Too Many Hot Dogs

Carter is at camp and we are leaving for Africa so I wrote a few letters to Carter that my friend Christy is going to mail every couple of days so that Carter does not go forever without and real mail at camp. Writing letters to camp is hard enough when not that much is going on at home, but writing in advance is next to impossible. Maybe I could have predicted what might go on in the world, but I decided that was just too weird, even for me, a person who writes something weird everyday.

Instead I decided to pull out the book I made for Carter with all the great quotes she said when she was two and three. I guess I was smart enough then to write the wonderful things she said down to share with Russ, who was on the road a lot. I’m glad I did because as far as I’m concerned two and three are when kids say the best stuff.

Apparently hot dogs played a major role in Carter’s life as is evident in these two little stories:

In November our Ukrainian babysitter said, “I gave Carter two sausages for lunch.” Carter interjected, “you mean hot dogs.”

“In my country they are called sausages.”

Carter replies, “God says, in our country they are called hot dogs.”

Following along the same theme:

A babysitter says to Carter, “I have a little tummy ache.”

Carter says, “O.K., I am a doctor. What did you eat for lunch?”

“A hot dog and fries.”

“Well, a hot dog is O.K., but you need to ask your Mommy before you eat French fries. That will be $500 please.”

Based on the obvious large hot dog consumption in our house back then Carter said the following to me one day:

“My heart takes good care of me. And I say, ‘Good Luck!’”

Good luck indeed. Thank goodness we hardly ever have a hot dog around anymore.

One of my very favorite things Carter ever said was a month before her third birthday:

“It is so great in my world, when the sun is up or the sun is down.”

I hope it is great in your world. Don’t eat too many hot dogs and if you want fries, please save yourself $500 and ask your Mommy first.

Professional Complainer

Tonight in a rare, but very enjoyable night time Mah Jongg game the talk at my table turned to an eating establishment that all the players frequented and some bad choices and worse excuses for the choices they had made. Now I am fond of this place, so don’t ask me to name it, because I am sure they will turn this current situation around.

As I described in detail the mistakes and my conversations with management my friend Carolyn commented that I was thorough in my complaint. ‘Carolyn,” I responded, “don’t you know I am a professional complainer.” She acted as if in the 18 years I have known her she had never heard me complain.

Perhaps she had never heard me complain because she has never done anything wrong, at least to me, but I find it shocking that she was unaware of my professional status. I am a tough customer, but I am also an ardent supporter. So if I find something lacking in the customer service arena I try and constructively point out why it makes me unhappy.

I know that not all people who I complain to are thrilled I am doing it, but consider the alternative. First, if I have encountered something wrong I am probably not the first person who has felt that way. Second, most people don’t bother to complain to the person who is actually in charge, but just leave unhappy to never return again and worse tell ten people how unhappy they were. Third, I always offer evidence-based complaints with positive suggestions on how to grow the business.

My professional designation was earned when I was a sales and marketing consultant, but had been honed for many years before that as an armature tough cookie. My father has mentioned on more than one occasion that he is surprised some businesses had stayed open after I received very poor customer service from them more than once. See, if my direct confrontations of poor service don’t improve after a reasonable amount of time then I go right for the juggler. But at least I returned to the business to see if they even tried.

The difference between a professional complainer and a whiny unhappy person is that the professional will praise and frequent great establishments all day long. A whinny person is never satisfied. I may be demanding, but I will never whine about anything.

The Secret to Anti-Aging

Even with a boat load of anti SPAM controls somehow my computer still puts “Anti-aging Secrets” into my You-Better-Read-This mailbox. Erectile dysfunction, balding, You Won the Irish Sweepstakes, Our Time Dating and extended warrantees for cars that we got rid of long ago all thankfully get trapped in my junk box, but not anti-aging. I guess my computer knows I am a woman, am happily married, sold the Dodge Durango and will not fall for the sweepstakes scam. But my computer knows I am aging. Not a big leap of some coder’s intuition. We are all aging.

Here is the real secret, we are all aging and at exactly the same speed. The answer to anti-aging is no secret it is death. Since I have been inundated with these pitches I looked more closely at them to see if they were for some kind of assisted suicide and thankfully they are not. The e-mails are for some strange fruit or all natural injections that claim to stop the clock, or make you look as if it has been turned back many years.

