I have a fond childhood memory of the Mr. Softee Ice Cream Truck.  That tune! If what they say about memory and music is true,  I will be forever running to the curb when I hear da deedle de de de de …

It had been decades until today, I heard faint and faraway notes and I knew it.  He was back.  The familiar jingle that once sent me running with change in my hand and joy in my heart, knowing that I would soon have a cone from Mr. Softee.

I bolted outside and called out “Stop! Stop! Mr. Softee!”

But as I ran across the lawn, ouch, holy crap, I stepped on a bee in my bare feet.  I grabbed my toe and called out in pain.  My toe was swelling and pain seared through, but  I was determined to get that cone.

The driver was expressionless as I, the middle aged crazy lady dragged my injured self to his window.   But once there,  my decision making, which is a struggle all by itself was now clouded with pain.

An Ice cream sandwich!  Freshly made right there in front of me, YES!

I paid him and turned to hobble home holding a waxed paper sac with 3 inches of soft serve ice cream nestled between two big chocolate cookies with beautiful rainbow jimmies all around the edges.   I couldn’t wait.  But once inside I had a bee sting to tend to.  Still I had a bite before breaking out my mother’s home remedy (toothpaste) directly on the sting and Advil in case it didn’t work.

I can’t wait until the next time Mr. Softee comes down my street.  I’ve already decided on a chocolate coned dipped in magic.

Also – I’m wearing shoes.

All moms need an office.     I have two part time jobs, neither of which cost me more time and brain space than parenting, and neither of which gives me an office, or even a desk, and  I would really like one.  A place of my own, where the treadmill to my right isn’t reminding me that my exercise regimen is pathetic,  or a place where the laundry room door isn’t staring me straight in the face saying “You! Come here! There’s work to be done in here!”   How am I supposed to be effective working from home with all these distractions!

Everybody in my family has a place to go and a door to close. They alone command everything inside their room.   If I had my own room, just for me, I imagine it would be glorious.   Nobody would just walk in demanding I help find a missing shoe.  The door, my barrier, would limit my availability to the rest of them.  I’d have office hours. Inside, there would be actual living houseplants for an abundance of oxygen, and I would use aromatherapy and  playlists to set the mood I choose.  All just for me.

Outside, on the door I’d keep a “problem box” with instructions:

• Please fill out a form and state your problem, all complaints will be read on Friday between 4 & 5 pm.
• Feel free to offer a solution to the problem for extra allowance.  
• Forms submitted without a viable solution will be charged a small processing fee in advance of any response from the management.    
• The turnaround time is about a week.  

I imagine that my office has a beverage container from Crate & Barrel, filled with spring ice water and pretty slices of fruit.   The drinking glasses are so clean that the sun  bounces off of their shine and fills sparkles of light fill the room.  And there is no dog, cat, rabbit, or guinea pig fur whatsoever.

As I come out of the dream scene I just described it becomes clear that I do not have my own room, or a beverage container from Crate & Barrel.    I have a desk in a cluttered room and one glass pitcher from Ikea.  As for the sparkling clean glasses and the absence of pet fur?  (enter laughter here)

So, for now I’ll just appreciate the roof and four walls that I call home.  I could paint the laundry room door a pretty color and put more things on the treadmill to disguise it but maybe, what I should do, is set out to prove what I tell my kids all the time.  It’s not what you think you need that really matters, it’s what you do with what you already have.

Whenever I complained to my own mother she’d always point out the more disadvantaged.   “Be happy you have shoes at all,” she’d say when I wanted really expensive converse sneakers that weren’t in the budget.   Or, “there are children suffering all over the world that would love to have the asparagus on your plate!”

I know. I really do have everything I need but gee, wouldn’t it be nice if I just had an office.    I can hear my mother now,  “be happy you have a place to live and food on your plate,” and I am happy for all of that .  But I wouldn’t mind if I were also happy for an office.

We’re currently in the seventh week of 2107 and I still haven’t settled on a planner. It used to be that for me,  executing a plan was more of a problem than making one, but now I’m stuck at selecting which planner to use in the first place!

Over the last several years personal planners have become a big deal.  I could  spend a ton of money and time with any one of the planner styles, even though the large refrigerator calendar(that I regularly update and nobody checks) would still be sufficient.

The planner I buy annually, (for 10 years now), is from Blue Sky.  It’s a good size for me and it’s sturdy, but my favorite part is that the dates go from June 2016 to July 2017.   It does the planner job quite well but I still look around, because each time I try some new way to keep track of things, it makes me think:  more is possible, I could be better at getting things done, and then I’ll do more.  Who wouldn’t like more?

One of the popular styles of planning is in something called a Bullet Journal.  This a great way (they say) for the creative person to combine planning, doodling, and record keeping.  I tried it, but I got lost in the process.   I know plenty of people who claim to love it, but I spent more time  finding you tube videos about how to use a bullet journal then anything else.   Maybe I didn’t try hard enough.

