The End of an Era

Carter’s love for all things horses started when she was two. She had a baby sitter who exercised horses at a lovely barn in town. Being a smart girl she learned to double dip by baby sitting for Carter and exercising horses at the same time. One of the sitter’s charges was a horse named Bob, who had an injury and could not take any weight above 50 pounds. Carter was the perfect rider.

Then Carter started riding in the summer at a barn near her grand parents farm. Mrs. Brown’s summer horse camp gave Carter a lot of experience taking care of horse and riding. The taking care part was almost her favorite part.

Eventually she wore me down by begging to find a barn at home so she could ride every week. When Carter was about seven she started going to Rolling Hills stables in Chapel Hill. It is quite a trek from our house, but every week and sometimes twice a week or more since then she has been going to Rolling Hills.

When Carter was ten her trainer Piper asked her if she wanted a job as a barn girl. Are you kidding? A job where she got to clean up after horses, who cares what she got paid. SO even though most barn girls had to be twelve, Carter, who was bigger and stronger than most girls three years older than her started working and riding.

Eventually she went from the junior barn girl to the senior and about four years ago she started working on Saturday mornings, which meant she was responsible to all the morning feedings and cleanings since Piper was not usually out at the barn at 8:00 in the morning.

This early morning Saturday job meant that some parent had to get up at 7:00 in order to get Carter to the barn a half an hour away. Carter was incredibly lucky that her sweet father, who never gets to sleep any day of the week, dutifully and willingly volunteered to do the one hour round trip there and back twice every Saturday.

No matter how much work he has, even when I say I am happy to do the driving, he says, “No, I’ll take her.” Carter and Russ have their Saturday rituals. Shay goes with them and the three of them stop into Bruggers to get bagels and Russ goes to Starbucks and gets his coffee. Even shay gets a bagel that she eats while riding on Russ’ lap.

Then around 1:00 Russ and Shay will get back in the car and make the trip back to the barn, stopping someplace to get lunch with Carter on the way home. Even though it takes up a good part of Russ’ day of rest he always does it with a smile.

Today, when Russ got home from picking Carter up form the barn he said with a sigh, “That was the last time I’ll ever take Carter to the barn.” She next Saturday Carter has an away basketball game in Charlotte and then the next Saturday she will have her drivers license, assuming she passes the test.

It was a sad day for Russ and even sadder for Shay. Those hours in the car are the biggest block of time he gets to spend with Carter alone. More learning, conversations and growing up probably happens on those Saturday mornings than any other time of the week.

I think that when Carter gets her drivers license I am going to have to find some errands I need her to run that involve carting her father around.

Baking Is the Gateway Drug of Cooking

I am a purely self taught cook. Yes, I learned a few things from my grandmother via my father, but outside of that I did not have anyone around who knew how to or liked to cook. Since I liked to eat, learning to throw together the limited ingredients I had at my disposal as a child into something better together than alone was an art I perfected.

I had only a couple of cookbooks in my childhood home. A 1956 edition of the Joy of Cooking, which was so out of date that every time a recipe called for baking powder the instructions on how to make it from scratch followed.   That thick cornflower blue volume was well worn by the time I was fourteen.

The other cookbooks were a set of Time Life Cookbooks by country, Like the Cuisine of Italy, or France. They were much more like travel logs than cook books. They spoke a language of chefs that was way over my childhood vocabulary, let alone full of ingredients that never darkened the door of my mother’s kitchen. The best part about them was they were full of full color pictures so I could get an idea of what a dish was supposed to look like. This was very helpful when I was preparing something out of the Joy of Cooking that might have had at best a line drawing of a whole chicken, but no clue as to what it was supposed to look like fried.

For me the gateway drug of cooking was baking. Like so many kids I first leaned to make things like cookies and brownies, mostly out of a desire for a dessert, which was always forbidden in our house. Understanding how to bake successfully, made cooking easy. Making a soup is much more forgiving than baking a cake, but what child wants to learn to cook soup?

I have been worried that Carter was going to grow up with very few cooking skills since she was more than content to eat my cooking. I have robbed her of the need to learn to cook by being too good a cook. Except that in the last few years I have rarely baked anything.

