Summer Dichotomy

Life Balance: a feat we try to achieve while searching to be the best that we can we, while simultaneously raising our children to do the same. This is the equilibrium in our inner life force whereby our heartbeat matches the divine force that exists all around us. When this life balance peaks, our sense of peace, joy, love and wisdom act as one with our very soul.

summer di·chot·o·my

1. Division between parental unit and offspring in the months of June, July & August in the USA.

2. Division into mutually exclusive, polar opposites or contradictory family units revolving around separate versions of reality involving issues regarding laundry, cooking, edible food groups, friends, hours of sleep, hygiene, cleanliness, treating parents like mobile ATM"s and the definitions of need vs. want in the non-school mandated time schedules

3. The fine line between calm friend-based parenting and outright dictatorship, reciting penal codes and the definition of the right side of the law in the months proceeding last report card and the annual anticipation of a child living at home for life because they cannot function in "real" society, i.e. hold a job, manage money or live a healthy life.

Ahh, summer time. Hot breezes are blowing, beautiful colors are blooming & time seems never ending-- never ending bickering over who ate all the ice cream, what chore which child was oblivious to carrying out this week and whose turn it is to walk the dog. Tempers flare each morning (the parents), swearing is abundant (the kids) and the house is waist deep in unwashed laundry, food crusted frying pans, wet towels & dirty socks while empty pop cans, tiny juice box straws, Popsicle sticks & freezi-pop wrappers line the backsides of couches, beds and closets.

And it doesn't matter what you do. Get up early, and pick up the mess before work. Leave notes with carefully devised chore lists for them to do while you work. Stay up late with them and get everyone to pick up the clutter together. It just grows. And it ferments. And impregnates itself and doubles overnight. My Mom always had the perfect house, and God help us if we left a wet suit on the carpet in our bedrooms, she would hunt us down to pick it up before we even did it. She was that good.

I can't seem to get that tight a grip. I just try to stop the hemorrhaging of excess to keep some semblance of order. Empty the garbage, change the bag. Load the dishwasher. Throw the towels in the laundry. Run upstairs, get the laundry on the floor up there, run downstairs, stoop down, pick up the lone wash cloth in the middle of the upstairs hall. Smile happily that all looks good, come home at night, put on hip boots, rewind, repeat, do over. Especially the darn wash cloth in the upstairs hall. Pick it up again.

Laundry can reach comical proportions with us, it can be 15 loads deep and funny to even try to dress, find the socks, the underwear, harvest a clean towel or wash cloth. More than once one boy was running through the house screaming at the other to stop wearing his underwear. Too funny. And look, there's no wash cloths again. Do more laundry, repeat, do over. Pick up, there's the loan wash clothes again.

I couldn't figure out the wash cloths, its not like the kids are picking up the laundry off the floor of the upstairs bath & dropping them on their way downstairs to the laundry room; why are they up on the floor all the time? And then Colleen stopped; we're chatting while my hubby changes her oil.In her car (get your mind out of the gutter). And she stop mid-sentence, and talks in her voice reserved for very small children, "Now Molly where are you going with that wash clothe?" And there's the dog, creeping up the stairs real slow like she does when she's stolen chicken wings out of the garbage & doesn't want us to see she's eating out of Molly's take out AGAIN.

She's been eating the darn wash clothes, picking them up and carrying them upstairs. Wow, maybe I can train her to pick up the rest of the stuff. You tube here we come. I can make my millions, and hire a darn maid to get through these summers. But you know what? When they're all gone in a few years, I am sure I will miss the mess.

Well, maybe not.

Yuletide Joy

Life Balance: a feat we try to achieve while searching to be the best that we can we, while simultaneously raising our children to do the same. This is the equilibrium in our inner life force whereby our heartbeat matches the divine force that exists all around us. When this life balance peaks, our sense of peace, joy, love and wisdom act as one with our very souls.

The wells of joy are a little thin this year. No real reason either. Everyone is healthy. Everyone is working. The day to day problems of kids growing older and Mom's losing their sanity still abound. Money is tighter then ever. Planning is worse than ever. God took care of most of the problems in the form of overtime this fall and in the form of a Christmas job. And we also balanced by cutting back on the mindless Christmas shopping. Bought smaller. Bought smarter.

So today, when I asked the twins to give me something to feel joy about, they responded thoughtfully. We're all on vacation tomorrow from school and work. (Yeah!) And we can all be together next week and do a jammie day (Awesome!).

And the dog isn't farty today. (Nice!)

It doesn't get any better then this.

Do Animals choose us or we choose them?

Life Balance: a feat we try to achieve while searching to be the best that we can we, while simultaneously raising our children to do the same. This is the equilibrium in our inner life force whereby our heartbeat matches the divine force that exists all around us. When this life balance peaks, our sense of peace, joy, love and wisdom act as one with our very souls.


Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children, as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other. ~Robert Benchleyy

Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. ~Max Eastman, Enjoyment of Laughter

If you want to laugh about the most disgusting things in life and smile during your most upsetting times, try getting a dog. Better yet, get a puppy, and you can enjoy watching them as YOU grow (as a person that is, since dogs teach us everything.)

Miss Virginia has a new puppy named Luke. He is a Jack Russell terrier-beagle mix; very cute, very full of life and curiosity, finding his way through life by tasting everything at eyelevel. Miss Virginia already had a beautiful senior citizen dog named Freeway (think Heart-Heart TV series) and didn’t need another dog when Luke wandered in the yard. She found 3 different homes for him, but he kept coming back to her. It’s like Luke chose her, and that is it.

Can dogs really choose you? I think they pick us most definitely. I think they are wiser about us then we sometimes are about finding a mate.

Doc came to me on my 8th birthday. He was a pure breed miniature dachshund, black with tan markings. He was the size of my little hand at the time, and used to fit easily in my sweatshirt pocket or on the back of my neck. He weighed about 2 pounds at the time, and only grew to be 8 pounds. 2 days before my birthday, our tan doxie Charlie Brown was hit by a car. We all cried buckets for that little guy, and Dad went right out and bought us Doc. He stayed with us until I was almost 25. He died of a broken heart the week I moved into my own apartment.

His full name was Doc Hoctor, after the race car driver we liked out at Holland Speedway racetrack. We used to go in our jammies on Saturday nights to watch him race. Doc used to go to work everyday with my Dad, who picked him up and carried him in his arm, swinging his black metal lunch pail on his one hand underneath Doc, while carrying his briefcase in the other hand. Out they would go to Dad’s pickup truck to go work in the city. My father had his own small business (Buffalo Sweeping Compound Company) where he manufactured a sweeping compound used in heavy industrial sites.

When he went out on deliveries in the pickup or the big truck, Doc rode along. Dad said he used to protect the truck so no one could steal it while he went into the plants to get paid for his product. At lunchtime, Doc would share lunch with my father, eating half a sandwich and 3 Oreo cookies. Doc would pull them apart and lick out the frosting first. He loved cookies.

One night, about 18 months after Doc found us, Mom & I came home from my dance class ( 7 years with Jack Greenan for tap and jazz, thank you very much) to find a gate up in the kitchen. We used to put this up when Doc was sick, but I saw him laying in the living room Then I heard the “Oh, Rick, No” from my Mom and saw Dad’s laughter. There in the kitchen was a dog that looked a lot like Doc, but he was kinda fat and broad-chested. Dad told us his was Doc’s half-brother and was the runt of the litter. No one wanted him and he was 4 months old. And incredibly stupid.

While Doc came to us with poise and grace, the new dog seemed to have no intelligence whatsoever. When you held him in your lap, he would jump off and land right on his chest. He didn’t know how to put his feet out to hold himself up. And when he drank water, he would get his ears all wet, not knowing how to hold them up. And he kept walking right through his pee! “What should we call him,?” Dad asked. Maxwell Smart we decided, for the bumbling idiot secret agent on the TV show at them time, “Get Smart.”

Max soon learned from boss dog Doc. Doc ate and drank first, then Max. When we sat in great-grandpa’s horse hair chair, Doc would get in, and lay along side us. Max would go in next, getting behind Doc, and sitting up like a human so he fit in the chair with us. When they went to work with Dad, Doc got to eat, and get picked up, Max chowed down a little, ran to Dad, and got picked up second. My Mom folded up an old blanket for the dogs, and sewed the edges together for their own comforter. Doc always got in the bed first, then Max, both of them scooching under the covers together. Wherever they slept or lay, they did it together, always Doc first, then Max. They were never apart.

We had the boys for almost 18 years. In the later years, they started to lose all their teeth and their tongues hung out of their mouths. They had bad cataracts and couldn’t see well. But they stayed in the downstairs in the living room or in their bed, still giving us love and comfort. They weren’t allowed upstairs in my bedroom, parents’ rules. But whenever my parents traveled and were out of town, they would sneak up and sleep in my bed. It was the funniest thing. I didn’t bring them up, I would tuck them in as always, but 30 minutes later up they would come for a cuddle.

After college, I moved to Florida for a year. And for the whole year, Doc and Max laid everyday at the foot of the stairs, waiting for me to come down from my room. They missed me that much. I eventually moved back for another year, and then moved out permanently when I earned a teaching fellowship for my Masters’ degree. Max died a few months before that, but Doc still hung on, until the day my brother Joe came with the delivery truck and picked up my stuff. I kissed Doc goodbye, and left him in his bed for my parents, who would be home from a trip later that day. And Doc had a stroke the next day. I still think he died of a broken heart.

And part of me died too. My childhood was over, it was time to be on my own. And Doc knew, just as he found me on my 8th birthday, that it was time to let me go. And so he did.