{my} Kentucky Kids

How much do I love Kentucky? Let me count the ways, and a big reason is because of all the little munchkins who I love who are being raised by the people I love in the town I love.

Which is why it’s perfectly normal to me that there’s no such thing as sleeping in on my Kentucky vacations, not when 2-year-old little feet are pitter-pattering outside the bedroom door, and little hands knock, and excited voices call my name while their mother’s “shhhhhh”quickly follows.

And it’s also why I’m able to hone my conversation-navigating skills when surrounded by toddlers and kids. It’s like playing a game of dodge ball.

“So I think that I’m..”
“Mommy!!!”
“…finally at a place…”
“Mommy!!!”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re fine.”
“Baby, what do you need?”
“Cows.”
“Yes, you see the cows?”
“Cows. Hay.”
“Do cows eat hay?”
“Yes.”
“What else eats hat? Do horses eat hay?”
“No way!”
“Yes, they do, you silly boy!” (I’m involved in the conversation now)
“No way!”

And when it’s a conversation that us adults are doggone determined to have, our voices raise octaves above the kids’ until we realize we’re yelling in the pizza parlor and the kids now think it’s a contest. It’s not so much that it’s important stuff (I was talking about my finds at a yard sale, and another adult was telling me about the shoes she bought that day), it’s that these are the two seconds we have to catch up after the spaghetti’s been cut and the cheese pizza’s been snagged from the heating rack.

Until and unless you’ve been around kids (A LOT), you might not realize this, but they’re a demanding bunch of critters. Especially when you get more than one in a room, or at a table. And that’s when you see a bunch of adults talk really loud and declare martial law at the dinner table. You’ll hear things like, “Because I said so,” and basically that means there’s no good reason for the rule, but for the love of peace and all things orderly, sit down and keep your hands to yourself.

Watching my friends parent is like watching a gardener and a circus ringmaster. The seeming chaos is organized somehow to produce lopsided balance, and the minute-by-minute toil it takes to raise kids who are smart, conscientous and obedient is messy business. Exhausting, really. I get tired just watching and hearken back to my nanny days when I was joining them in the parenting fray, including sleepless nights, potty training accidents at the playground and shenanigans at the table.

But it's paying off, all the interruptions and the not-being-able-to-pee-by-themselves, and the arguments and fusses, the laying down the law and the pleading to just listen.

I know it's paying off because my friends have great kids - the kind you want to be with. The kind who I vacation to see and the kind who I don't mind being woken up at 7 a.m. to visit with. The kind who joke, the kind who are bossy and the kind who remember me. The kind who want me to babysit them and the kind who are sad when I leave. The kind who let me tuck them in bed and the kind who say they're sorry when they hit me on the foot with a hammer.

So, what I was saying wasn't all that important in the grand scheme of things, in the moment when a conversation about hay and cows needed to happen. And of course I'll comfort you when your fearless self decides to leap off the playground equipment, and when you want to tell me all about your ballet recital, I'll listen. When it comes time to sing songs before bed, I will, and I'll always sit with you in your chair to read a tractor book as many times as you want. I'll change your diapers and put your PJs on, I'll give you a bath and drop you off at daycare. I'll play peek-a-boo with you behind the pillow and when you're ready to get out of bed but your mom isn't, I'll break you free. I'll always tell you your Elmo drawing is spectacular, and when you tell me there's a bug on my shirt and I freak out and you laugh, I'll laugh too. I'll look at your yearbook and listen to you explain who I'm seeing and who you want to be your first grade teacher. I'll take your tour of your house because though you remember me, you don't remember I know your house. I'll kiss your bald head and I'll always tell you to listen to mommy and daddy.

And, of course, I'll always love you, my Kentucky kids.

Kentucky farm and Kentucky roads-where-it-doesn't-look-like-there-should-be-one

My Kentucky vacation mornings are starting out much the same way my Texas every-day-mornings do...a walk with Tuck and a cup of coffee.

Only here we get to walk on a Kentucky farm and my cup of coffee is shared with my friend and her 2-year-old, and Tuck gets thrown in the back yard with her five dogs.

I found this field. Not like it was hard to find, it's behind the barn and not far from her house, perfect walking distance for Tuck and I. From here, it looks like a contiguous field.

It wasn't until we kept walking, right up to the edge, that we discovered it's not continuous at all.

There's a road there, right through the middle of what we saw was two fields. 