This past summer Carter got a bee in her bonnet to want to learn how to make a cake from scratch. It was a big success, but she discovered that it is a long process. Since she hardly ever has six free hours she has not repeated that task, but suddenly with a day off from school before Thanksgiving and the need for us to provide the desserts she has volunteered to bake something.

Now’s my chance to kick up her learning curve and throw something fairly complicated at her. I see being a skilled baker as a good prerequisite to taking chemistry. Once you understand the science behind baking you can be set free to create your own concoctions with a better chance at success.

Now I have tonight to convince her that making an apple pie layer cake will be fun and make her father very happy. Pray for me tomorrow. I will post a picture if we make it.

I Need a Basketball Spectator Diet Plan

Basketball season is kicking my butt and I have not even dribbled the ball once. Carter is playing varsity and the schedule is grueling. Late practices and even later games are throwing me off my normal routine. Dinner is not getting cooked, steps are not getting completed, laundry is pilling up and I am staying up later than ever.

Although I may not be getting my regular exercise I must be burning some kind of calories by being an uber spectator at the games. I know that wildly clapping is an actual exercise, but do you think that screaming, “Go DA,” at the top of my lungs burns any calories?

Tonight’s game girl’s against Voyager Academy was doubly exciting because Junior Liz Roberts reached her 1000^th point as a Durham Academy Varsity player. She did not disappoint the spectators by playing a fabulous game. The whole team contributed to the big win of 59-14.

By the end of the girl’s game I was ready to go home, but Carter wanted to stay to watch the boy’s game. What the hell, it was already so late and no dinner was going to get made anyway, I agreed to stay.

The boys game was a much closer and heart stopping game. The Voyager boys had a six foot ten inch player and a number of great three point shooters. I think I screamed until my stomach hurt during the close game. Sadly, the DA boys were behind at the end, but it was not due to trying their best.

I think that I now need to create a new basketball season diet plan because I can’t spend so much time sitting in the bleachers cheering as a form of exercise. I can’t wait until eight or nine at night to begin thinking about what to make for dinner. This late arrival home without a plan is causing me to make bad food choices in the name of exhaustive hunger.

If only I was allowed to pace the sidelines like a big time coach I would be in better shape, but alas I am just a mother and must stay in my place, only getting to stand and cheer at the appropriate moments. We have three months to go. I’m going to have to change, but I am going to have a great time watching the girl’s team and spending time with Carter watching the other games. I only have three short years left to do this and I am going to savor every moment.

Formal Day

Here it is 11:21 at night and I have my first free minute, literally of the whole day. I won’t get much of a post written since I am committed to blog everyday no matter what so this will be short, but I promise that tomorrow’s blog will be full of great stories.

Today was Carter’s fall formal. As is usually the case I got involved with organizing her friend group and their date’s dinner. Since the kids got to go off and have dinner together I had my annual parents of the formal kids dinner.

Pictures will have to do for this blog.

Salad – Stone Soup Style

A few weeks ago after our kids lost a classmate my friend Cooper called and said she thought it might be nice to have a ‘Mother’s lunch” before Thanksgiving. I volunteered my house, which is a no brainer for me since I have a few hundred years experience feeding thousands of people. But this lunch was little work for me because Cooper was bringing all the greens and enough bread to feed the 5,000. She invited the whole class of mothers to come and bring a salad topping.

About forty moms were able to make it. Apparently Fridays for lunch are doable even for many working Moms. We were sorry the others were not here, but had a great time with the group that showed up.

Nuts are the salad topping of choice because we had a huge variety and enough volume to keep all the squirrels in the neighborhood well fed through the winter. I made three different salad dressings from scratch and learned that balsamic vinaigrette is the most popular, followed by sesame ginger and trailing the pack by a long way was homemade ranch.

One of the things I love the most at class mother get togethers is to introduce mothers to each other whose children are good friends. The timing of this lunch was fortuitous because there is a formal dance tomorrow and mothers of sons were meeting mothers of their dates for the first time. It was great that they got to compare stories about what the plans were. Universally the mother’s of girls knew of the plans while the mother’s of sons did not always.

