You know how when you’re under 30 and you have a pretty good idea about what your life will look like and what it won’t look like? What you will look like and won’t look like?

Regarding those little things in life: I was going to wear make-up every day and my hair would look good. I would wear clothes that matched. Wearing slippers in the middle of the day hadn’t occurred to me, and if it had I would have scoffed. I would maintain self-discipline and be healthy.

I started strong. I used to do a pretty impressive set of calisthenics every morning when I woke up and every evening before I went to bed. I had energy! I was slim! I could run 5 miles with only a little spitting!

But then, well, you know how it goes. Earlier this year I pulled a back muscle that had been taxed over the years with sporadic heavy lifting and shoveling. This time it led to back spasms and middle of the night deliberations on whether inhaling or turning was worth the price.

I can’t complain. After all, as I write, my mother is sitting in my living room in a back brace (for her compression fracture) watching Dr. Phil.

However, something needs to be done before I end up like the dear one in my living room. Don’t you think we should make the effort to be strong? To strengthen the weak? Lift up the fallen? I’m sure Jesus wants it of us. Those kinds of thoughts drifted through my mind as I lay on my back on a Pilates reform bar trying to see if the trainer was kidding when she said to put my feet into two small black cuffs. It was enough of a challenge to remember whether I was supposed to breathe out or in. The cuffs weren’t by my feet. They weren’t even by my knees. They were above my head. Above my head. 

I managed to do it (applause here). Apparently not as well as I thought, because we didn’t continue that exercise very long.

They say that the benefits of Yoga include better spatial memory, but I’m not a Hindu and I can remember where I put my car keys. Pilates, though? I really did like my free consultation. The lady was very nice to me and laughed only once. It was when I said “Good luck to me” just before the cuff effort. I might go back. I’ll keep you posted. I’ll tell you one thing, though. It’s easier to breathe when you’re driving home.

Image: smiling winter girl, public domain

I recall a time years ago when my mother remarked about someone who wasted his time just gazing into a fish tank, talking to the fish. It wasn’t a comment of admiration. Enter Chub Chub.

My son’s university biology class offered its goldfish to whichever college students wanted them. At Easter, he brought his college-educated fish home until such time as he can offer it more luxurious accommodations than a cramped dorm room.

Little Chub Chub was apparently highly influenced by his initial surroundings. He doesn’t seem content to just swim around as I would think fish the wide world over do. Perhaps he grew used to the noise and conversation of a college class or the activity of a dorm room, because whenever someone enters the room, he rushes over to the front of the fish bowl, looks like he’s reciting Ronald Reagan’s “Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate” with great gusto, and dances up a storm. I can’t believe I’m saying this. Yes, I’ve begun talking to the fish. Honestly, it seems rude not to.

I happened to mention it to my mother the other day, knowing what was coming. Even though she is currently laid up with a compression fracture, even though she very recently lost her husband of 64 years, even though there is not much joy in Mudville just now, she managed to convey a degree of disdain and long-suffering that held in it a number of the unspoken thoughts of someone who, frankly, has a right at this point in life to have. She’s right, of course. But . . .

Oh Chub Chub. If only you weren’t so highly animated I could ignore you. However, on one point, let me be clear. No matter how much I admired Reagan, I will not “tear down this wall”. After all, conversation between species notwithstanding, there are some lines that cannot be crossed.

Image: By Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons; reference: Casey At The Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer; reference: Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin by Ronald Reagan, June 12, 1987.

A thoughtful driver waved me ahead this week. Other than the fact that I was turning left and she was going straight and we were both in the middle of Hennepin Avenue without a stop sign in sight, I would have been glad for such a kind gesture.

I’ve silently ranted about this issue for a couple of years now, but it’s only getting worse. What issue? Rules. In this instance, rules of the road. As far as I know, the person going straight goes first (unless it’s a four-way stop, but let’s not muddy the waters just now). A person making a right turn makes that turn unless the person opposite him has a green arrow, and then he needs to wait. Left is last. Left is always last.

But in the past several years, I cannot tell you the number of times a person opposite me at an intersection and going straight has waved me ahead when I’m turning left. This has happened with little cars and big cars and, yes, even a school bus.

The problem with an apparent lack of rules or rule-following or even knowledge of rules is that it leads to confusion. At intersections. And in life. If we don’t follow very basic rules or even know about them, we leave ourselves vulnerable to crashes. Some will be just fender benders, but others will have considerable consequences.

Being lackadaisical about very simple things; calling something by its proper name, using end punctuation, being honest about what happens when we add and subtract, following the rules of the road, staying on pitch if it’s at all within our power (okay, never mind about that last one – that’s just me rambling) eventually leads to a state of affairs where no one understands anyone else and logic is impotent because no one uses it. It reminds me of the Hindu teaching that all roads lead to heaven. They don’t.

So if you should see me at an intersection, I promise you that if I am going straight I expect to go first. If I am turning left, I will wait for you to go first. Let’s get out those basic building blocks of society so the road we travel is a safe one.

Image: httpspixabay.comenbuilding-blocks-toys-play-abc-123-397143-public-domain.jpg

I recently was a guest blogger on my fellow author, Teresa Pollard’s blog, “Teresa Talks Taboo”, where she addresses touchy topics. I wrote about gun control. Let me know what you think!

