Breakfasting on the couch

What is wrong with this picture? For one, it was not allowed in my childhood home while growing up. For another, it’s not allowed in my home now, while my kids are growing up.

Without my permission or even, at any clear point, my submission, the children have started breakfasting on the couch.

They have perfected the pillow table and I’ve invested in Scotchguard. No one could look at my sofa and guess that a thousand bowls of Froot Loops have sailed across its seas.

Here are the finer points to their technique:

Posture: The first step to a successful pillow meal is to slide all the way to the back of the couch, spine straight, pulling the pillow tight to your belly. Remain still at all costs, being sure to resist reaching for the remote to turn off the TV when Mom requests (shrieks) it.

Core: At no point can you breath, flinch, slouch, nor lean to or fro. Strong abs are key to this operation. One cannot and should not attempt this trick with 38-year-old abs.

Hand-eye coordination: Getting spoon to mouth is tricky enough... but to do this hypnotized by a yellow square and meowing snail on TV? Watching them doing it as if blindfolded is heart stopping. Again, this is a young man’s game.

Pillow: Choose firm and full pillows, stout like a plank of wood. Mom’s throw pillows — especially sentimental ones warned never to be touched, let alone eaten on — are ideal.

Attire: Stripping down to your undies is perfect because if there’s spillage, it’s easier to clean. And there will be spillage.

Wipes: Towels or napkins may be a good idea. A dining room table might even be a good idea. But no, only a box of Kleenex will be used. But do not actually touch Kleenex. Instead screech for Mom to come quick! Watch as each time she is shocked to see spillage, and each time she will grab the first thing she can — Kleenex.

Covers: A blanket wrapped from the waist down, without toes showing, is a must. Any spillage beyond the Kleenex can then be soaked up easily. Huge queen-sized comforters, impossible to put in the washer, preferred.

Waitress: Assume the position on the couch and holler for your mother. When she asks what you’d like for cereal, ignore her. Three times. When she puts the bowl of her choice on your lap (God forbid, with a banana on the side), make sure she knows she picked wrong.

Waitress, part 2: When she explodes, dump your cereal in your lap, thereby creating a distraction.

Waitress, part 3: This time, make sure she knows to bring Froot Loops.

Waitress, part 4: Leave at least ten O’s stuck to the side of bowl, which will turn to concrete by the time she remembers to pick up the bowl that evening.

The finale: Never finish the milk in the bottom of the bowl... because what else would there be to spill when it’s time to get up and get moving for school?

T-Day Dinner: If you have sisters, you know.

It’s the time of year when women everywhere will juggle family dinners for maybe two, three or even four different sets of family. Sometimes more.

We have a special kind of curse, where most of the in-laws and out-laws live within a few miles of each other. This means we never, ever have just one Thanksgiving dinner on the fourth Thursday in November. Instead, we get a series of them, one after another, morning, noon and night.

And the one at our family home always goes down like this: Dinner will be scheduled for 6 p.m. At least one of us three sisters will have to cut short another family dinner to make it by 6. This will create tension before the family has even buttered its first bun.

But it will be the best we can do, our own slice of Kalnbach time for the day. Never mind that we will also see each other the week of, during and after. Our mother would never forgive us if we didn’t gather on the holiday.

We will arrive in three stages:

Early: One of us will arrive early at our dad’s, carting a homemade side dish, her famous dessert and two children. This sister will rush around the kitchen, belly full with turkey, helping to prepare another one, wondering where the hell the others are.

On time: At 6 p.m., another sister will arrive. She will feel smug to have such perfect timing. But she will have forgotten to prepare her side dish and will have the ingredients swinging from her arm in a plastic bag from the corner gas station. “I’ll just whip this up,” she’ll say, casually. The early bird will glower at her but say nothing. Instead, they will place bets on when the last sister will show.

Late: Finally, the last sister will arrive 30 minutes late with her side dish half eaten by her in-laws. She will redeem herself by doing the dishes later in the night but, for now, she is the reason her sisters are standing around, mad and waiting, trying to pretend they are hungry and, most importantly, considering the intake of alcohol.

It will take the threesome a full fuzzy navel each to calm down and forget the trespasses committed. Peach schnapps was their mother’s favorite, but the good stuff comes when everyone else leaves the kitchen and it’s just the three of them, alone.

The sisters, 40 or near to it, will be giggling, with their shoulders pressed to each other, heads down, whispering, hoping their father isn’t coming. One of them will burn a pot of beans or drop a bowl of dressing. And they will all look up to see if they are going to be in trouble by an adult.

They will suddenly be in no hurry at all to start the meal. For a few moments they are kids again, laughing. They hate to break the spell that has come over the little kitchen, the kitchen they used to share with their mother. Because when they are together, and in sync, a part of their mother is there again too.

At last, the meal will be served, sometime around 7 p.m., and even then no one will be hungry. Six children’s plates with beans, buns, and turkey will eventually be fed to the dogs. Six children will beg for a bowl of cold cereal when they get home from the party. The next day, life will roar on into its usual busyness.

But the three girls will still remember what those few minutes in the kitchen felt like, together.

This year, we hope you’ll enjoy your own family dinners, agony and all, and take time to treasure the little moments even if your sisters are driving you batty. Happy Holidays!

Not Riding the Iceman: Why taking a break got me going again

 

I didn't ride the Iceman this year. Or last year. In fact, I swore I was retiring from my so-called secret-weapon training. Ask all my friends, I was adamant that I needed to quit racing altogether. I made them promise to not let me do it. It was no fun anymore, it took up all my time, I couldn’t take the anxiety, I hated race-day jitters, I always had a mid-race crisis where I hated my bike and them too.

But standing at the finish line of the Iceman this year, I saw racing with more clarity than I have in the 8 years I've been doing (or dreading) it:

A community. To be a part of it, on the inside, tucked into the sweaty jerseys and helmet head pictures, only comes with riding it. The spouses and friends and sponsors are all essential, but still one step removed from the true experience. There's nothing like feeling the chill settle in after the race and knowing your body is ready to be done, you've pushed it, you've earned a hot shower, a drink, a rest.

This year, I felt the separation, thin, between done and doing. I realized that not doing it one year hadn’t cost me much. But two years off and I was distancing myself from what I was, had become, what felt good and right and hard and worth it.

Can I let that go? I don't think I’m ready to. It's too much of what I loved about my life. It brought me new friends, new challenges, endless miles up damn hills, headaches, bonking and sometimes, always, satisfaction in getting it done. In many ways, biking saved me from grief, from losing my mom and my mind too. It put me on a path to doing better, trying harder. After two years off, I felt the old slip coming, back to bad habits that take me down, not build me up.

Some of my best times include that year when I biked like a madwoman, all the time while the kids were in school, and ran around with mad men, laughing and bitching and moaning and sore and sweaty and... again, satisfied. Of course many things had to take a backseat to that, time was in short supply. I couldn't do it forever and still get other things done, like my writing. But that year was a good one, great friends made and time found, somehow, for the first time since losing my mother, to go out at night with friends and laugh again.

A new perspective. By taking a break from racing, I see that the race is not as big as I’ve made it out to be. The nerves and anxiety are still there, but smaller now, acknowledged but not all-consuming. I've discovered it's ok, it's more than ok, it's good to feel small in a race, to fold into the crowd and ride for yourself. The feeling of finding your pace, of working a hill, shifting tight, pulling away with enough at the top of the hill to get back up to speed, not bonking, bonking and coming back.

It was something to see that sea of bikes at the end of the Iceman. I wished my bike was in there again. Hey, I wanted to say, I'm with these people. I see it bigger now, from above, looking down, that it’s a coming together on the same day for a bunch of people who like these same crazy things. 

So few of them are true racers, but 100% of them love their bikes and their friends they ride with. I don't love a single hill in a single race, but I can say some of the funniest times of my life have been spent, unexpectedly, in the hot, humid, wet cab of a truck with a group of people who just did something as dumb as ride through 3 hours of rain with me. 

Seeing them cross the finish line last Saturday, I wondered, what if I hadn't met these, my new friends? My bike brought me to this place in my life where I would meet them. And without planning to, I'd biked and changed alongside them every mile. All the stories, the victories and losses, not to mention the therapy on the trail.

They are part of my story now, a good part. Maybe other things are coming, too, delivered by my bike. Miles logged in solitude and in companionship. I needed a break, a few years off. But that time gave me the perspective I needed to see what I had, what I loved, what I missed. I know now that there's more to come, maybe even a good race or two.