One boy’s mom asked that we have the next get together about two weeks before a dance so she could learn all the info in a more timely manor. I have a feeling a lot of corsages are being ordered this afternoon. It also was apparent that an app is needed so the kids can figure out who needs a date and who wants a date.

The one thing I am happy about is that I never have to find a date for the rest of my life. The stress is just overwhelming. If something ever happens to Russ I am going to be fine to spend the rest of my life alone. Of course I will still have my friends and in the end that is all I ever need.

Thanks to Cooper and Elizabeth for staying and cleaning up. The house is ready for the next party I am having tomorrow for the parents of the group of kids Carter is going to the formal with. Once the house is party ready I like to maximize it and do party’s back-to-back, especially since I don’t have to find a date!

Foot Weight Loss Could Cause Death

It’s cold here today, really cold.   I got up this morning from a too little sleep night. I had a lot on my calendar so I had carefully planned my every move so I could move seamlessly through the day. I got dressed in a really nice outfit since I was going to be visiting my friend Hannah at her new office for the first time and did not want her co-workers to think Hannah’s friends were low rent.

I put on a brand new pair of black pants I had just hemmed myself, a new white starched blouse, a new grey sweater and warm wool socks. I searched through the shoes on the floor of my closet looking for last year’s favorite black suedes. It was obvious that it is past the time that I need to pull my summer shoes out of my closet and store them for the winter. After digging through the mountain I found the pair I was looking for.

With just a few minutes on the clock to walk Shay Shay I put on my warmest shearling coat and a pair of gloves and marched my puppy out into the freezing cold. Even though I had a fairly thick pair of socks on I noticed that my feet were sliding around on the inside of my shoes. Please say it ain’t so, my feet had shrunk. I knew this was an issue for some of my summer shoes, but I turned a blind eye and added pads that helped keep my feet inside.

After Shay had done her business and I saw that I had just a few minutes left to get her inside fed and out the door I headed for home. As I was just about up to my walk way I noticed a man walking towards me and said hello as I stepped into a small indentation in the grass. I watched his face in horror as I fell out of my shoe and went sliding about ten feet across a huge mud puddle.

Shay broke free of me and the man asked if I was all right. “Please just grab my dog,” I said as I stood up covered in mud on every item of clothing I was wearing except my bra. That is right, mud was all over my shoes, socks, pants, shirt, sweater, gloves, coat and even my underpants. Of course this was the one-day I was dressed up and not in my jeans and ratty sweatshirt.

I was not hurt at all. Mud is very cushy. I ran into the house, stripped off my clothes at the front door so that I did not drag mud through the house. I forgot I had a glass door, so I hope that man had kept walking.

I ran to my bedroom and threw on a less desirable outfit, but more supportive shoes. After my morning appointment and lunch with Hannah I stopped in a shoe store to see about getting a new pair of warm black winter shoes. The clerk looked at me strangely when I asked if she could measure my foot. How could a 53-year-old woman not know her shoe size? Sure enough I was a whole number size smaller and two widths thinner. Not the place I want to be thinner.

Dreaming of Christmas Decorating When I Should Be Shopping For Gifts

My sister Janet is in China on business for a couple of weeks. She sent me a message saying that she just went into a huge factory filled as far as the eye could see with Christmas decorations, and she thought of me. I know that most people complain about Christmas decorations going up early, I understand it can make you crazy, but not me. I am already dreaming about decorating.

Yesterday I made Carter take something to the attic and she looked over in the Christmas section and came down with a big sigh, “Oh no, it’s almost time to get the boxes down.” I know she hates this time of year because the movement of the boxes and giant decorations down from the attic feels like Lewis and Clark crossing the great northwest. To that I remind her that she is related to Meriwether Lewis and “Merry is in his name.”

Russ was out in Palo Alto last week and texted me while he stood in front of a gift store that had a window full of Christmas ornaments asking if I wanted something. Nice thought. I know he was just looking for any help in the Christmas gift department. “No,” I said. That did not make him happy.

Here is the big problem. I am incredibly picky about Christmas stuff. It may feel like quantity is important based on how much I have, but it isn’t. Now it is about just the right things and they are really few and far between. Since I stitch needlepoint ornaments all year I am even more choosy than ever.