We walked all the way down the road and back. Of course, for me it's not just a once-invisible road in the middle of two fields. It's a metaphor for a lot of what life looks like for me right now.

Impossible.

Suffocating.

Claustrophobic.

The road is my hope, but to find it, I have to walk right up to the edge and maybe take a first step into the unknown before I see it stretching before me.

I've just got to figure out: what's my edge? what's my unknown?

Kentucky morning

My best friend's farmhouse is silent this morning, except for the dog whining in a crate and his tail hitting the metal sides, sending off a "ping, ping" in the morning stillness. The only other sounds are my fingertips on my keyboard and Tuck's occasional bark from my car.

The day is about to explode in all its ferocious glory, but for now, it's me, my coffee and this screen. Earlier, it was me and Tuck on our morning walk in the Kentucky farmland.

He and I drove the 13 hours yesterday from Texas to here. Here. Where it feels like home in all of its comfortable familiarity. Even my car is happy to be here, to finally be here after its wheels spun us the entire 744 miles.

I was worried about that, you know, as I've been worried about a lot of things as of late.

Since when did I worry so much?

Since, well, forever, but sometimes worse than others.

This is a some time worse than others.

I was worried we would break down, I was worried that I wouldn't have money to fix the imaginary problem. I was worried all day yesterday that we would crash.

And so I became a paranoid old-lady driver. Blinker on 45 seconds before merging. Two car lengths between me and the vehicle in front of us. Look twice (three times) before switching lanes. Double-checking every gas station stop to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything or left my wallet anywhere.

Since when did I become old-lady paranoid driver?
Since yesterday, apparently.

I don't want to worry all the time, it just sneaks up on me.

"What else is there possibly for you to stress out about?" a friend asked me the other day after I spewed my current worries, some real, others not.

"Just give me time. I'll find something," I said.

I don't like admitting it, but it's true.

"I need to chill out...big time," I told my best friend on the phone yesterday.

And I do, which is probably why I'm on vacation and what better place to be to chill out big time then the place that knows me best and with the people who love me despite my uptight and highstrung tendencies?

the {dog} birds and the bees

My dog's heat cycle has been the topic of conversation for about four months now. Or, at least the expected May heat cycle, and then the non-existent May heat cycle.

Text conversations have ranged from, "Are we making babies this month?" to "Skye's still not in heat yet...crap."

Unbeknownst to her, she's provided {dog} sex education for my non-dog-reproduction savvy friends who wonder how often she's in heat (is it every month?) and why I can't breed her at day one of her heat cycle (that's not when she's ovulating).

So I've been sitting around waiting for her heat cycle to start, and it's not.

"I've raised a pro-choice bitch," I texted her baby-daddy's daddy.

Or just a bitch.

My momma's girl got a "will bite" sticket in her folder at the vet today! I wanted to dispute it. She's not a bad girl!

But she did bite the vet. After she ripped the muzzle off. After she screamed and was snapping when he touched her. After she freaked out over the three attempts of getting her temperature taken. After she lovingly greeted the vet techs.

You can see the progression there. I mean, she warned them like six times: don't touch my body. Please.

Xrays were successfully taken and the results are that her hips are great (no dysplasia and no future signs of it!) and her spine too.

And I was asked to go retrieve her from her kennel where she was groggily waiting for me because "she's not having any of us."

And then I texted a friend (several) of the good news:

"Skye's hips are cleared! We can have babies."

And then the appropriate response:

"Good. You are a go for sex."

{Dog} sex education is coming along nicely.

terrific moments of terror

"Mom, I'm going to have to let you go." Click.

Tuck had run over to the neighbor's house and had not heeded my command to return. So off I went for the second time in a row to fetch him and instruct him (again!) that when I say "here," I mean it.

It happened the other night, too. What should have been a simple obedient response to "here," turned into 15 minutes of "you need to learn that when I say it, I mean it."

So, forget the work I was doing on the computer at the time, or the conversation I was in the middle of, my dog disobeyed and I had to attend to it.

It was a trend tonight between both dogs. We headed down to the river, Tuck on a leash, Skye loose. She was the one who was misbehaving (completely ignoring me), and in a terrific moment of terror, decided to chase something on the other side of the river, which meant she had to swim across. It also meant she was stuck swimming across a swiftly running river and I could see from my vantage point that there was no way she could get up on the other side.

I started envisioning her drowning body and my inability to do anything. Then I wrote the headline in my head: Dog drowns while owner watches.

All the while I'm calling and yelling for her to join me on my side of the shore. She was swept downstream and eventually worked her way over to me.

