Came upstairs after dinner tonight to find this happening in my room.
It's not often that one of the cats choose to snooze in what until recently was known to all pets as Ranger's territory.
But Cedric not only elected to nap on my bed; he somehow managed to tuck himself under the comforter, serene and perfect in the warm evening sunshine.
Cedric is a true prince.
In June of 2017, my husband and I flew to Ohio, loaded up a U-Haul van full of
family treasures, and drove it 2500 miles back across the country.
These are our adventures along the way.
* * * * *
Dear children of O'Neil, Nebraska,
I heard you playing yesterday. While I ate a picnic lunch under the huge old cottonwood trees in the park, you were splashing and shouting and living it up in the town pool. Teenage girls with golden tans guarded your lives while at least some of your moms sat near us and chatted in the shady park. .
Music from summers gone by played over loudspeakers at the pool. I know these are old songs from at least ten years back. But you will remember them as the soundtrack of your childhood.
Thunderheads rolled in.
A lightning bolt flashed overhead.
Both lifeguards blow their whistles at the exact same moment and all of you obediently climbed out of the pool, wrapped up in your towels.
As I packed up my picnic, I watched you.
As I drove past the front of the pool entry, I saw you slowly streaming out.
As I stopped at the gas station mini mart down the block, I watched you there too.
Girls with girls. Boys with boys.
All of you ten or eleven or twelve years old.
Still children.
And like all children, you are most certainly full of dreams for your lives to come.
But as I continued to watch, I noticed something more.
I saw the teasing.
I heard the flirty laughter.
I could feel an irresistible tension springing up between you, as you watch each other begin to change from gangly tweens to beautiful young women and handsome young men.
And in my mind's eye, I knew what is most likely to come.
I could see you pairing off.
Having sex by age 14.
Having kids by age 16.
Having your dreams cut short.
Having dead end lives in this tiny little town with nothing more to look forward to than someday dropping your own kids off at this very same pool.
So I wish with all my heart this wish for you.
Stop.
Resist.
Please do not give in to the small town trap of thinking that sex is the only answer to your dreams.
Instead, I hope that you will:
Graduate high school
Go see the world
Educate yourself
Learn who you are
Give yourself time to grow up.
And then, if you are still dreaming about that little girl with the sunburned freckles on her nose, or the skinny-chested boy who made cannonballs off the diving board, back at this very pool, then by all means reach out and tell them so.
Maybe, in the end, you'll be dropping your kids off at this same pool after all.
But I hope with all my heart that you, adorable children of O'Neil, will have first made all your dreams come true.
XO me
* * * * *
Here are all of our adventures from this summer road trip across America:
Off Again
A Journey Through The Sky In Three Stages
Cute Cat Photos
Smiling Faces
An Afternoon In Iowa In Three Stages
A Letter To The Children At The Pool
Say Hello To The Byway
Three Landmarks And A Pass On The Oregon Trail
Road Trip Realities
In June of 2017, my husband and I flew to Ohio, loaded up a U-Haul van full of
family treasures, and drove it 2500 miles back across the country.
These are our adventures along the way.
* * * * *
The past few days have been spent sorting through the last remaining treasures of my mother- and father-in-law's comfortable Ohio home. Though this has been a work in progress for the past decade and a half, and we are winding down to the last few boxes and bins, we are still turning up the occasional hidden gem. My husband's younger sister struck gold three times in a row:
^ First she stumbled upon a handful of missing links in her big bro's proverbial school photo collection. Yep, that's my husband in third grade, sixth grade, tenth grade and senior year (from left to right). Though I'm looking forward to folding these into the incomplete K-12 series we have at home, I must say they make a fun little chronology all on their own.
^ If there is anything that can beat these shots of my husband climbing into his '71 Vega, it could only be that sassy red sweater vest he's sporting over his light blue button down.
^ These are slides. Have you seen them before? Tucked inside the cardboard frames are tiny clear images that can be both projected onto a screen or reprinted as hard copy photos. My father-in-law generated hundreds of thousands of these pups in his lifetime, and while there are many that I have never seen before, these contain a special surprise. They are shots of me, taken in 1985 at a family picnic along the shores of Lake Erie. Unbeknownst to me, he loaded up his zoom lens and captured me wandering here and there around the water's edge. I can't to get them home to check them out in a bigger format, and see me through my father-in-law's eyes.
* * * * *
Certainly, there is still plenty of grief and loss to be experienced as we sort through our lost parents' possessions. But their endless love for us feels very real as we find these little traces of our smiling faces
* * * * *
Here are all of our adventures from this summer road trip across America:
Off Again
A Journey Through The Sky In Three Stages
Cute Cat Photos
Smiling Faces
An Afternoon In Iowa In Three Stages
A Letter To The Children At The Pool
Say Hello To The Byway
Three Landmarks And A Pass On The Oregon Trail
Road Trip Realities
Maeve
Clare
Cleona
Copper
Lucky
Hunter
Penny
Fallon
Flynn
Finan
Fawn
Moriah
Fern
Feather
Robin
* * * * *
My new dog came with an old name.
And while that name is a perfectly fine name, we want to give her a new name to honor her new family and her new life.
So far, we have generated a number of worthy candidates but no clear winner has yet emerged.
For now, I call her Baby or Sweetie. And as you can see, she doesn't seem to mind.
In June of 2017, my husband and I flew to Ohio, loaded up a U-Haul van full of
family treasures, and drove it 2500 miles back across the country.
These are our adventures along the way.
* * * * *
^ At 2 a.M. Seattle time and 34,000 feet, the eastern skyline explodes into new day.
^ There was a day when she was called "the Mistake on the Lake," but seen while dropping down through the clouds over sparkling Lake Erie, Cleveland looks nearly perfect.
^ Touchdown on Buckeye soil. It's a perfect Midwestern summer's day - 75 degrees with a cooling breeze and a hint of fresh green in the air.
A good day to be in Ohio.
* * * * *
Here are all of our adventures from this summer road trip across America:
Off Again
A Journey Through The Sky In Three Stages
Cute Cat Photos
Smiling Faces
An Afternoon In Iowa In Three Stages
A Letter To The Children At The Pool
Say Hello To The Byway
Three Landmarks And A Pass On The Oregon Trail
Road Trip Realities
In June of 2017, my husband and I flew to Ohio, loaded up a U-Haul van full of
family treasures, and drove it 2500 miles back across the country.
These are our adventures along the way.
* * * * *
While I'm busy in Ohio, Seattle is enjoying a patch of unseasonably warm summer days. My cats particularly enjoy the glorious weather, and Verizon has been nearly crippled by the volume of cute cat photos flooding into my phone.
Exhibit A: Sirius simultaneously rubs his back and begs for belly rubs in the back yard.
* * * * *
Here are all of our adventures from this summer road trip across America:
Off Again
A Journey Through The Sky In Three Stages
Cute Cat Photos
Smiling Faces
An Afternoon In Iowa In Three Stages
A Letter To The Children At The Pool
Say Hello To The Byway
Three Landmarks And A Pass On The Oregon Trail
Road Trip Realities
I personally would have opted for the ice cream cone distraction.
A tried-and-true solution to the road trip blues.
A successful entrepreneur who jets around the country as her hipster business explodes, this thirty-something mom was recording an Insta story from the front seat of the car.
Intentionally positioned in the shot behind her was her five-ish year old daughter. She sat still and silent as her mom continued to narrate her story.
Quick-witted and clever and no stranger to snark, the mom was making the point that her daughter was annoying her. They were on the outbound leg of a cross-country trip, and the kid had been asking, "When will we get there?"
Shocking, I know.
Mom continued to drive home her thesis with a series of pointed, unkind remarks: this kid was awful and aggravating. Yet during the video, the little girl simply sat quietly in her car seat, absorbed and thoughtful, and clearly taking in every word her mom was saying.
Ugh.
My hackles rose as I watched this scene unfold. When moms get together and privately gripe about their kids, that's bad enough. Everyone needs to blow off steam now and then, and who better to sympathize than other moms. I get that.
But when busy, working parents who travel for work finally take some time for a family vacation, and use that time to sarcastically complain that their kids are - wait for it - acting like normal kids, I'm not impressed.
So. I decided to send a direct message:
Maybe it's just me but sometimes the jokes about how your kids drive you nuts come off a little too snarky. I'm sure you are a loving mother but that doesn't always come through.
Her response chimed in within a few minutes:
That's okay! Just who I am... I love my kids, but can't change my personality.
Hmm. I resisted the temptation to fire back. But here's what I wanted to say:
Talking smack is not a personality attribute. It's a bad habit and it has no place in a loving home. I don't know what kind of Friends-driven fantasies you have about real life, but people in loving relationships don't talk to each other in put-downs and punch lines. Least of all parents who are attempting raise young children.
So why don't you take the precious time that you have with your babies and use it to show them what a loving, respectful relationship looks like. Talk to them kindly, acknowledge their emotions, and show them positive alternatives to bad habits.
Yeah, in order to accomplish that, you may have to put down your phone from time to time.
Instagram will survive for a few days without you.