Since my computer is not getting any smarter I would like to register in the spam hall of records that I do not mind aging. I am not looking for Dr. Oz to tell me how to look as young as someone who could be my child. Aging is a privilege that is given to the living. I am not interested in being one of the dead right now.

Using sunscreen to prevent cancer, eating right to be healthy, working out to have a body that functions well, wearing lipstick so my lips don’t sting from being chapped, all about function not form. So hawkers of crazy ass products stop calling them anti-aging solutions and tell me how they will make me feel better as I do the inevitable and that is get older, wiser and hopefully more loved. And no, I don’t need Our Time Dating or Meet Senior People to do that.

Speaking of being loved, I would like to thank all you nice readers who sent me kind messages and a bunch of WooHoo’s yesterday. So much for my quiet moment, as well as so much for reaching my goal — I got on the scale this morning and was up two tenths of a pound. I promise not to proclaim when I lose that weight!

Big Fun Father’s Day

I am the one who made my Dad a father. I am the first-born. My Dad was young when I got here. Despite being what I would consider now too young to properly raise a baby he seemed to figure it out well as he went along.

The advantage of having my young father was fun was always close at hand. I was lucky that I was an only child for the first three and a half years of my life and then there were just two of us until I was over eight so my father treated us like playmates in those early years.

One of my earliest memories is of being at the Dayton Country Club when I was about three and my father would be standing in the water encouraging me to jump off the side of the pool and swim to him. I know we have a picture of me with some kind of Styrofoam bubble belted to my middle so I was not going to drown, but my Dad knew I should learn to swim as early as possible. I bet I only wore that bubble a very short time.

The other theme that surrounds my father is that he is big and everything he ever does is big. Couple big with fun and my Dad was a kid’s dream. When we used to go to Pawleys Island for the summer other kids would get an inflatable raft or regular ‘ole car tire sized inner tube to play in the waves while their parents sat in chairs on the beach. Not my dad. He would take us into Georgetown Tire and Rubber Company and buy the biggest tractor tire inner tube they made and get it inflated, tie rope around it so we had a way to pull it around in the water and drag ourselves up onto it.

The multiple rope handles came in handy when we tied it to the car roof of our navy blue Ford Country Squire with the brown fake wood paneling and drove the giant inflatable back to the beach. My cousins and sisters and I could all ride that inner tube on the waves at the same time making us a danger to anyone in our path.

Pulling that big inner tube back out over the waves was never a problem because my Dad was always willing to be out in the water with us. He taught us all how to body surf and jump headfirst ducking into the waves so that the powerful water did not throw us around. Of course thanks to my Dad we all were good swimmers.

Somehow we never seemed tired on those vacations at Pawleys. My Dad and my Uncle Wilson would make us stay up until is was really dark and then they would put on the biggest fireworks show even though it was not the fourth of July. After what seemed liked hundreds of rockets with big balls of red, green and white sparkling balls exploding from them were set off we would eat popsicles and fall into to big sleep in our beds. We would wake up early to my Dad cooking a big breakfast with a new fun plan to go crabbing and ride our inner tubes down the backwater to the inlet as the tide was going out.

And although he taught me all the important stuff about working hard and being good to people today on this Father’s day I am most happy for all the fun I’ve had with my Dad. I’m also thankful that he had me so young so that I’ve had him for so long. So happy Father’s Day to my Big Fun Dad.

Shop In My Garden

This spring I planted my vegetable garden with the mind that I was not always going to be around during peak harvest time. I put in Arugula and lettuce. The lettuce has been wiped out by some tend leaf loving varmint, but apparently said rotten animal has an unsophisticated pallet and does not like the spicy greens. The good thing about the arugula is that it is a fast growing crop even though I started it from seed so I have been able to enjoy it.

I was planning on having a salad for dinner since tomorrow I am splurging and going out for afternoon tea as my main meal for the day. I have written extensively about my love of afternoon tea as the best meal ever. The only problem with tea is that it is probably the most fattening fare I ever encounter. Tea sandwiches, scones, pastries and cakes — nothing healthy on the menu, with the exception of the actual tea.

Tonight as I pulled in the driveway from picking Carter up at work we barely had enough time to run into the garage before the heavens opened up and dumped baby swimming pool amounts of water from the sky. So now I stand hungrily looking out the window at the garden waiting for the deluge to stop so I can go out and gather my dinner. I could have planned ahead and cut my greens earlier in the day, but somehow they wilt in my house, even refrigerated. I am not sure how grocery store greens keep their crispness, when my fresh picked can’t.