I cannot imagine there is one thing in that giant Chinese Christmas decoration factory I would want. Now if she was in a Swedish Christmas factory it might be another story. So sorry to my family there just isn’t much you can get me.

My dilemma is that I should be figuring out what I am going to be giving to people for Christmas, but somehow that does not start until my house feels like it’s own Santa’s workshop. I have already worked out my wrapping theme for the year, but I don’t have one thing to wrap yet.   I wish that everyone would just register for gifts and let me choose from a list they have predetermined they want…hint, hint, hint.

It is very unromantic and uninspired that I can’t figure out what to give people, but since I don’t want anything for myself I don’t look at things as desirable. Now I am sure that my family really wants a gift or two and will not be content to just look at my Christmas decorations and eat a good meal and say, “that was the best Christmas ever.”

This is the word out to anyone who thinks you are on my list, give me some ideas. If you don’t want to get a flannel nightgown for Christmas, and Dad I know you don’t, let me know what you do want. Mail me, or text me you send a letter to Santa via Westover road.

Holiday Entertaining Hiccups

Today I was looking at my calendar of up coming entertaining. I have a mother’s lunch, a formal dinner, a garden club lunch, a ladies lunch, Carter’s birthday, a company dinner and lunch, a school hot lunch and those are just a few I was working on planning today. There is nothing I like more than throwing parties, getting people together and entertaining and the holidays seem to offer more opportunities than I need.

My dilemma is what I eat and can have around the house is not the normal holiday fare. I love to make yummy food that everyone oohs and ahhs over, but is it Ok to forgo the fattening items and make healthier party food? Will people be disappointed or will they be thankful that I am not adding to their holiday weight gain?

I am able to withstand a perfect warm yeast roll at a party, but if it is leftover and sitting in a container on the counter my will power is greatly tested. Why is that? When it just comes out of the oven and is at it’s prime I can push back away from it, but give it a day or two of being leftover and it is hard for me to avoid craving it.

There is one answer and that is I could pack up all the leftovers and send them home with my guests. That way I can make an array of foods and just move the naughty ones out as the last friend is leaving the door, but is that fair to my friends? I hardly know anyone who wants to have an extra pie or cake sitting around.

Now I am racking my brain for healthy but delicious menus that I can make quickly since I seem to have a party every other day. What I need are some good make ahead items that I can pull out and serve on short notice. The bad thing is that my best healthy dishes require a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits and lots of chopping.

Long gone are the days when I could whip up a big batch of pasta carbonara or make a few big lasagnas. Even a honey-baked ham is out of the question. My guests are just going to have to be surprised. I think as long as I end with a good dessert and a fruit option for me no one will leave unhappy.

The Three Bears

I am an early to bed lover of famous proportions, especially when the weather turns cold and the dark comes early. Basically I think I am a bear who likes to hibernate through the winter and frolic in the summer. This pattern in a normal year is just fine since I pack in as much travel as possible starting at spring break and continuing until school starts back up and then I am happy to be a homebody while Carter is in school.

This year started out fine for me, but just as the real snuggle down time has come into season I am thrown off my game by my family’s activities. Since Carter has made the varsity basketball team, yet is still three weeks away from getting her drivers license I am responsible for picking her up after practice, which is sometimes after 7:30.

Russ has also been doing some work in California and in order to maximize his days has been taking the red eye home each Friday. This means that when he gets home at 6:30 on Saturday morning he needs to take a nap at some point.

Last night Carter had a 6:00 PM basketball game after a long school week. I was in the Cav-dome to cheer on the team at a time of day when I would normally be home in my nightgown. Of course cheering on the girls in their big win of 63-20 against the Charlotte Country Day girls was well worth staying up for. Carter wanted to stay for the first quarter of the boys’ game, but finally by 8:00 hunger won out and we went downtown for supper. It was close to ten by the time we got home and stayed up late looking at hotels for our spring break trip.

Although I was way off my sleep cycle going to bed close to midnight I thought I would be fine since I could sleep late. I should have known that my normal clock would take over and I was wide-awake at 6:00 AM and Russ met me with surprise as he walked in the door at 6:30.