The Passion Planner is also supposed to be great for the “creatives”.  I got one when they first came out several years ago.  I might even have contributed $7.00 to the Kickstarter. You put your hopes and dreams ( and more doodles ) on the pages as well as your wants and needs.   But it turns out that my hopes and dreams cannot coexist with my wants, needs, and grocery lists.   Perhaps it’s just an uneven balance of passion but they just didn’t get along.  So I moved on.

Martha Stewart has a mix and match set up for your pocket calendar  so you can  customize  one.   Mine was very nice but it was so pretty, I didn’t write in it.   Ban.do is another line with planner components, and now I have  tons of little tabs and stickers and even a tiny rubber stamps that says “good job!”  If you are bad at impulse control, stay away from the planner section at Staples.

So, even with all of the options out there, I keep coming back to my Blue Sky June to July 5’X8″ planner.    I spiced it up a little this year with colored pens and vinyl coated paper clips.   I’ve also begun to fall in love with Washi tape which comes in way too many colors and patterns to make it simple, but I like still to try.

Fo now I think I must come to terms with my regular old planner. I did start a project called a creative goal journaling which isn’t a date book but is more of a record keeper for your goals. That’s not going very well either.  I keep forgetting about  tracking my progress in it and I haven’t really had much success in making my goals recently   so it’s just a vicious cycle anyway.

Sometimes I think I should just go back to the days when allI had was that one free datebook from Hallmark.  These were given out every year “until supplies last.”   I remember my Aunt getting all excited about the new one every year.  Maybe I’ll stop into the closest store and see if they have any left even though in the seventh week of the year it isn’t likely.  But who knows?   If nothing else I’ll have a browse at the cards and wrapping paper.  Hmmm…. I wonder if Hallmark has a planner section.  After all, It can’t hurt to look.

I grew up with dogs so I thought I was a dog person.  But then  I got a cat.  Sorry Fido, I’m hooked, on felines.  Ever since I proclaimed my pet partiality I’ve wondered what makes a person pick  team cat vs. team dog. It’s more then just a preference like vanilla or chocolate.  It’s much, much more.

To answer the question, cat vs. dog I turned to the expert on most things – Google. There is enough research and opinion out there to write a thesis on this topic but here are my top 5 findings about dog people and cat people.

1. It seems everybody agrees that dog people are more outgoing and friendly then cat people. No surprise there, right? Just picture the folks in the park throwing Frisbees to beautiful golden retrievers. Are they not the picture of health and well being, just out there inviting conversation, companionship, or a friendly wave. “Nice throw.” “Good lookin’ dog! “What fun!”

Cat people therefore, are more like, um, cats? You see a beautiful cat who looks like he’d be yummy to pet so you approach him, hand gently extended and you say “hi kitty” in the most loving voice possible.  You get  close to him, maybe even just a few inches away and BAM!  You get a swat, a snub, or the cat simply gets up and walks away with his tail bobbing up and down, flipping  you off in cat language.  Cat people don’t mind keeping to themselves, and if a cat person is not in the mood for you, he or she  will definitely let you know.

2. Another across the board finding was that cat people are generally smarter and more curious than dog people. There’s a bunch of supporting evidence on this but I’ve always held that dogs are not particularly smart, however they are highly trainable. I’m not sold that trainability equals smart but the majority disagrees with me.

Here’s a picture of a dog named Scout who is internet famous for balancing things on his head, and waiting.   He has outstanding patience.   Go Scout.

Felines are complete agreement that putting a treat on their head and waiting for the command to eat it is just dumb. I think that makes them smart.  And,  I believe that cat people don’t invest a lot of time or energy in things that make no sense either, thus, smarter.

3. There is a strong agreement out there that dog people are less neurotic than cat people. I guess it makes sense.  If you have idiosyncrasies, walking or running with a dog, receiving the dog’s love, licks, and constant reassurance that you are the one and only may help ease your problems.  But to say that dog people are less neurotic than cat people? I disagree on this one without a shred of documenting evidence except to say that the term ‘crazy cat lady’ is not without merit.

4. I’ve repeatedly read that dog people are more tolerant than cat people. I agree, being a cat person I know intolerance first hand.   My teenage children are good examples of cat people.

5. Dog and cat people each have a different sense of humor. I’m not sure if I understand the research behind this finding but it does go  along with two other bits of information which is this:   There is a higher percentage of females who identify as cat people, thus a higher percentage of males as dog people.   Cat people enjoy satire and irony, dog people think burping the alphabet is a sport and that the fart and dart is funny.

Oh, you dog people!   I like you all, even if you have gone over to the bark side.

I attended the Erma Bombeck Humor Writers Workshop last April. There was recently a request for attendees to comment on successes they’ve had since that time.  If you know this particular group of people, you would know that successes are measured in many ways.. “I finally found the courage to ask for what I want,” or “I finished and published my novel” are both acceptable answers.  I thought long and hard about my own answer to this call for success stores ,because  I did not finish a novel, nor did I find courage to speak up.   I found my people.

