You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2008.
Yesterday:
(Reese) “Mama, know what?”
(me) “What?”
(Reese, through a toothy smile) “You’re my best friend.”
Last evening I was going stir-crazy. Not having a car while one’s without a muffler and the other’s in the body shop is awful when you have an infant and a toddler, and a bus or bike’s out of the question. So we socked it to the oil speculators, piled into our little rental Mazda and hit the road. Grabbed some eCreamery gelato and headed north on 52nd Street, all the way outta town. Drove through Fort Calhoun and saw kids hanging out at the ice cream stand, saw the high school football field (imagined friday night lights in the fall) and spotted a little league game in progress. It was after weaving through the town streets to watch the game for a minute that Michael confessed he’d love to live in the country someday – not way out in the sticks, but half an hour from the city wouldn’t be that bad, would it?
Um, er.
Though there is something to say about being able to stretch your legs and your mind in the wide-open air. Extend your arms without bumping anyone’s elbows. Let the kids explore the great outdoors on a daily basis. Being a little closer to ‘nature’. Having a little homestead. Maybe that’s the pioneer in me. Seeing four deer on our way home and the thrill Reese got as she craned her neck to watch them disappear into the corn had me almost convinced. That and driving up by north River Road. Love that spot.
Stay tuned. This sounds like an episode of ‘Green Acres’…you can take the girl out of the city, but can you really take the city out of the girl? Sometimes I like bumping elbows with the masses.
Becoming a mom has made me privy to all sorts of cultural phenomena I never would have considered before. Like hand sanitizer. Take your kid to the mall play-area, let your mini sneeze or cough (gasp!), and voila! Before your eyes, little bottles of the clear gel are pulled from purses or diaper bags – every kid gets some, hands are rubbed together vigorously, and the threat of infection passes. Right?
I’m not a big germophobe – kids get sick, kids get dirty. In my mind, it’s all part-and-parcel of childhood. But as Reese attempts to master the potty-all-by-herself, my mind wanders…toilet germs on hands, hands on cup, hands on baby brother…ugh. And when I’ve got my hands full with a teething baby, let’s be honest – monitoring Reese’s hand washing sometimes doesn’t happen.
So I found this bottle of CleanWell at Target in the ever-expanding hand sanitizer section, and love it. It’s all natural – no alcohol, triclosan or weird chemicals, just herb oils and citrus to naturally kill off those nasty germs. (I’ll blog about The Greening of Lindsay later.) It’s pricier than other sanitizers, but lasts much longer. I should get paid for this recommendation. (Hear that, CleanWell people?) It smells great, Reese loves to spray her hands as part of her potty ritual, and I’m not apprehensive about her skin absorbing alcohol or harmful chemicals. Can I spray this on my grilled chicken? Mmm.
Last night we went to see the Dave Matthews Band in concert. Whoop! Cross off #2 of 3 arena shows to see before I die (saw U2 in 2006, next: Coldplay – these are the ‘big three’ for Michael & I – the ones we both love to listen to) So nostalgic for us – just check out this video (my favorite DMB tune). I remember listening to their first album during math class in junior high (how cool was my teacher?!), and never hearing anything like it before. Grooving along with the band and the crowd as they jammed through their old & new hits (even a cover of “Sledgehammer”) made me want to tie the flannel shirt around my waist again.
We just put the kids to bed. I remember having to go to bed many a humid summer night when it was still light outside…I wonder if they hate it as much as I did. I would lie there, bathed and sweating again in my t-shirt, perfectly still, trying to feel the breeze from the oscillating fan and hearing luckier kids still outside, using up the remaining daylight.
I hear the locusts outside tonight for the first time this year. When that happens, I know I’m in the thick of the Nebraska summer, which smells like dry dirt roads, freshly cut grass, sweat and sun-tea. I just got back from one of my favorite annual traditions (more about the Whocares weekend later!), and am feeling refreshed and in-touch with the non-mom, non-wifely side of me that tends to get a bit dusty. Am diving back into my duties with renewed energy today. Listening to the locusts’ chant seems to connect me to that little girl again, remembering summers past.
I feel it all, I feel it all / The wings are wide, the wings are wide / Wild card inside, wild card inside…
Last Friday, right during rush hour, Omaha experienced a storm like no other for this part of the country – comparable only to a hurricane, I’ve never been in a storm quite like this one. I was watching the news when a thunderstorm warning was issued for our county, including large hail and strong wind gusts. Whatever, I thought, they always inflate that stuff.
Wrong-o.
As it approached on the radar, I called Michael, who was working at a coffee shop out west, to head home to spare the Honda any hail damage. He decided to pack it up and call it a day. Reese and I opened up the garage door and sat on the back step, watching the storm roll in. I like to stand outside, looking for the storm front and feeling that definite change in the air - but then I saw it. Really dark clouds, rushing past overhead, trying to outrun themselves. Something felt wrong, so we went inside. Everything else happened really fast. The wind picked up, sending all sorts of debris everywhere. (I’m getting knots in my stomach again as I write this!) Trees bowed before the storm. Tornado sirens went on and off. Rain fell horizantally. Even the flies caught inside dropped to the floor, oddly sluggish. Hail fell like a thousand machine guns at 90+ mph, and the power went out. The sound of it all was deafening. I felt like Dorothy. I snatched Liam out of bed and we ran for the bathroom, while I tried to call Michael, to no avail. It was all over in a few minutes.
He called five minutes later to tell me he was in a car accident, right in the thick of the storm. As he was racing home (quickly realizing he couldn’t outrun it), the traffic lights all went out and as each intersection became a 4-way stop, he made his way through a busy intersection and got t-boned by a woman who wasn’t paying attention, driving at warp speed. She shrugged and drove off. He was left there to get his car off the road and try to call me. Our phones went out.
The rain stopped and I went outside to try a neighbor’s phone, and noticed the quarter-sized hail piled up inches thick against the house. We were lucky – no damage here, but as we drove through midtown later, MAN. Big, old trees were uprooted and laying everywhere – on houses, cars, in streets, on powerlines. Much of the city did not have power. Every time we’ve left the house this week we see how fortunate we were not to have had any major damage to our duplex, and made it through mostly unscathed. I really shouldn’t whine about my double impatiens getting tattered. Michael’s okay, the car is getting repaired, and if ever there was a great time for us to be renting, this was it! People here say they’ve never seen anything like this storm (believe it or not, there was NO tornado) and I agree. Aren’t these photos amazing? (the first ones were taken by local photographers) The last one is within walking distance of our place. Michael said it reminds him of how everything we have here is fleeting. It can be gone in an instant. Seeing the meterological fury last Friday put me once again in awe of the One who can stay it all with a whisper – who could snuff that powerful boiling sky under His pinky finger. Majestic and humbling, when you think about it.