I had to get Carter up and make her a real breakfast before her morning basketball game against the Ashville girls. I let Russ take a little nap while I took Carter over to school to get taped before the game. I rushed home to get Russ up and back to the gym where I felt as if I had never left. The girls after a great win just hours before rallied to beat Ashville something like 63-32.

By the time we left the gym at 1:30 I was exhausted. I had neither flown the red eye, nor played two basketball games, yet I desperately needed a nap. The cold and dark had to play into my need to hibernate. I was not alone. If someone had rung the doorbell at our house they would have encountered the three bears and one little pup all sleeping as if it were the middle of the night. It’s going to be a long winter at this pace.

Time Warp

When I was a kid and my grandmother wanted to tell me that something was going to take a long time she would describe it using the phrase, “As slow as Christmas.” I think back to how brilliant she was to be able to tap into what I, as a child could understand since nothing felt like it took forever to come along as much as Christmas, followed quickly by the last day of school and then your own birthday. I am about the same age now as my grandmother was then and I feel like Christmas is coming so fast and I am so unprepared. I don’t think I could get down to that child level so quickly.

As I get older the time does seem to speed up. There are only a few times in my life when I felt that time practically stood still, other than those childhood years waiting for Santa; waiting to hear about college acceptance felt like watching sand drop through the hour glass, but the pinch point was too small and waiting for the birth of my first and only child. Perhaps not sleeping comfortably makes one so fatigued that you feel time is standing still.

Perhaps anticipating when your mother-in-law leaves to go home can make the hours go more slowly. This is not something I know anything about since my mother-in-law only held that title for the first year of my marriage, God rest her soul. I also guess waiting for a loved one to recover from an illness can also be excruciatingly long hours.

Somehow the sad hours seem longer than the happy. I hate that life is going so fast, but I don’t want to wish for bad things so the time will feel drawn out. What I really want is to have childhood Christmas again. Something I don’t have to do much preparation for, except for being just good enough to make it onto the “good” list. No shopping or wrapping or trying to avoid the Christmas cookies.

I want to not be able to go to sleep because I am so excited for Christmas morning to come, rather than falling into bed dead tired from trying to pack too much into the day. I want to be so bored waiting for Christmas eve that I will blankly sit in front of Laurel and Hardy’s Babes in Toyland in black and white playing over and over again on channel 5 like I did every year of my childhood.

This year I want to feel what my Grandmother called,”as slow as Christmas” for a happy reason. No sadness to slow time down, just the anticipation of a wonderful day.

Special Shopping Times at The Grocery

Companies do lots of different promotions to get people into their stores. If you are a student you get a discount, if you are a senior you have a special day, if you belong to their loyalty program you have discount prices. Yes, all these things are in the name of marketing, and heaven forbid I say something negative about marketing. But sometimes the promotion for one group is a disincentive for another.

Today I had to run into the market and get just a few items. The first stop was at the apples. There I encountered a very elderly lady who had left her cart blocking the aisle with her purse unminded, mind you, and had walked down the apple aisle touching every piece of fruit as if feeling in Braille for the type she wanted. I knew that I just needed two granny smiths and waited patiently as she guarded the whole section like a pro-linebacker protecting the ball. Eventually she noticed that I was either waiting for an apple or to get my cart by her, neither, which I could do, in the current situation.

After the apples came the raspberries. There I encounter an elderly woman who was using the corner of the berry display to lean on while she adjusted an unmentionable article of clothing with no regard for being in public. Again I waited patiently. Eventually when her bosom, as my grandmother would call it, was in place she looked at me and said, “What are you looking at?” “The raspberries I am hoping to buy.”

I moved on to the cheese counter where a couple who had to have been married to each other for at least 60 years was fighting over feta or goat cheese. They must have had their readers on and not been able to see me waiting just to grab some blue.

As I tried to weave my cart through the aisles full of AARP members it dawned on me. It was senior discount Thursday. I guess that the area nursing home busses had brought all their residents to shop at ten in the morning so they had plenty of time to roam the store and clog up the check outs before they were due back at the home for lunch.

I know that one day I too am going to be one of these people and I can only imagine that inefficient shoppers will still bother me then even if I am one. I need to make a note to myself not to ever shop on senior day except during meal times.

As I finally got out of the store and pushed my purchases to my car in the cart I saw an older man I know from church. I said hello as he was going into the store and he asked if I had finished shopping. “Yes, I just need to return my cart.” I was sure that as an older man with excellent manners he might offer to take it since that was where he was heading. I was wrong. He just said, “have a nice day,” as he walked a step ahead of me into the store. So there isn’t even any chivalry on senior day.

Ode To The Stadium Seat

I’ve turned from a professional sitter to a semi-pro walker in the last year. After years of being great at sitting in one place content to barley move, I have done a 180 and now can hardly stand to sit anywhere for very long. A good thing you might say, but not when it comes to high school basketball season.

Today was Carter’s first scrimmage on varsity basketball, a big day in our house of non-varsity players. Since it was teacher conference day Carter and I got to spend the day shopping for the right orthotic insoles and new socks she needed. At last the time came to get her to the gym for taping and warm-ups. I went to the school track to get some steps in before the sitting session had to start.

At Carter’s urging I got the to gym early enough to watch the warm ups and get a chance to see the team in action before they met their first opponent. Sitting on bleachers without back support is not my favorite place to be. Luckily when I was rustling around the garage last week I found a folding stadium seat I bought for last years season, but never got to use thanks to meniscus surgery.

During the warm-ups I sat quietly in my seat finishing the sky portion of a zebra needlepoint without guilt since it was not the real play. Once the game started in earnest I put way my stitching to focus on supporting the team. The play was exciting and every member of the team got a chance on the floor.

It was all I could do to stay seated on my padded seat, both my human one and my foam one. Sitting for two hours without a walking break is almost next to impossible for me, but I did it. Not once did I get up and pace the sidelines. I am certain that would be frowned upon and I would be ejected from the gym and be a great embarrassment to my child.

It’s just the start of a long sitting season. I know I could not endure those backless bleachers long. Thank goodness for my stadium seat. I bet if I filled my car with them I could make quiet a profit by selling them at game halftimes. I can’t be the only old mother whose butt hurts sitting so long.

Daylight Savings Eating

I got on the scale this morning and I was up a couple of pounds. This kind of scale reading puts fear in my heart. I know all too well how easy it is for me to get off track and go in the wrong direction. It should be no surprise to me though.

Yesterday at Mah Jongg my friends shared their onion rings with me and I shared too much. I also had my fair share of the tiniest heath bars ever made. I know in my mind that even though they were the size of a postage stamp they really pack in the calories, and not just any calories the sugar type that throws my body into a fat holding tailspin.

Since I have so many tracking devices for my weight and exercise I looked back at my records and found that is was exactly this time in the last two years that I fell off the wagon and skipped up the scale. Granted Halloween happened at the same time in both of those years, but so did Day light savings time.

In my analytical examination of what I am doing wrong so I can correct myself sooner rather than later I realized that since we fell back I have been getting up earlier. Like five AM earlier, which am way more than the hour I gained last weekend. I also noticed that I am much more tired in the afternoons and have been reverting to mindless snacking to keep me awake. Somehow the snacking is working and I am staying up until my normal hour, making my waking time at least two hours more per day.

Something I subscribe to in the weight loss arena is that if I am asleep I am not eating. Thank goodness I never took Ambien and did the sleep eating routine. And like most regular humans if I am tired my defenses are down and I am more likely to eat something I have more or less given up in order to fit into my clothes.

You would think that by now my body would have adjusted to the time change, but the dark afternoons seem to have a hold on my grazing tendency. I also have not gotten all my steps this week. Life and death issues and my cooking requirements are to blame there, but life and death happen and I need to be able to work those into my routine.

Now that all this data has been gathered and the analyzing is done I am going to try and put the information to work to get me back on track. Actually I can’t just back on track, I have to do better than normal so I can drop the pounds I gained. I better do it fast because Thanksgiving is just two weeks away and I am already dreaming of forbidden stuffing.

