Last in the Rat Race

When I was a kid, my parents always seemed to find a house for us that was somewhat on the edge of wilderness. Wilderness for a kid anyway. There would be a small stretch of woods behind our backyard that usually involved (1) a ravine, (2) a creek, and (3) abundant wildlife. It’s the perfect adventure mix.

In the winter, god help us, my brother and I would sled down the trails to the bottom of the ravine - dodging (hopefully) trees along the way and crashing before we ended up in the icy creek at the bottom.

In the summer, I would creekwalk. The creek in the ravine couldn’t have been more than 10 feet wide and six inches deep, but it was all I needed to spend the day wandering up and down, over rocks and under branches. Frogs, snails, fish, and my dog kept me company. (My dad, in all of his good intentions, warned us about water moccasins, and to this day, I’m still irrationally terrified of snakes.) Sometimes, I’d pack a lunch. Sometimes, I’d pack a friend. The creekwalks were summer.

This past weekend, MRA was off to golf early again, leaving the household stirred and largely awake by 6:30. (what ever happened to sleeping in on the weekends?) Looking at the list of chores I had set out for the next three hours before the pool opened, I got a little angry, a little depressed and then remembered my promise to take Kate hiking more this summer. We popped online and scouted out a spot.

Living in the city is fantastic. LOVE it.

The one drawback - the country is a long haul away.

An eternity later, Kate, Paddi, and I ended up at Castlewood State Park. I used to haunt the place on my mountain bike pre-Kate. There are trails running flat along the Meremac River and trails that seem to go straight down mountains. (did one of those once and about peed my pants… rode my brakes the entire way down and vowed to never do that again)

We walked and hiked. There is a little beach at one point in the river and I crushed Kate’s dreams when I told her to stay out of the water. It’s a RIVER and kids have drowned there. ugh…

So, we headed back to the creek I had noticed on our drive into the park. Shallow and crystal clear, it would be perfect for her to wade in.

For Paddi and Kate, I think it was love at first sight. Paddi could swim in some spots and Kate could wander around without me hovering over her, holding her hand, keeping her from drowning in the FIVE inches of water.

It was pretty fantastic and brought back those memories of creekwalking.

“When I was a little girl, I’d tell my mom - your grandma - that I was going creekwalking. I’d be gone most of the day, wandering up and down the stream.”

Kate listened and then tried out the reminiscing thing for herself, “When I was a little girl, I used to go creekwalking, too.” Huh? Did I miss something here?

Tell me that face doesn’t make you laugh…

I was named after Grace Kelly. Nice eh?

It’s hot in STL. We’re on our 9th day of an “excessive heat warning.” After jogging with the dog this am, the last thing I want to do is put on clothes, but until I get that work-from-home gig lined up, clothing is generally required upon leaving the house.

So this morning, I fished out a little black linen dress. It’s barely work-appropriate - without a belt it grazes the tops of my knees.

Shoes. Dear god, do I have to wear them? Flip flops aren’t allowed in Law Firm Land, so I picked out a cute strappy pair of black sandals.

Ready to go, I load Kate up in the car and we head to Starbucks in Clayton for a Friday am treat. It’s a work day, so there’s a line of business people and many more already seated, chatting or pounding away on laptops.

Kate and I step in line. I’m thinking I’m looking pretty good today and Kate is holding my hand. We’re both looking good. Sweet and put together.

We’re chatting and Kate starts swinging my arm. Then, before I realize it, she is swinging ON my arm - you know the kind of swinging normally reserved for when one is walking in between parents and holding on to BOTH parents’ hands.

Oh shit.

My cute little heels are not made to take the shift in weight. I start to lean, she starts to fall, and all of the sudden, she’s on the floor and I’m stumbling - with her hand still clutched in mine - heading for the nearest display of - THANKFULLY - plastic coffee mugs.

A last-second hop and I manage to stay on my feet - and not step on my kid in the meantime. (how many people now know the color of my underwear?) I pick Kate up off the floor and ask if she’s OK. It’s funny, she has become much more aware of herself and her surroundings these days and I can see that she’s embarrassed, too. Not as much as me, but enough to not make a scene. She rubs her elbow, I kiss it and we tuck our pride away for the day.

Luckily, the two businessmen behind us didn’t get taken out in the melee. They did, however, have a bit of commentary. One lifted up his arm and showed Kate a huge bruise on his elbow. “See? I hurt my elbow, just like you,” he says and laughs.

I chuckle, “Did you swing on your mom too?”

It’s good to laugh at yourself. It’s also good to be humble (Kharma will always put you back in your place).

But Grace Kelly? Humph. Thanks, mom.

Bug Obsession #3 for the summer: Lightening Bugs.