TABOO TUESDAY TOPIC: Gun Control

“I wanted to protect you.”

That’s what my husband answered when I asked him why he insisted on going as we crawled into bed at 3:15 a.m. after a very long trip to get one of the kids back to his university after Christmas break. (His car’s transmission chose Christmas break as the time to hand in its resignation.)

Instead of making the trip by myself on Thursday with maybe a layover until the return trip on Friday, we made the whole thing on the day some touchy weather hit. A trip including a bit of snow, slippery roads, numerous cars in the ditch, and a very exciting episode of a big, beautiful truck right in front of us spinning every which way made for a longer than anticipated drive. You want to know about the truck? I was the driver at the time, and after it had come to a rather breath-taking stop, and I had avoided even a hint of a connection between our two vehicles and driven around it as it faced sideways, there was a traumatized silence in the car from my husband and son. I pumped my fist and yelled “Yea, Mom!”. Motherhood has taught me that sometimes you have to thank yourself if others near and dear are slow to do so.

I’ve been thinking about my husband’s answer (given by someone who in the dead of night, despite loud tromping sounds and glass shattering would insist it was only the wind) and have concluded that definitions from the dictionary aren’t necessarily the ones we use in real life.

Who was the prince who fought through the briars to get to his princess? Was it the guy in Sleeping Beauty? Raise your hand if that’s been your experience. However, all my life I’ve watched my dad pull the car up to the door of wherever my parents happened to be, and go around to open the car door for my mom. All my life I’ve watched this. Even when I started filling the role of chauffeur and my dad had to resort to using a walker, he’d still pull the car door open for my mom, one hand on the walker and one on the door. That’s kind of a princely thing to do, isn’t it?

What about the prince in your life who keeps your gas tank filled (no, really, I’ve heard of that happening), or carries your very heavy sleeping toddler as you walk through the mall, or mows the lawn after a long day at work? I heard of a guy who was too exhausted to keep driving and pulled into the rest area so his wife could take the wheel. He instantly fell asleep, his tired wife drove around the rest area, woke him up and told him it was his turn again. And when, miles down the road, what she’d done finally dawned on him, he didn’t blink – he just kept driving. Just to be clear – it wasn’t me. Do you think a fellow with a farmer’s tan who keeps going despite his own exhaustion is in truth more of a prince than the animated hero of great fairy tales?

I very often feel like a princess. Her name was Cinderella before she had those glass slippers. The castle where you live might not have servants. It probably doesn’t have servants. Okay, it doesn’t have servants. But there’s something to be said for good intentions and doing what we can despite not having a white horse or ball gown.

Often the protective thing to do is to be there just in case. Thanks for protecting me, honey. You’re a prince!

Image: en.wikipedia.org Cinderella_1950_Disney”Cinderella 1950 Disney” by Walt Disney – Original Trailer (1950). Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cinderella_1950_Disney.jpg#/media/File:Cinderella_1950_Disney.jpg

“How’s your blob?” This, from my dear mother (aka Jean the Queen) who’s idea of writing has to do with a pen and a lovely card or letter which she writes and sends to various fortunate people in her life. A blog, a book, a letter: who’s to say which is better?

“It’s called a blog, Mom.”

“What?”

“A blog.”

“So have you been blobbing?”

Sigh. (Are you really not hearing me or are you amusing yourself?)

This, part of a recent conversation with my mother about the various activities in our lives. The year has been full, and sometimes things get pushed aside in order to make room for other things.

My cousin tried to warn me. When I started this blog (see first post here: https://www.myfiresidechat.com/2013/10/29/treasure/ ), he cryptically said, “It’s like buying a cat. You have to feed it.”

I’ve been starving this cat a bit, but it will survive. It will survive while I muddle around learning how to sell – something I rate right up there on my ‘the last thing in the world I’m comfortable with’ list the way other people rate public speaking.

It will rub up against the furniture while I write posts for other bloggers in order to let different audiences know about my book.

It will hide under the bed while I figure out the best way to autograph a book (on the title page under the title, full name – subject to change as I learn) and how to do a reading at a book store (introduction of myself, the genesis of the book, and 15 minutes of reading followed by book signing – subject to change as I learn).

It will wander outside and get stuck in a tree while I try to figure out how to make a meme. Yes, I did figure out how to find a hat for the monkey just last night. My struggle with a computer design program, which for all intents and purposes seems quite a simple way to design memes or ads or whatever we should call them for the general population, has been much longer than is understandable even to me. The fellow who narrates the tutorial (the one who tells me to find a hat to put on the picture of the monkey) has a lovely voice and seems so calm. He would be appalled at what is happening on my end of the computer every time he gives a next instruction.

It will jump into a chair and nap while I make cold calls and send emails and a review copy of my book to bookstores.

But every so often, I’ll reach down and pet it and feed it. Someday soon when I’ve figured things out, I’ll get back to writing more again which will satisfy not only the cat, but me, too. And my mom. Though she doesn’t read my blog. And calls it a blob.

Photo: http://www.freestockphotos.biz/stockphoto/17885 imagesX15DD7Q1