study.)

I've been teasing and straightening my hopelessly frizzy follicles since 7th grade, praying that someday I would stumble on the Holy Grail of Hair and be magically transformed into Brooke Shields from the scalp up (though I wouldn't mind looking a little like the rest of her either).

Once I even had a professional salon straighten my hair with some kind of acid that left oozing boils all over my scalp. I was thrilled. Boils were a small price for the most luxurious straight hair I'd ever known. Then flat irons became fashionable and I discovered what a few minutes of very hot metal will do to curly hair (and any flesh that gets in the way).

After 34 years you’d think I’d be able to accept what God gave me. There's a lot about myself I have learned to be happy with. In the hair department, I’m still in hopeless denial.

Porch Swing

There's a perfect spot for a porch swing on my new patio and I'm now obsessed with finding one.

Dad made a swing for the front porch of our old pioneer house in Provo. It was polished pine and sturdy enough to hold three or four of us sides, crammed side by side, me stretching one leg to the ground every three or four rotations to keep us moving.

It hung from the roof of the porch and swung out over the bushes. Lean too far you’d drop into mom’s flowers. We never did it on purpose – at least not when she was watching.

Five kids and dad’s grad school income left little money for fancy toys. We pooled our imaginations to fill those long desert summer days. The swing was our pirate ship, our space shuttle. The shady crevice under the bushes next to the house – the spot you had to army crawl into on your belly – was our secret hideaway. The dumpster for the strip mall across the street was our treasure chest.

Once we found trash bags full of discarded popcorn from the movie theater in that dumpster. At the end of the night, they had to get rid of the leftovers in the machine. It was perfectly fine popcorn. Couldn’t let it go to waste. We ate until we were sick and never told mom why we weren’t in the mood for pizza at dinner.

The day we found hundreds of rolls of adding machine paper in that dumpster we thought we’d hit the jackpot. My brother convinced us that we could unspool them in a pile on the lawn and dive into them from the top of the porch stairs.

“It’ll be like diving into foam! Or hay! Or soft snow!”

Our littlest sister went first – the most daring of us. She sunk like a rock on the paper, smacking her nose on the lawn. We shushed her to keep it from getting back to mom. The rest of us went butt-first and didn’t have any better luck.

It rains that afternoon. The adding paper disintegrates into the grass. A mushy white paste, blanketing the yard like a miraculous summer snowstorm.

My excited brother calls us to the window. The rain is stopping. We’re already in the basement pulling out our sleds.

Off the Mountain

We stopped for ice cream on our drive down the mountain. I wasn't really hungry for it, but wanted to delay our reentry into Charlotte. The scoop of peanut butter fudge swirl over a gooey brownie was a shock to my system after two days hunkered down in the mountains thinking only of words.

It was my first writing retreat and it will most certainly be the first of many more. I was challenged in ways I haven't been in a very long time - if ever. I'm inspired to work harder at my creative side on the paper. If we're lucky, it'll pay off for you here in my blog.

For now one of my first endeavors at a poem since the sixth grade assignment where I a sappy rhyme about seagulls. Poetry terrifies me. Thanks to this weekend, I think maybe I'm getting over that. Be gentle in your critique.

Facing the final hours of my writing retreat

The sand is getting into my nose,
Little grits working between
My pursed lips.

I’m not ready to pull my head out
Where life can ruffle the feathers
On my face.

Me and the Bank

The bank and I are partners in crime. Condo purchase papers signed. Check delivered. Keys in hand.

And I'm off for a weekend of writing and hiking in the mountains at a place called Little Switzerland, NC. Check out the cool spot where our retreat is happening.


Monday's blues are long gone.