How I Spent My Friday Night

I wish I could say I had a romantic evening with my husband. But, I can't. Oh, I was with my husband, all right. But it was anything but romantic.

We spent the evening with our heads in the toilet. And I mean that literally, not figuratively.

For the last few months, our downstairs loo has been on strike, refusing to cross the flush line. It was like that little engine that thought it could. It would swirl around, make a lot of noise and then just slowly, slowly, slooooooowwwwwlllllyyyy . . . not flush. It was really giving our otherwise fabulous water closet a bad name. And a tiny bit of a bad smell.

Ron diligently replaced every part that he thought he could replace short of buying a whole new toilet and it still wouldn't cooperate. So tonight, he asked for me to help him sort it out. We shortly deduced that the problem was in the tiny hole toward the bottom front of the bowl. We could feel stuff floating around in it so we alternately flushed the toilet and stuck our fingers in that little hole, trying to free the offending bits. (I am tempted to make a very rude remark, but I know it's not necessary . . . ) That didn't work so well so we started using a roach clip (that's not really what it's used for - it's some sort of fly fishing implement that Ron has. At least that's what he told me it is), and tried to grab the loose pieces (which turned out to be cork and plastic. And no, Ron hasn't been tossing his wine corks in there). Anyway, that's when it got funny. It was like trying to catch a really shy sea urchin. We could see just a fraction of the suckers and as soon as we would put our hands in the water it would float out of sight. So, I just started leaving my hand in the bowl when Ron flushed it. It was actually quite invigorating.

About an hour and a half later, we had dislodged one hard plastic disc and about six pieces of cork. There's still one elusive piece of plastic floating around, but it can wait until tomorrow. My hands are shriveled and I cut my finger on that dang hole. I know, paybacks are hell.

You'll Reap What You Sow

Attention! Everyone who is within eyeshot of this blog! I'm conducting a "Sunscreen Now or Cancer Later" drive. The target? My usually intelligent and reasonable son. From the look of things, he's ignoring my advice to use sunscreen on a regular basis and, as a result, his body matches his hair (except for two nickel-sized white spots where he dabs sunscreen once a day at the beginning of his eight-hour lifeguard shift and calls it good). I guess it's not enough that I, myself a former tanning bed addict, was diagnosed with malignant melanoma about five years ago and had a tiny, tiny skin cancer removed. (Which, I might add, Tyler was present for and offered the excited observation, "Dang, mom, that hole is REALLY big, which caused me to momentarily consider a full-on dead away faint.)

So, no, he doesn't seem to think that this could be a problem for him later on in life. Never mind that when he was little there was this older woman who came to the Marty pool for three hours every day and her skin looked like leather. Not new, soft, supple, rich Corinthian leather. She had more of a beef jerky leather look going. SO attractive.

So . . . I'm begging everyone who knows Tyler to bombard him with the dire statistics of what UV rays can do to one's skin. You can totally make up stuff. The more catastrophic the better. His email is whompthis12@hotmail.com or jmartin5@emporia.edu (or jmartin5@esu.edu, I can't remember which) or whompthis@tmail.com. I'm hoping that perhaps he'll listen to someone other than the woman who labored for sixty-five hours to give birth to him (it was really only about five hours and he knows it) and heed some good advice. I was yelling at him tonight, saying I hadn't spent hours and hours slathering sunscreen on him when he was little for him to end up with skin cancer. It reminded me of the scene in "Gone With the Wind" when mammy was telling Miss Scarlett that she couldn't wear her dress off her shoulders to the barbecue at Twelve Oaks . . . "I didn't spend hours and hours slathering you with buttermilk your whole life so you wouldn't freckle."

I don't know which is more disturbing . . . My instantaneous and complete recollection of that scene or the fact that I'm now thinking about going out to buy gallons and gallons of buttermilk.

Oh. One more thing. During our discussion tonight about this subject (we were sitting outside on the patio), a large grackle deposited a large splat of poo on Tyler's lifeguard shirt. Karma perhaps? Tyler, maybe you should ask Sharon Stone about that.

One Down, Three to Go

Tomorrow Tyler is officially finished with his first year of college. I can still feel the lump in my throat and the stinging of the tears as we drove away from Emporia that hot, humid day last August. I thought my heart was going to stop beating, but, as is evidenced by this post, that did not happen.

The Confession: It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Actually, it was kind of weird how quickly Ron and I leapt into Empty Nest mode. We could eat dinner at 7:30 any night of the week. We didn't have to wait up until the wee hours of the morning for Tyler to get home and could go to bed early (and by early I mean before 1:00 a.m.). We were pretty much free to do what we pleased (!) when we pleased (!) and it was really very nice.

For Tyler, the adjustment to a small town came slowly. I grew up in a small town (36,000) and went to college in an even smaller town (15,000), but it wasn't that much of an adjustment for me. Going from KC to Emporia was a fairly big culture shock for Tyler. He was used to having a dozen or more places to hang out and Emporia's offerings paled in comparison. At first. But then we heard him talking about a place called Java Cat (how could that NOT be cool), taking rides in the country, riding around looking at the animals in the zoo, and, more recently, going to "The Lake." It sounds exactly like my college experience (we hung out at "The Rock" "The Pits" "The Pines" "Broken Bridge" and "The Haunted House").

It will be interesting to see how these next few months unfold. Stay tuned . . .

It's the Birds All Over

The time has come, as it does every year, when Ron Martin starts spending nearly every waking hour that he's not at work outside in our yard. You know how when you were little you heard that familiar "ting, ting, ting" of the ice cream truck entering your neighborhood and you ran to your mom, who was either taking laundry out of the washer or baking cookies, begging on bended knee for a nickel so you could get a fudge bar that would immediately start melting and running down your fingers and hands and got so sticky that by the end of five minutes there were all sorts of honey bees and flies smothering you? Remember that excitement? That sweet anticipation? The crossed fingers that would guarantee your mom would say, "Just take a whole dollar and make yourself sick with sugar"?