Every meeting, everyday, every meal, snack, session, and after hours moments led me to the most interesting, loving, and funny people you could imagine – and not always in the knee slapping belly laughing kind of way. I sat next to a woman who lost her 16-year-old daughter to suicide.  She shared her story with me, how she came to terms with things and now she was looking to find her “funny” again,   It’s as if the ‘funny’ was a drug. Of course there were outlandishly funny people there, including stand up comics, humor bloggers, even TV personalities known for their funny side.   And there was no shortage of fiction and non-fiction writers of satire.   The most hilarious new greeting came from a  person who told me “I don’t even know why I’m here!  I’m not even a writer!”   She was looking for something new.

Some of us find our people at Wal-Mart, some at Armani.

It’s important to find your people, no matter what age you are. I found my people in college where I learned how to party, and the value of hard work. I found my people in my first ‘real job’ where all of us post grads suffered under the hand of a boss who makes Michael Scott seem average. I found my people when my twins were born and a bunch of the moms of twins joined in joy and misery.   I found my people at Erma.

From every stage of my life I’ve found my people, because I go out and be where we can find each other.   I’m not always looking for them, I  don’t know who they are, what they look like or when they will show up.    I know it when they come however, because they fill up a space I didn’t know was open and it just feels right.  

The best piece of relationship advice I ever got was from a friend who was from the young professional version of me – those people.   I will never forget what she said while I was despairing about meeting that someone.   “Just do what you like to do,” she said.  “You’ll find like minded people who like to do what you like to do, and then you can do that together.”  In fairness my mother probably said that to me, many times, but let’s face it, mom advice is usually only good in hindsight.    

I spoke to my friend, the advice-giver recently,  and even though it had been years and years since we spoke, it was as if it was just the other day that we parted.  

Once you find even one of your people, they will always be with you, in different geographies, or sizes, or importance, but they never leave, they’re you people after all, and you are theirs. 

 

My daughter’s phone is “toast.” We remedy this by rummaging through our stash of old and broken phones, searching for one that works well enough to replace her’s which is currently inoperable, and this will have to do for now.

As I watched my husband bring  the motherlode of shattered phones to the kitchen to decide which one was most viable, I said to him, “I wonder. Will we have more broken hearts, or more broken cell phones when we die?”  I’m hoping it’s phones because there are already so many of them!

Years ago, with five people on smart phones, and three of them still fairly young, our foray into the care and maintenance of cell phones was rough.  Phones were dropped, stepped on, even lost in the woods where a good samaritan found it two weeks later, took it home, charged it up and called us.   I never thought I’d see that one again until – there it was, in my mail overnight with a note from the very nice little girl who found the shiny object on the dirt path, under the leaves.   I did have my daughter send her a thank you and a present in case you were wondering.

Over the years we have amassed many phones with shattered screens, water damage, or sometimes both. One of the funniest incidents (in hindsight of course) happened the night my oldest daughter was bragging about being the only one who hadn’t broken a phone.   While she gestured her arms wide, and said “EVERYBODY,” the phone flew from her hand, hit the concrete next to the edge of an in-ground pool, and then bounced in and sunk to the bottom.   It happened in slow motion I swear it.  Even nature muted while we watched it fly from her hand, hit the concrete, and swish slowly back and forth until it rested on the very, very, bottom.

But, that was several years ago and since then everybody’s attention to phone maintenance has significantly improved. Lucky for us.  Currently, with the exception of that one sad back-up phone in place, we all  do pretty well keeping our phones up, running, charged, and in good repair.    But my poor husband,  who waited a long time to get a new phone because somebody else always seemed to need one before him, just got the Galaxy Note 7.  You know, the one that catches on fire?  We charge it overnight in a heavy dutch oven so if it explodes we will be safe.

Now, the good news:  Today is the day when Samsung replacement phones are available so we can go back to a regular charging set up and put the red pot back on the stove where it can be used for other burned things  – like my pot roast.

I might make a tiny cell phoned shaped cake in honor of the occasion.  But I don’t want  jinx things.

 

From Your Teen for Parents Magazine, September 2016  –  (subscribe to the print edition of the magazine, you won’t regret it.  Subscribe)

This is a piece from Working Mother Magazine that I wrote recently. We just signed a contract to dance another year. I signed the check with a a sigh.

http://www.workingmother.com/reluctant-dance-mom

I wave bye bye  to summer

And the beehive in my yard.

I’m deflating all the pool toys

Which is more sad than hard.

The beaches are still open but

leaves are on the ground.

I can’t help buying pencils and

A bag to tote around.

I haven’t been in school full time

since 1983

But September always makes me sigh

And wish that it was me

who is

Cramming summer reading,

And catching up with friends,

And picking out my “first day” clothes

As if my life depends

On making good impressions,

And turning a new leaf,

But soon enough I realize

that me,

is just still me.

The air is subtly changing

I pull more toys from the pool.

And pretend I’m getting ready

for another
year

of school.