As happy as I am to get rain for my garden I hope this very heavy rain does not knock all the blossoms off my squash, cucumbers and eggplant. Those blossoms are needed to get pollinated and turn to fruit. If I lose this first round I probably won’t be around for the second round to come to fruition and turn to vegetables. Sometimes gardening is heart breaking and I feel for farmers who are at the mercy of the weather.

For the past week and a half I have been watching my cherry tomato plants grow more and more green globes, but am wondering when one will decide to turn even the slightest shade of red. The green bean plants have some thin tender beans. I have to keep an eye on them because they can go from too thin to though and old very quickly. The pepper plants are always the last to give any hint of producing a crop. I can go away for a month and come back and they still will not show any signs of deciding to birth a baby.

If this rain does not stop soon I might just run out with an umbrella and cut off a few basil leaves to eat with a farmer’s market tomato I have sitting here. Thank goodness for the success of real farmers because if I had to depend only on my own crops I would be very hungry, hey maybe I would be very skinny too.

Rule Followers

I stopped by the needlepoint store today to turn in two ornaments and pick up fibers for four more projects as I plan out what I am taking to Africa. The stitchers table was full of all the regulars, including my friend Elizabeth from Greensboro who I am in an ornament contest with this year.

Elizabeth is a far superior stitcher to me as well as a very prolific worker. At the end of last season she asked me how many ornaments I had done and since it was a good, no, great many she decided I was a worthy opponent and she challenged me to see who could finish the most ornaments this year. So far I am winning because I only make ornaments and she does belts, pillows, larger framed pieces as well as a giant kneeler for her daughters’ school chapel. That being said, she still has all most three months and could easily bypass me in the end.

Needle pointers tend to be rule followers. If you are doing a certain stitch you need to do it one way or it is a different stitch and that is a different rule. I like to work on one project at a time because my rule is to finish. Elizabeth has a rule of five, which means she can have only five different projects she is working at the same time. Today Elizabeth announced that she was going to work on her counted piece until three o’clock and then switch to the kneeler because she has a deadline for that piece to be turned in.

In our stitching group Kate is the rule enforcer so when three o’clock rolled around she altered Elizabeth it was time to switch projects. That was when Elizabeth evoked her codicil, which is her way of changing her mind and breaking her own rule. She said she would change projects when she finished the section she was currently working on.

I jumped right on that codicil idea. As a creator and follower of rules I love having a way out of my own self imposed restrictions, but then I really got to thinking about it. I have lost weight this go-round, by myself without the aid of a professional weight loss program by creating some sound rules and following them. I realized that when I have gained weight in the past it was because I had codicils to what I knew were the eating rules I needed to follow.

One failed rule I created was the “one bite rule.” I allowed myself one bite of anything. Big mistake! It is amazing how many calories there are in one bite of many different things. That rule started as a codicil and ended with seventy gained pounds.

The rule of rules for me is create a rule, measure it’s success and improve the rule. Then every once in a while cut myself a tiny amount of slack and just break the rule just to keep from becoming an uptight pain who no one wants to hang with. We all have our own ways.

Summer Mothering

After a two-day break from school Carter started today with her full-time volunteer job that she has to do everyday she is home and not at camp or on vacation with me. She is working towards getting the Mayor’s award, which is given to kids who volunteer at least 100 hours during their summer break.

Working 100 hours for free is harder than you think. First of all most non-profits don’t want the liability of teenagers so they don’t take young volunteers without adult supervision. I don’t blame them because I am sure there are some parents who might want to drop younger kids off at a non-profit and use it as a babysitting service.

Carter has years of work experience from working at her barn so she was able to get a job at an animal rescue organization. She is the kitten room specialist and front office helper. Turns out it is still work for this mother because I have to get up and drive her to work and pick her up at the end of the day. Her driver’s license can’t come too soon. I am hoping some days her father can take her.

I was proud of Carter when I dropped her off, not exactly certain what her day was going to be, but going in willing to do what it took. I expected a text early in the day, but did not get one until she took her lunch break to let me know what time to pick her up. Turns out her love of organization and order are a real bonus in her job.

Apparently the care of kittens is very strict and Carter learned how to dissemble the three cage tower, clean it and reassemble it ensuring that the exact color coded towels go back in the right spots along with the heating pads and bowls. She also got to play, feed and clean the kittens before going up front to do the jobs she says she was born to do, alphabetize and file.

Carter says she liked the mother cats the best because they love to snuggle. I guess that it is Carter’s summer mothering job. She already is recognizing the perils of having offspring too young. I think this is the best lesson any teenager could learn.

 To the Rescue

I had a big bag of fresh spinach that I needed to cook today so I decided to make a spinach soufflé that could serve two purposes, dinner and a blog entry. As I was just squeezing the water out of the spinach I had cooked and chopped my cell phone rang. “Hi Andrea,” I said recognizing my friend’s name on the phone.

“I’m up at the pool and I’m calling you because Pokey has a needlepoint question and did not want to bother you.” After talking for a few moments I told my friends that I would just run up to the pool to help them. For years when Carter was younger I sat under the awning at the pool watching swim team and I have missed the daily reason to get a chance to just sit and talk and now needlepoint. True to afternoon swim practice form it started to rain as soon as I arrived.

I arrived to find a few of my new needlepoint students working away on their projects. Kim proudly showed me her belt and was happy that I declared it a big success. Pokey had a very minor problem, which I was able to fix and show her how to prevent from happening again.

As soon as the stitching problem had been remedied the kids the started gathering around their mothers wondering what they should do having been shoed out of the pool. Then the rain stopped. One young one looking out over the golf course announced there was a huge rainbow and sure enough there was. A mother declared I was a needlepoint super hero and brought the rainbow. Another added I needed a cape and a theme song. All I need is a good pair of scissors and some strong reading glasses to help solve most problems.

Needlepoint is an art and some people like everything to exact and consistent and others are happy with progress. There is no one way it has to be. It just has to make you happy. Learning how to do it the way you like takes a little time and a little help from your friends. Like all things in life it takes a little practice, patience and not being afraid to ask for help. If I was a superhero and could have one special power it would not be to be invisible or be able to fly, but to make sure everyone is having a great time doing what ever he or she are working on, that way nothing ever feels like work.

The Official Rubber Stamp

I’m sure you don’t know this but it is incredibly hard to type while trying to flap my upper arms and walk on the treadmill at the same time. No, this is not a new variation on my regular exercise. I’m way behind on steps today because I just spent the last three hours going to get four vaccinations I need for Africa and the nurse told me to keep moving my arms to help disperse the liquid she shot in me.

Apparently Russ and I both need a very official yellow card showing we are up to date on vaccines and most specifically Yellow Fever to get into Zambia. As the nurse was filling out our cards I asked her if there was some special seal she would have to adhere to the yellow card. She said, “absolutely.” I about fell out of my chair laughing as she pulled out of her desk drawer the regular ‘ole rubber stamp that read “OFFICIAL VACCINATION NORTH CAROLINA.”

Based on my years of world travel to places big and small I can guarantee that the government worker we encounter in Zambia, no matter how long he has been on a boarder enforcement job, will have no idea where North Carolina is. I guess for most of the world a black rubber stamp is as high tech as is required. Not that I think anyone wants to lie about having gotten a yellow fever vaccine. Really the only person you might be hurting is yourself if you come down with the deadly fever.

Between malaria, and typhoid and any other number of insect borne illnesses it is a wonder that I want to travel at all considering how much mosquitoes like me here. Our travel nurse sold me a can a spray to make our clothes bug repellent. I can hardly wait to smell this stuff that I am going to douse all our garments in.

After the medical prevention the nurse gave me the talk about not eating fresh fruits and vegetables unless I can peel them. The thought of going two weeks without a salad is going to be tough. I am so conditioned to only eat fresh fruits and vegetables that it will be interesting to see how I deal with the restrictions to keep me safari able and not tied to a bathroom. You know what I mean.

If I had not already been to South Africa and know it is my favorite place on earth I might think twice about all this painful preparation. I am concerned about the amount of exercise I am going to be able to get, or not get. First there are the many days of flying, which means sitting in my seat and not walking the aisle of the airplane like a crazy woman. Then there are the camps we will be staying at where we are not allowed to walk outside without an armed guard since we will be right in the middle of the park where the big 5 live. I guess I am going to have to download a hotel room exercise program that I can do in our tent. At least my arms will be healed by then from all these shots.