That's how Ron is about getting to play outside with his tools and his hands and his unending list of projects. And so, it has begun. Again.

On Friday afternoon, he was outside doing what he does. I was inside, no doubt watching some crime related story about a woman who ended up murdering her husband with a Qtip because he preferred the company of lawn clippings and compost to her(!) All of the sudden I heard a fairly violent "bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr." And then I heard it again. It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that Ron was jiggling the screened-in porch door, which is what we do to unlock it from the outside. (Don't get any bright ideas about sneaking into our house to steal the silver and Van Gogh's. I've since installed a very high tech alarm system and a pit bull named Pinky on the screened in porch).

I went to see what all the rattling was about and there he stood, eyes wide open, hands all aflutter. "You, you, you've got to make some more hummingbird food. I just saw a BALTIMORE ORIOLE on the telephone wire!"

I give Ron a hard time because he's just so darn funny. But, seriously. Have you ever seen a Baltimore Oriole? They are spectacular. Flaming orange and ebony black. This is only the second one we've seen in all our years of paying attention to birds, so it really is a big deal.

Later that night I heard Ron sawing and hammering downstairs and this morning he told me he'd built a feeder for the Great Orange One . . . a nice little platform with half an orange nailed on it and a lidful of grape jelly. Apparently this is what these birds jones for after they've had their daily fill of insects. Yum.

Stay tuned for more birdwatching reports. And funny stories about Ron Martin.

Murphy's Law

A couple of days ago I was all ready to blog about the fact that NOT ONE PERSON has asked to see my photo ID since I wrote it on the back of my debit card (instead of signing my name), when, lo and behold, someone asked me for it tonight. AND I COULDN'T FIND MY DRIVER'S LICENSE. At first I was mortified. Then just plain pissed. I think I left my license in the envelope I got back from the bank last week when I made a deposit and got some money back. Ron swears he didn't throw that envelope away so when I got home I got to dig through the trash to look for it.

Talk about humbling. It was more like filthy, disgusting, putrid, flesh crawling . . . you get the picture. Anyway, I couldn't find it so tomorrow I'll have to run right over to the DMV and get a new license. Exactly how I wanted to spend my Wednesday. I guess it could be worse. I could have gotten stopped for speeding (which is what Ron thought happened when I told him I couldn't find my license) and ended up in lockup with JoJo, Crystahl and Daddy Mac. And since Ron's out of town, I'd be there until Thursday. Yeah. That would be worse.

Justice Would NOT Be Served

I don't think I'd be a good juror. On any kind of trial. Why? I'll tell you why. But first, the backstory.

Ron got called for jury duty and was selected to be one of the Twelve Angry Men (actually, they do allow women to be jurors these days, so he was one of Five Angry Men and Seven Angry Women). The trial lasted two days. After the first day I peppered him with questions, but got no answers. Which made me even more determined to get something out of him. He went to bed at 7:30 just so he wouldn't have to listen to me. Not really, but I'm sure it crossed his mind more than once during the evening.

Last night when he got home he was allowed to tell me the details of the trial, but even then I wasn't satisfied. I kept asking him questions. And more questions. That's when I realized I'd be a bad juror. I'm sure I'd raise my hand and ask questions during the trial. Or at least I'd want to. And I don't think that would sit too well with anyone in the court room. I can't help it . I have an inquiring mind. And you know what they say about inquiring minds. We want to know. EVERYTHING!

I've Been Lately Thinking . . .

. . . about my life's times . . . That's the first line of John Denver's song, "Poems, Prayers and Promises" and pretty much mirrors my thought process over the past four or five days. On Saturday, Ron, Kate, Tyler, my mom and dad and I traveled to Jefferson City to a reunion for all the people who worked in the State Treasurer's office during my dad's tenure (1972-1980). It was a really wonderful time, seeing people we hadn't seen in nearly 30 years, laughing, crying, recalling fond memories, catching up. This is a picture of my dad (left) greeting Bill & Betty Crigler. I knew these people when I was a teenager and the impact they had on my life was not insignificant. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Dad had a group of really remarkable young men and women who worked for him; I did some calculating and most of them were in their mid- to late-20's when they were hired and they were on the front lines of handling millions and millions of dollars of the state funds and charting campaign strategies.

My friend, Michelle Able, and I used to hang out in the offices of Rick Ravenhill, Bob Jordan and Bob Holden (who eventually became Governor of Missouri) and shoot the breeze when we were really supposed to be doing legislative research for a high school class. The night my dad lost the primary election for the 1980 Governor's race, it was Bob Holden who came into my room, sat on my bed and comforted me as I was bawling about not having done enough during the campaign.

Hearing people talk about Dad at the reunion was especially touching and, I hope, gratifying to him. Every person who spoke testified to Dad's honesty, integrity and fairness, qualities that are sometimes in short supply when we think of our leaders today. The also spoke about the model he provided for the course of their lives. They talked about my mom's support and her generous spirit, which are still central to her character today. I've always known these things about my parents, but it was wonderful to hear that, after all these years, these people still have such high regard for them.

As I tried to corral my emotions on Sunday during the drive back, I realized how unique my growing up years were. How many people can really say that they really love their parent's colleagues from years gone by? How many people even knew their parent's colleagues? Going through multiple campaigns is not only grueling, but it's unifying as well. There's something very galvanizing about relentlessly pursuing a common goal; it's magnificent if it's reached and devastating if the effort falls short. Either way, friendships and bonds are made that last a lifetime and can truly stand the test of time.

A huge, huge blessing and remarkable privilege. That's MY life.