Kicking Domesticity to the Curb

Sometimes I spend the weekend avoiding housework. Its a singular goal, completely self serving, and requires a surprising amount of effort. But sometimes Saturday morning rolls around and I make the decision to kick responsibility to the curb, turn a blind eye to the dishes and the dust bunnies, and revel in some ambition I'd saved for a rainy day.

Naomi and I trekked out for two Lincoln Safari adventures in a single morning. Hungry and energized by the Safari stops we had buttered biscuits and pancakes respectively at the Cracker Barrel. We sat down, over a crackling fire and warm plates of buttery goodness, to talk about saline wetlands, and endangered species. After all that science-stuff we played a nail-biter world-series set of Guess Who games.

The library held my latest read from Marisa de los Santos. I biked over, surrounded by autumn, to check it out and devoured the first two chapters in a single sitting.

The bathroom mirror fogged up from Sunday's long, hot shower.

I skipped church to sleep in.

McKibbin and I cooked food that only a grown-up could love.

I canvassed for Barack Obama in hopes that when history, or my kid, asks me "where were you when..." I'll have a good response.

I laughed at the raunchy, unrated versions of comedies available through my local Blockbuster.

I challenged my husband to a game of Scrabble, talked smack like nobody's business, and was thrilled by a final score where we tied.

I treated myself to a coffee-date with a long-ago-friend I found through Facebook. We giggled and had a great time like I had seen her just last week.

I spent more time being the person I intend to be (fun, thoughtful, inspired...) rather than allowing the hours to be consumed by the tasks I thought needed doing. The laundry still needs washing, the smudged windows persist. Beds don't make themselves, its true. This weekend I focused less on whether my sheets were folded into hospital corners and instead addressed the person laying down between them. It was time well spent.

I've Never Felt This Way About My Curbside Recycling Before

I was a child of the seventies. Disco music, feathered-hair and recycling are cornerstones of my earliest memories. I like the familiar rainfall sound of an aluminum pile collapsing in on itself. My parents stored old newspapers, 2 litre plastic bottles, and aluminum pieces in the back hall. We periodically loaded everything up to transport to the nearest recycling center. My dad and I would return the 16 oz glass Coke bottles to the Hinky Dinky grocery store for re-use. I guess you could say recycling has been a life-long habit of mine.

Curbside service made the effort more convenient. McKibbin and I have had curbside recycling since shacking up together eight years ago. It was one of the less noteworthy negotiations of moving-in. This week we switched curbside vendors to Star City Recycling. Wow, I'm enamored of everything they recycle! Plus, Star City donates some of their profits to the Lincoln Food Bank.

Let's see ...in addition to those fashionable yellow-bins with Star City Recycling I get:
* the convenience of curbside service,
* to recycle the basics plus items such as pagers and crayons (yes, crayons),
* to benefit the Lincoln Food Bank, and
* to be generally eco-fabulous.

At the risk of sounding like an infomercial I think for $11/month Star City Recycling is a steal!

The Commute

Last Wednesday I attended a conference in downtown Lincoln. The conference, while thought provoking and well done, was not the high point of the day. It was the short bike ride I took from my doorstep to the Cornhusker conference center.

McKibbin and I bought this house for many reasons. Price range, neighborhood, style of house...but its proximity to downtown was on the list of desirables. At the time I officed out of the Lincoln Electric Building. We closed on the house eleven days after Naomi was born. She was young enough I couldn't prop her up in the bike seat. But I had mapped out my future plan to commute to and from work by bike.

My office was moved to a remote generating site before my biker commuting habits really got started. No bike trails, no bus lines find their way to my work site now so I live for days where I have a conference or a day long downtown meeting. I hop on my purple bike, check the tires, don the helmet (because I'm too old to care about looking cool) and head out. Its as fast if not faster to bike as it would be to drive and park. Its healthier. Its less expensive. It contracts my carbon footprint. I'd like to say my biking preference stems from some deep virtue but its just more fun. I like biking. Coasting down hill is a sensation as close to floating (really, really fast floating) as I can imagine.

Hands down, the best part of my Wednesday was the fifteen minute commute from my door downtown; only bested by the return trip when the sun was out and the fall colors kicked into hyperdrive.

Dinner With Tess

About a week ago I came home from dinner with my family, logged onto my computer and had a survey from NPR's Marketplace asking how I felt about the $700 billion bail-out. I'm never short on strong opinions so I sat down and typed a furious diatribe. A cloud of mad-black-smoke rose steadily from my keyboard as I quoted my husband, my brother, my dad, and my mom from our dinner conversation. The web-based-form was peppered with my take on corporate greed, sub-prime mortgages, deregulation and predatory lending practices. Throw in a few expletives and you get the picture.