(#1 caterpillars - they have since transformed into moths
#2 earth worms - laying low now that the vegetable garden is in)

At the pool two weeks ago, Kate made friends with some other kids over a shared interest in bugs. They had the net and gear with them, so Kate latched on and went on a “hunt” around the pool. They found “lightening bugs.” I think these were actually cheap imitations as I couldn’t see any flashers from where I was standing. Nevertheless, the kids were hooked.

Last weekend, out on the patio at Norwood, the lightening bugs reappeared. The real deal this time and the kids were off to the practice green to catch all they could keep. (which, thankfully, isn’t much b/c the little buggers know just how to wiggle out of that little hole at the end of your fist… right along your pinkie finger)

Our backyard has also been alive with lightening bugs in the evening and Kate is making sure to catch her quota. Since Paddi destroyed Kate’s last bug catcher, I dug out an old jar for her. Good in that it’s big enough to keep enough O2 to allow the bugs to live. Bad in that it’s glass. (this won’t end well)

Tuesday night, Kate caught a handful - a family she said - and tucked them in her jar. Building on the crafty parenting knowledge gleened from flipping through Parents Magazine once this year, I suggested she put the jar in her room that night and sleep by the light of the fireflies. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

The bugs didn’t flash. One flashed, one time. That was it. I think they were pissed that they were being held captive and decided to flip us off in the only way they knew how. Equally unimpressed, Kate agreed to release the family the next morning.

Wednesday morning, I took Paddi for a little run and returned to find Kate in the back yard.

It’s 6:30 am and she has donned her “backyard boots.” Still in her pjs, she’s ready to let her little captives fly.

I didn’t notice it at the time, but it appears that one of the fireflies has Stockholm syndrome.

or maybe more like “Flash Dance”… put down your dress, girl!

Over the past few weeks, Kate and I have developed a habit of walking to the library once we get home from school/work. It’s not far - maybe 8 blocks - and it’s a good chance to get out, see the neighborhood, and let Paddi stretch her legs after being cooped up all day.

On a side note, I was a huge fan of the library as a kid and have had a library card in each city in which I have lived. Always wanted to work in one, too, but was never hired… hm. Anyway, with the advent of the megasuper book stores, MRA and I would pick up a few here and there and my memories of the library faded.

Now that I have a kid who loves movies, my ears tuned right in when I heard someone mention that the library loaned dvd’s. We trekked right down there and signed up for a library card. Kids have notoriously short attention spans and a movie that they watch non-stop for a week will soon fall out of grace and they may never have a hankering for that title again. At $15+ a pop, buying dvds quickly became depressing. Renting them on pay-per-view didn’t cut it either - for $4, you have viewing access for 24 hours. Hello? Don’t you get it? My kid wants to watch it at least 5 times over the course of three days…

So, we walk to the library fairly regularly and Paddi happily tags along. Kate gets to pick out a movie or two, and I get to run haphazard through the Fiction section hoping that something quickly catches my eye. (Thank goodness the library has a “new releases” section as well as a “what our branch is reading” section as my days of leisurely browsing, sometimes for an hour, for the perfect title have long passed.)

The only hiccup in this process - aside from teaching Kate to “walk don’t run” in the library and the need to use our “inside voices” - is where to park Paddi? For the first few visits, it was easy. The empty, sturdy bike rack. For the past three visits, however, there were actually bikes parked at the rack.

I’m just waiting for the page over the library intercom:
WOULD THE OWNER OF THE 80LB LAB PLEASE MOVE YOUR DOG? IT IS ILLEGALLY PARKED AND WE WILL TOW.

It’s Family Fun Friday and we’re out at a local Mexican restaurant with another couple and their three kids. It’s fast and kid-friendly - stir in a Margarita, chips and salsa and you’ve got a party.

Before the food arrives, I give a potty shout out the girls. (Kate sometimes needs the suggestion - to insure we don’t get the emergency interruption mid-meal.) I have three takers and we all troop off to the bathroom. On the way back, I notice the trio sitting at the table behind us. It’s my OBGYN, her husband and their 18 month old son. Lovely. I’ve always liked her, but our outside-the-office conversations are always a bit awkward. Hm… is it me? Is it perhaps that she sees me and thinks “work?” Does she share the same the lasting memory MRA enjoys of my child entering the world? (Poor guy is still scarred by the image.) Whatever, she has a kid now, so we have a bond, right? Wrong. The hellos are still awkward.

The meal progresses - burritos, tacos and the occassional chicken finger - and we’re soon wrapping up. The kids are DONE, but adults are not. We soon realize that we’ve collectively become those parents we used to sneer at… the ones who sit and continue to enjoy their adult conversation while their kids run wild in public. Ok, maybe not “wild,” but our little group was no longer sitting at our table - they were sitting on the benches nearby, looking out the windows and playing with the blinds (dear god! not the blinds!). We pretend they’re not ours and finish off our cocktails. Enjoying the melee, MRA considers leaning over to Patel - our neighboring OBGYN - to say, “I blame you and that suction cup you used to pull her out.”

I can’t begin to tell you how much these four words make me want to pull off the speaker’s/writer’s head. After 9/11, it was “now more than ever… security…” These days, it’s “now more than ever… financial crisis…” It’s become the writer’s crutch for attention-grabbing intros. Its gets my attention alright - and makes me reach for a sharp object.

It’s true that we are living in interesting times. The not-so-hidden-shocker - we’ve lived through them before and we’ll do it again. Put away the bullhorn, Chicken Little, and pipe down.

Growing up, we lived modestly. My dad flew the coop and left my mom to care for my brother and I on her measly little church secretary’s salary. That’s right - not just a secretary’s salary, but a CHURCH secretary’s salary. Get the gist? We shopped infrequently - I remember trying to convince my best girlfriend that my polo shirt from K-Mart was really a Polo shirt. She did her best to educate me and I, being stubborn and proud (and retrospectively, stupid) ignored her.

When my mom married her 2nd husband - my now step-father, we moved to STL and the situation improved. We were less hand-to-mouth, but still frugal. My step dad (hereafter “Dad”) had a good union job at the brewery, no debts and I was the only kid left at home. I went to private school and enjoyed the benefits of the moderate bump in our standard of living. My folks, however, still lived - and spent - like the next depression was right around the corner.

Interestingly enough, life with my first husband was similar. He came from a good family with family money - yet none of his own. We were just out of college and getting by on starter jobs. Money was tight and we watched - I watched it - closely. He was selling copiers at the time, driving around all day. “Why do you need to BUY SODA at the CONVENIENCE STORE? We have sodas AT HOME - PACK A COOLER AND TAKE THEM WITH YOU!” After that went south (not b/c of the soda incident) and I was on my own, I still got along fine, perhaps better, without the spendthrift husband. Still not rich, but fine. I still watched my finances like a hawk.

The first few years with Mike posed an interesting, quiet struggle. We were living together, but not married. He is older and has a good/great job. I still watched my money closely and spent carefully. He was careful, but less inhibited. He’d laugh when we went grocery shopping as I tried to balance what we wanted against spending what, in my mind, was stupidmoney on groceries. After years of practice, however, I became less focused on the price and more focused on getting good quality and healthy (read more expensive - that bugs me too, but we’ll save that for another day) items. I shopped for good wines - not those hovering around the $10 mark. I picked up olives from the olive bar, various cheeses and fresh bread without much thought as to the price.

True confession:

Last week, I went to the store in the midst of a perfect storm: we were horribly low on groceries at home, I was mildly hungry, and Kate wasn’t with me. ARGHHHH! BAD IDEA, TURN BACK NOW!!

I walked out of the store having spent $400 on groceries. I couldn’t even put it on our “joint purchases credit card” because I was too mortified. (Instead I put it on the card that I pay for out the meager sum pulled from my paycheck for kellymoney. That’s going to hurt.)

What have I come to?!? What happened to the (WELL) over 30 years of carefully crafted, thoughtful spending?

Reality check:

We both still work and are bringing home a decent paycheck each week.

But “now more than ever” I’m aware of the tenuous nature of our lifestyle. Friends are losing jobs. Work is quiet - too quiet. It could be me next. How can I not drop back into second gear and watch our spending?

Hm… will I still feel that way when we finally win the PowerBall?

So I guess I’m joining the gym I visited last week. I took the tour, reveled in the machines (as well as the number of people who were NOT working and were instead working out at 3:00 pm), and was generally sold by the cute little sales girl (now I know why Drake and Bruce frequent the joint).

She (cute little sales girl) gave me a 5 day pass to test it out. That was Friday, but Tuesday morning I had finally made it back. For a 6 am spinning class. Never having spun, I grabbed a bike in the back and tried to look cool. Secretly, I was scoping out the other participants, checking out their gear and reflecting back to discover my shortcomings. Towel? No, but I can get one outside the door. Shoes? No, no special biking shoes here, but no biggie for a first date. Um… water? Duh, Kelly, did you bring a water bottle? Nope. It’s going to be a long hour…

Whatever.

I adjusted the seat and tried it out. Seemed fine. Class began and the “hills” started. I huffed and sweated and was certain there was a “NEWBIE” flashing sign above my head.

In the end, I think it was a good workout. While I fully anticipated jello-quads (the kind which make the last 6 inches before connecting with the toilet seat an adventure), I ended up with a sore ass.

That’s right. I think I bruised my tailbone on that blasted bike seat.

I have a bad ass.