The Benefits of the Yellow Line

Seems like it is pavement-repaving month around here. Every where I go I feel like I am waiting in long lines for my turn to drive on the one lane that is not either being ground down or recovered. Granted the roads that are being worked on are long over due for resurfacing, but did the state of North Carolina need to save all the projects for the a one month window?

For the last three days I have had to drive up and down Academy Road to bring soup to my friend Amy. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this particular byway, it is lovely tree lined thoroughfare with no streetlights. I am not sure exactly when the machines came through that ground off the old cracked up surface and sucked it into trucks, leaving a consistently nubby under layer, but no repaving has taken place for three days.

I don’t really mind driving on the less than smooth road during the day. The bump, bump, bumping is kind of hypnotic and the all black road with no painted lines with giant trees that stand like soldiers all along the route make it feel like I am in some German forest going to grandmother’s house like Hansel and Gretel.

The problem comes at night and now that day light savings time has come night is really in the afternoon. Today as I was winging my way to Amy’s with my Senegalese Chicken Stew in tow I realized that many of the drivers around me had no idea which side of the street belonged to them without the aid of the center yellow line. The lack of a white sideline did not help matters and the black macadam under layer could not be distinguished from the black shoulder of the side of the road.

Some cars quickly crowded into the center with great disregard for oncoming traffic, while others inched slowly along, hugging the outside edge. The one thing that was universal was the cars that went too fast also thought the road was one way and made no attempt to share, while the cars that went too slow could have gone four cars abreast on a two lane road. Apparently most drivers need a yellow line in order to know exactly what they are due.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had yellow lines on all parts of our lives guiding us to take just what we should have and not more than we need. I wish that all my meals had a yellow line. Judging what I should eat based on hunger has never really been a good indicator for me. My mind almost always thinks I should have more than my body actually can burn up. If only I had a plate with a yellow line that kept me eating only the right half of my food I probably would not need to walk so much.

I’m going to keep my eye out for other places the use of a yellow line might be beneficial. After driving for three days on the same road without one I am going to advocate that all roads have them because I am sure that a few side mirrors have met certain death on Academy Road this week.

Call Out For Kindness

Alice Roosevelt Longworth famously said, “If you don’t have something nice to say, come sit by me.” When I was young I subscribed whole-heartedly to that principle. Being tough and self-reliant was highly prized in my formidable years. I don’t think that anyone would describe me as kind when I was a teenager.

Today it was important that I made it to church since it was the last Sunday my friend and church business manager Barbara Fletcher was going to be there. She is retiring and moving to Alabama to live closer to her two granddaughters. I have known and adored Barbara for years having had the pleasure of working on committees with her for at least the last fourteen years. I will miss her, especially her thoughtful kindness.

As I sat in church my minister Chris told a story about what his grandfather who at the age of 93 lost his wife of sixty-nine years. His Grandfather was unsure of what he had to live for. One day Chris went to visit him and he Grandfather called him into the room and said, “I know what I am supposed to do now.” Chris leaned in waiting to hear the secret to life. “I’m just supposed to be nice to people.” His grandfather lived another twelve years and must have made lots of people happy with his kindness.

After church I got a big surprise when I had an unplanned visit with Megan Ketch who was Carter’s babysitter for five years and is like my bonus daughter. Megan is a successful actress living in NYC. We talked about the work she was doing and how the world is changing to embrace kindness as a measurement for success. She said to me that now the goal she tried to live by is to be just a little kinder than even she thought she could be.

As I was making soup for my friend who had been sick I noticed this thread of the importance of kindness running through my day. It dawned on me that I too have come to value kindness so much more than I did as a young person. Now I am not talking about sickly sweetness or insincerity, but just plain ‘ole thoughtfulness. Doing something for someone else with no expectations in return.

Now don’t get me wrong, if a person drives me crazy I am much less likely to go out of my way to do them a favor, but I am also less likely to be unkind. I feel as if the universe is giving me a sign to push kindness just a little bit further. Big disclaimer here, I’m not giving up edginess or if I am particularly hormonal all bets are off, but maybe, just maybe I will catch myself before I say something not so nice and just keep it to myself.