In one cathartic plunk of the "send" key I sent off my 2 cents worth into cyberspace thinking, "Whew, am I glad to have THAT off my chest!"

Twelve hours later I had a phone call from Marketplace Public Relations team. I thought the PR rep might suggest anger management therapy but instead she tactfully noted what a colorful family I must have. Then asked if we would be willing to host Tess Vigeland from Marketplace Money for dinner on Monday?

Long story short, and fast-forwarding through several utterances of "You have to be kidding me...", Ms. Vigeland was our dinner guest tonight. My dad played his vinyl recording of "I Hate to Wake Up Sober In Nebraska" before dinner. My mom cooked a lovely meal which culminated in something chocolate and fabulous. And I delighted in sitting down with a posse of smart and concerned people (my family) to talk about economics. It was a lively conversation, and a delightful dinner. One I won't soon forget.

Ms. Vigeland said to check out the evening Marketplace broadcast on Tuesday for our segment. Sadly, Nebraska Public Radio doesn't air the nightly evening show so you'll have to log onto www.marketplace.org to download the show, or check out Tess' blog and her photo gallery for her take on dinner with the Landis-McKibbin clan.

Point Well Taken

N and I were getting ready for church this morning. Sunday mornings have a laid back schedule at our house. Sometimes we'll linger over breakfast or surf the internet together before we get dressed. At this point in the motherhood game, however, any schedule that affords lipstick and mascara applications before I'm in the car feels luxuriously laid back.

This morning I put on my dress and donned a pair of shoes with a modest heel, walked out of my bedroom and saw N in the hallway. I rarely wear dresses and N often comments on how lovely I look whenever I put forth the slightest effort toward my appearance. My vanity inspired a sort of slight pause in the hallway. Nothing tacky or gratuitously obvious I just thought I'd linger there, you know, in case I needed to humbly receive praise.

Instead N clucked her tongue, scowled at my shoes and, in all seriousness, said "Don't blame me if you twist your ankle in those things!"

...and a bag of chips

Last March I splurged on a jar of super-duper-face-cleanser. Yes, I had just turned thirty-five. Yes, I was sensitive about my age. And I had one of those moments standing at my bathroom mirror where I gasped at my wrinkled skin, my blotted complexion. I found retail therapy as near as my local Walgreen's cosmetics counter. I was amazed at the options of age defying this and anti-wrinkle that.

Anyway this super-duper-face-cleanser was rather expensive. I rationed it, proportionally, into super-duper small applications. Used my cheek to wipe the jar clean a couple of times. Then proceeded to use the tap water rinsate complete with loosened crusted globs along the edges. No bones about it: last week there was no more super-duper to eeek out. My wrinkles persevered and the cleanser was ka-put.

Yesterday I went to the same retail therapy spot. I gazed at the cosmetic counter and the accompanying anti-wrinkle pricetags. Ouch. I vaguely remembered last March's sticker shock, but, the edges of the memory had grown dim. Somebody told me that happens when you grow older, your memory fails, but I can't remember who said so...

Since the economy is imploding in an icky, stinky mess we all are watching our spending these days. I couldn't justify the cosmetic cost of anti-wrinkle-super-duper cleanser just to stroke my fragile, and aging, ego.

I opted for Noxema. Yes, Noxema, its cheap. You know, it still comes in that big, blue tub. It still pricks at the skin, a little, with its medication. The smell conjures memories of cleansing teenaged, pimple-y pores.

Under that white masque I remind myself that I wouldn't want to stay young forever. I have no longing for my sixteen year old self. The one who would agonize about everything...wonder why nobody liked me...traversed a mental minefield of adolescent self loathing. I like being thirty-five much more than I ever enjoyed sixteen and seventeen. At thirty-five I laugh more, punish less, and love to greater depths than I did twenty years ago. With that white masque covering my face, I reminded myself that thirty-five isn't bad...in fact its pretty good. Then I washed off the Noxema, caught a glimpse of my wrinkly, blotted visage and amended my thoughts. Slightly.

If that thirty-five year old self-love could throw in flawless skin to boot -- just tie a big bow around it, a bag of Doritos and I'd be set for life. Seriously. Given the depth and breadth of cosmetics that promise fabulous skin I genuinely feel I'm on the road there... all I need now is the bow and the Doritos.
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Currently Reading: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri