Mandajuice

Promptification!

I'm behind on my blo-mo prompts, so this is me catching up.

Tell us about your first kiss.

6th grade. Or maybe 5th. Soft-lipped Damon Moss. The window seat of my childhood bedroom. It was like a scene out of a Sweet Valley High book, all perfect pre-teen rapture, until my dad swung the door open and interrupted us. I wasn't allowed to have boys in my room again until High School.

If you could go back in time and meet your 16-year-old self, what three things would you tell yourself?

I'm a woman of few regrets, so I'd probably just sit my ass down and bark:

1) Slow down.

2) No. Seriously. Slow the hell down.

3) Can I take a picture of your boobs? I'll need it for the plastic surgeon we'll be seeing in 20 years.

Japanese lore suggests that if you fold 1,000 paper cranes, your wish will come true. What would your wish be, and what would you be willing to do 1,000 times to get it?

This one stumped me. How would you answer?

Also - tell me about your first kiss. I love hearing those stories.

Teddybear Picnic

Only two days of Kindergarten remain. I'm trying not to get too sentimental about it. But look. Just LOOK at this child:

Do I cry that he's officially a KID now? Or because he's still so smushable?

Either way: WEEP.

Two wet dogs

Here I am sweaty and soaking wet with tonight's running buddy. It was raining, naturally, so I stayed in the middle of the road to keep Harry away from the lure of the fire hydrants and me away from all the puddles. But I can't wear my glasses in the rain and without my glasses on, I can't see the puddles AT ALL. So tonight it was more a slosh than a jog and the poor old guy petered out around minute twelve. I had to drag him back to the house so I could finish without him slowing me down. Which was a bummer! I'd really been hoping he could keep up with me.

On the advice of my unofficial running coach, I've decided to be a good girl and follow a slightly less aggressive running program. Apparently, I shouldn't be running every day, I might injure myself, something about cellular recovery and yada, yada, yada, I downloaded the iPhone app for Couch to 5K and I've been following that program instead. (I did skip ahead to week 3, though). The last thing I want is to get hurt (again!) before I even get started.

(Also you should really go check out Roderick's running blog: The Barefoot Experiment. I won't even go barefoot inside my own house, but he plans to run 100 miles that way.)

One meeeeellion dollars...

Just in case you missed my June 1st post, I wanted mention again that I'm participating in National Blog Posting Month (Nablopomo) this June. I've already blown it since I didn't post anything on Sunday (although I WAS going to write about the tattoo I'm planning to get and then I totally forgot to post it), but I'm going to continue using the prompts for the rest of the month because they're distracting me from everything else that's going on in my life. Which can only be good.

Today's prompt is: You've just been given a million dollars. You are not allowed to keep it or give it to anyone you know personally. What do you do with it and why?

Now, if I WAS able to give the money to someone I know, I would totally give it to my father so he and I could start that charity together. Have I mentioned my dad's charity idea? Because I LOVE IT. He wants to start a foundation that teaches wealth creation. People have this crazy idea that there's a finite amount of wealth in the world, that it can't be made from scratch. And they're WRONG. His charity would go about teaching kids/young adults/college students the process by which wealth can be created. Basically it would be an entrepreneurship academy. And whenever he finds the time to start it, I'll be on his board of directors like white on rice.

But... if I had a million dollars and I had to give it away to someone I didn't know? I'd sponsor 20 lucky fat girls and pay for their gastric bypass surgeries. The application process alone would be reason to do it, but honestly, a day doesn't go by when I'm not grateful for my life-saving plumbing. I'm not sure I'd be here at all without it. Making that happen for 20 deserving women would be a hell of a way to pay my good luck forward.

Do you owe an apology to anyone? Why?

I'm sure I owe PLENTY of people apologies since one of my best personality traits is offending others without even knowing I did so, but today I'd like to apologize to my mother-in-law, Carol. I talk a lot about the people in my life here, but somehow, I've never managed to dedicate a post to her!

So let me say this: y'all, my MIL PWNS your MIL. Because I have the best mother-in-law a girl could possibly ask for. She is sweet and funny and never has an unkind word to say to me or anyone else. I couldn't even BEGIN to add up everything she's done to make our lives run better. Her answer is literally ALWAYS yes, whether the question is "Can you watch the kids while I run to the store?" or "Can we put some bunkbeds in your spare room when we lose the house?" She does it all out of the goodness of her heart, which is about the best heart I've ever known.

Last week she sent this e-mail to Alex. I'm sure she won't mind my posting it here.

Dear Alex,

 

My heart is so full of love for you that sometimes I think my heart will just jump around inside me.  You have helped to make my life happy.  Remember I told you the doctor told me that I have a happy heart?  Well, even the doctor who checked my heart knew it was a happy heart.  You have made it happy. 

 

I am so lucky to have you as my sweet grandson who helps me so much.  Many times when someone grows older, they do not always feel good and when someone helps them even with little things like putting the garbage bag in the garbage can is so helpful.  Even getting the mail for me is a big thing to me and I appreciate that very much.  

 

I will always love you and appreciate you and every thing you do for me.  You are a wonderful person at 6 years old and I know you will be wonderful when you are 16 and 26 and on through 106!

 

Thank you for taking good care of my heart!

 

Love forever,

Grandma  Carol

Carol: I'm so so sorry. For everything. I am lucky to know you and I'll always consider myself your daughter.

Run, Fat Girl, Run!

Lately I've been feeling a bit out of control. Unfortunately I don't mean that in the Girls Gone Wild sense, either, but literally. I no longer get to control some pretty important variables I'm accustomed to controlling. Some of them aren't too critical - like my work hours. But some of them are huge and scary - like where we get to live and how we're going to pay for it. I'm a planner - by nature, by profession, by choice - and lately it seems like the only answer I have is I DON'T KNOW and that's always been my least favorite answer. 

But guess what I CAN control?

My ass is what.

I get to decide whether it gets bigger or smaller. Whether I sit on it all day or get it good and sore from running or biking or letting Jillian Michaels kick it sideways.

I'm still trying to run. I got off to a rocky start with the slutty shoe incident, but I'm all healed up now and ready to rock and roll. My goal is simple: I want to run for 30 minutes straight. Right now I can last about seven minutes before my lungs give up and try to exit my body through the nearest orifice, but I'm determined to get to my goal before the 4th of July.

Which means I get to build myself a running SPREADSHEET. I get to figure out how many minutes of walking I need to shave off my time every night to make it to the 4th of July. I get to PLAN! And anticipate! And set a goal that I actually have the power to reach!

It's a tiny win in the huge fail of my life right now, but I'll take it.

What's the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of your father?

I'm lucky. I have a great dad, so this prompt is really easy for me...

The first thing that pops into my head when I think of my dad is... him. Just him. Simply thinking the words "my dad" makes me smile. Then I shake my head a little and smile even wider.

My dad's unique way of moving through the world is one of his most lovable traits, so in my mind, "Dad" renders a movie, not a static image. In that movie, he's usually driving his old 944 and his sturdy, band-aid-laden fingers are tapping out a complicated jazz rhythm on the steering wheel. It's a rhythm only he can hear, but he's always got it playing in the background like his own personal elevator music. It takes him four good slams on the brake to stop at a light, but I knew that before I got into the car, so I'm watching the road and sitting in the passenger's seat so I don't get seasick. He's also making this noise while drives, which is not quite a whistle and definitely not a hum, but just the sound of his breath as he sucks it in and out of his mouth to the same tune his fingers are tapping. A silent sleuth, he is not.

When we finally get to that stop sign after the fourth jerk of the car, I look over and Dad's laughing. He's always laughing, which is a good thing because sometimes, hell, a lot of the time, he's the only one who gets his jokes, but that's what makes them so funny. His laugh is the best thing about him, too. He uses his whole body to do it: with every guffaw, he rocks his lumberjack torso forward and then back again with his head slanted to the right. He smacks his knee with whichever hand is closest and makes this back-of-the-throat grunt that comes from so deep inside his chest that you instantly know  - really know - exactly how good it is to be him.

It's utterly infectious, dad's laugh. 

Much like the man.

Define "freedom"

I've been a free-willed kinda girl my whole life, so I find it incredibly difficult to define the term "freedom." A younger me would've gone the Libertarian route and said that freedom is getting to do just about anything you want to as long as it doesn't interfere with the freedom of anyone else. But the older me - the blogger, the mom, the wife - knows there is very little one can do that doesn't interfere with the freedom of others. Or at least piss them off a whole lot.

Since I lack any eloquence on the subject, I googled around for famous quotes. This one was by far my favorite; it gets to the point in only a handful of syllables:

Freedom means choosing your burden. 

~Hephzibah Menuhin

What's your favorite quote about freedom? Do you have a personal definition? Do share...

What's your favorite poem?

Here's a strange confession for an aspiring novelist: I don't have a favorite poem. Because I don't like poetry. I like stories, plots, characters and realistic snappy dialogue, but I've never been a big fan of excessive description or pretty language. Of language for language's sake. One of my writing mantras is to make my point in as few syllables as I possibly can. I'm a minimalist.

So, yeah, not a fan of poetry.

Which doesn't mean I haven't TRIED to like it. I recently came across a volume of erotic poems at the library and brought it home thinking if ANY poetry would lift my luggage, it would be EROTIC poetry, right?

Wrong. The only thing worse than flowery descriptive poetry is flowery descriptive poetry about your junk. 

So what poetry do you guys like? Is there anything out there sparsely written enough for me to enjoy? I'd love nothing more than to change my mind on this one.

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

The first time I remember being asked this question was in preparation for my Kindergarten graduation.

My answer? Housekeeper.

Way to aim high, five-year-old me!

I'm not sure if it was just the only female profession I'd been exposed to aside from, well, Kindergarten teacher, or if I just really loved the housekeeper we had at the time (I don't even remember her now - my childhood memories are spotty at best), but still. Who knew I'd come SO CLOSE to achieving my childhood dream? Pretty sure something like 50% of my work as a stay-at-home mom has, in fact, been CLEANING. Or at least WIPING.

The strange thing? Is that I really can't stand letting anyone else clean my house. I grew up with a housekeeper, often even a FULL TIME housekeeper, and yet, now that it's my house (or will be for the next couple months) it completely freaks me out to let someone else clean my messes. Like it's demeaning no matter how much I'm paying per hour. In the end, I'd much rather just clean my own toilets than experience the discomfort of paying someone else to do it.

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This month, I'm going to TRY to be a trooper and participate in National Blog Posting Month. Because this time, Mrs. K's posting PROMPTS! With all the crazy in my life right now, a daily prompt sounds like just the thing to keep me writing in spite of myself. And they're fun! What did YOU want to be when you grew up?