I was terrified.

And when her excited dripping body climbed out of the water, I started: "Don't ever do that again! Do you know how scared I was? There's no way I could've swam in there and saved you."

As if she understood a word I was saying. In her mind, she got a great swim in.

It's a matter of perspective, isn't it?

Tuck thinks he's being a friendly visitor.
I think he's being disobedient and rude.

Skye thinks it's a good night for a swim.
I think it's not a good idea to swim across a body of water that can sweep you away.

I guess there's room for compromise.

Tuck can visit, but must return when I say.

Skye can swim, just close to shore.

the day my friend went off on me

I've had this thought lately and it's become more pervasive in my psyche:

"God, I wish I wasn't doing this alone."

This sleeping alone.
This cooking dinner for myself.
This traveling, eating, gardening, walking, shopping, laughing alone.
This drinking coffee alone, paying rent alone, being responsible alone, sharing burdens alone, worrying alone, planning for a future alone.
This it's-all-up-to-me-to-survive alone.

Truth be told, it gets old after awhile.

This aloneness.

This morning I was talking to a friend as we often do in the morning, either via text or on her back porch after we've busted our asses during an Insanity workout.

She was drinking coffee on her couch; I had just finished my 1.5 mile walk with the dogs and was sitting down to my own cup of coffee. We were talking. Talking about life, about our simple morning routines that make us content.

And then she said:

"Life isn't about filling it with mediocre things...there are so many thing in life that are mediocre. Love should not be one of them. Loving your dogs, morning walks and cups of coffee are from mediocre. That is our happy place. You don't need to "find" someone to be with...when morning walks and coffee are just as important to them, you will feel so complete. When you connect with that person they will be so lucky..."

Her words were the perfect blend to my pervasive private thoughts, because in some concoction of bitter and sweet, sweet and sour, I am in love with the core of my life.

The core, you know. The part of me that revels in silence and regenerates my soul during my morning walks, coffee and dog training. The part that indulges in my independence and selfishly enjoys my own space and having the whole bed to myself.

But I can't deny this other part of me, and it's getting louder.

A friend has told me, "You are alone now because you want to be. And when you decide you don't want to be alone anymore, you won't."

I'm wondering if I'm getting closer. I wonder if he (whoever he is) is getting closer. I wonder if my getting closer and his getting closer will explode in some sort of magnetic energy that rocket launches our paths together.

I've never been much of a romantic, I'm too matter-of-fact for that. Our conversation would probably go something like:

"You like me? Great, I like you too. Let's make a go of it."

And then we would globe trot together, he lucky to have me, and I lucky to have him.

But for now, for tonight, it's me. Me and the dogs. Me and the Cottage.

Just me.

I get up

Do you ever feel like you're chasing your tail?

Or, in my case, chasing two?

The time I spend sitting in my chair at my dining room table is done in increments according to what mess Tuck is making at the moment, and depending on where Skye has decided to jaunt off to.

A typical evening may look like this:

Sit down to eat my overcooked salmon and fresh sugar snap peas. Tuck grabs the foil out of the trash and saunters off.

I get up. Get the foil, throw it away.

Sit back down to dinner. Tuck grabs the foil out of the trash and saunters off.

I get up. Chase him around the kitchen until I grab the foil. Put the trash on the microwave.

Sit down to dinner. Tuck grabs my sweatshirt off the top of the microwave.

I get up. Grab the sweatshirt, put it back.

Sit down to eat dinner.

Sit down to edit a story. Tuck and Skye jog off.

I get up to call them back.

Return to edit story. Tuck and Skye jog off.

I get up to call them back.

Return to story.

Move on to edit a second story. Tuck plays too rough with Skye.

I get up to yell at him.

Sit back down with story. Tuck grabs my flip-flop and runs outside.

I get up to find it.

Back to work. Tuck finds the dust pan and runs off with it.

I get up, sweep the floor, go outside to fetch dust pan.

Return to story. Tuck starts chewing his leash.

I get up and take it off him.

Sit down again.

I get up a lot and for other reasons too.

I'm a restless writer, a restless editor. At just the moment when I'm feeling most inspired, I have to get up and walk away, get tea, coffee, something, and then return.

I get up and sweep.

I get up and start dinner cooking.

I get up and run the dogs through a training exercise.

I get up and talk to the neighbor.

I get up and pluck my eyebrows.

I get up and wash the dishes.

Getting up is in my DNA, I guess.