Life is Short But I Don't Always Want to Eat Dessert First

This year is going by so quickly. I simply cannot believe that we’re already into August. It seems like the older you get, the faster time flies. I know that’s not exactly an original observation but it’s a true one.

I don’t think I’m ready for it to be August. I feel like I’m just now getting a grip on my summer. It’s been so hot that I haven’t had chance to work outside as much as I’d have liked. Yet, my tomatoes are starting to ripen and my herbs are doing well. I even have a few ears of corn coming in although I suspect the squirrels might be as excited as I am by the fact that some of the husks had been pulled back on my largest piece today.

I do miss the lazy days of summer. That’s the thing with being an adult. Not only does time fly but there seems to be less and less time to just lie down and be lazy outside on the summer grass. I got one of those inspiration emails today that was intended to remind us how to simplify our lives. It started out by saying how things are much simpler when you’re a kid and it’s only as you get older that things get more complicated and most of this is our own fault.

For example, one of the main points was that as a child, if you’re thirsty, you have a drink. As an adult, it’s never that simple. I have to sheepishly say I can attest to that. For me, it becomes an issue of “What am I thirsty for? Hot or cold. If I go for hot, that means coffee since I forgot my tea bags at home. If I drink coffee do I want the strongest kind? Or I could have a Diet Coke although I know that’s not good for me. Tom Colicchio endorses Diet Coke but he gets criticized for it because it’s made of chemicals. Well, maybe I’ll just have some water but then I’ll probably end up drinking half a bottle and leaving the rest to sit there for ages because I never really want water. I just am supposed to drink it….”

You get the idea. It’s true. We do complicate things as we get older but I think that’s just the nature of being older. I like the idea of being a wide-eyed child who just takes things as they come but, truth be told, it’s never that easy. Sure, I could take the fact that I had to fire a perfectly nice man on Friday and just do my job and move on. Yet, how as a human can I do that when the whole time, I’m thinking of how he took out a loan to move for the job and how unfair it is that he’s being fired without being given a chance to try to fix his errors….

My point is that while I do enjoy a certain childish joy in life for the small things, the reality of being an adult is that nothing is every simple…black and white. It’s like that saying: Life is short, eat dessert first.

I get that. I get the philosophy behind that statement: Most people enjoy dessert most so why not just do what you want in life without dealing with formality and structure. Just jump straight to the good stuff.

Yet, in truth, if we could jump straight to dessert, would it be as rewarding? I say no. Then again, I’m not the hugest fan of desserts so my opinion probably doesn’t count for as much as that of someone with a major sweet tooth.

It might be fairer to change the phrase to something that does appeal to me such as “Life is short, just eat the damn cheese.” Which is probably the name of a book that’s actually out there…I mean there’s books about moving cheese and such…why not eating the damn cheese?

I digress. What I mean is that I like cheese almost more than any other food. However, because I try hard to watch what I eat and balance my meals, there’s not always room for cheese. Sometimes, I want nothing better than a salty bite of pecorino romano or the tang of a strong blue cheese but if I’ve already eaten rather badly that day, I usually don’t give in to the craving even if I want to give in to it.

Which leads us back to the “Life is short, just eat the damn cheese.” If I’m going to die anyway, why not enjoy the cheese when I want it?

I do. Sometimes. If I really, really, really want the cheese, I’ll eat it. However, most of the time, I’ll only want it because it’s there and I can have it. If I could eat nothing but cheese all the time, chances are my desire to eat the damn cheese would diminish.

Which is how I feel about the “Life is short, eat dessert first” saying. If you got to eat dessert first and ended with the soup, doesn’t that take away the slightly forbidden pleasure in eating dessert in the first place? For me, part of the delight of dessert is that it’s just a little decadent and it adds a realistic level of ‘naughtiness’ to a meal. I think to some degree, many of us feel a little guilt when we get to the dessert course and already quite full but something sweet might be rather nice. So, we either let ourselves get talked into it or we talk ourselves into it. If you really want dessert, it doesn’t take long.

So, in actuality, while it’s nice to want to eat dessert first or be as wide eyed as a child, life sometimes gets in the way. Things are more complicated as an adult. It would be nice to stay up all night if I wanted to because that’s what I felt like doing but the reality is that I have to work and that would simply be a bad idea. It’s the same as if all I wanted to eat all day was hot dogs. Sure, it might seem like a good idea to just go with the flow but is it, really? I think maybe sometimes knowledge gets in the way but mostly, it’s what complicates things. If we don’t know that eating hot dogs all day leads to high cholesterol, digestive issues and weight gain, does that make it ok to do it? I didn’t know that if I only ate fishfingers and chips as a child, it would be an unhealthy diet. Same with chocolate milkshakes.

No, I think that while it would be nice to keep the innocence of youth, that old wisdom thing kicks in. We are more aware of who we are and what we want. It makes it hard to just keep things simple when you know that while some things are black and white, most of the time there’s a lot of grey between the two opposites.

Still, there are some things that continue to remain simple: Mondays are not my favourite days. That doesn’t seem to change much no matter how quickly time flies. Today was no exception. Tomorrow will be better. That’s another simple-ism that I think remains true.

Sometimes, simple is good…

Happy Tuesday!

With Age Comes a Touch of Wisdom

Some days, it’s hard to be a grown up, especially during the summer.

When I drove home at lunch today, there were several houses with children playing outside. Summer vacation is here and as far as they’re concerned, time is a wide open expanse filled with play time, swimming, late nights and sleeping in the next day.

I miss that sometimes. I don’t think it matters how much you like your job, I’m sure there isn’t a working adult out there who hasn’t, at some point, longed for the carefree days of summer vacation. Certainly, most of us can use some of our precious ‘vacation time’ at work and take some time off but…it’s not the same. Having those seemingly endless weeks without anything firm to do just seems like a luxury we didn’t really appreciate when we had them.

It’s ironic, really. The old adage goes “with age comes wisdom.” The trouble is that it would be nice if we’d had the wisdom earlier so we could appreciate things a little more. The older I get, the more I appreciate the small things. Being a working adult for the better part of 15 years has made me remember the days of summer vacation and wished I’d appreciated it a little more when I had it.

The same goes for school though. In high school, I was shy. I was one of those unfortunate individuals who cared too much about what other people thought. As I’ve grown older, I’m far less shy and I’m far less worried about other people’s opinions of me. I still care, naturally but I don’t care enough to let it stop being me.

I suppose that’s a form of wisdom that I’m slowly gaining as I age. It’s just that I wish I’d known that when I needed it back then. Yet without that experience, I probably wouldn’t have gained the wisdom in the first place. It’s a strange circular pattern.

I didn’t waste my summers when I was a child by any means. There were always friends to be played with, books to be read, games going on in the street in the evening. There were trips to the park, to my grandparents’. There were long walks with my dad in the evenings when the sun didn’t start to set in England until way after 9 p.m.

When we moved to the States, our summer vacation was longer. In the UK, it was always 6 weeks. Here, in the U.S., it was closer to 12 weeks. Those summer vacations were filled with trips to the swimming pool to escape the heat. Trips to the mall because we didn’t have air conditioning at home yet and the mall did. There were get-togethers with friends. I had one friend who had MTV and we didn’t have cable so I’d go over hers and watch MTV while her parents’ were at work. They didn’t really approve of her taste in music- she was into Hair Metal. I learned to appreciate it during those MTV times.

As I got older, responsibility stepped in and I started to babysit a little to earn some money. Then, when I was old enough, I got a job and from then on, summer vacations stopped being a stretch of disorganized time and it became time that was blocked off based on my work schedule and my friends’ work schedules.
I don’t think I can say I truly wasted my summer holidays as a child. It’s just that I don’t think I really appreciated it quite enough. I had that sense of entitlement that children often do in that it was something I was just handed because you couldn’t go to school ALL the time.

I think if I had 12 weeks off now, I’d try to savor them more. I’d use the time to write a lot, to work outside, to spend with my family and my dogs. I’d do all those little things I keep meaning to do but never quite have the time, all those little projects that we’d all like to do but whenever we have any free time, something more necessary comes up.

Yet, the truth is, I don’t have those 12 weeks. I have two weeks’ vacation time per year which is not a bad amount of time but it’s time that must be spent wisely and not squandered. It’s not like those 12 gaping weeks that used to happen every summer from the time I started going to school until the time I stopped and became a working adult.

For the most part, being a grown up is definitely better than being a child. I mean, nowadays, if I want ice-cream, I can go get ice-cream. Granted, I tend to try and go for the Skinny Cow type of treat because, well, with age comes a slower metabolism. However, I can have it whenever I want it. If I want to see a movie, I can go see a movie. If I want to go to the library, I go to the library. You get the picture.

It’s just that sometimes, on beautiful days today when the sun is high in the sky, the temperature is 78 degrees and the breeze is perfect, I do have a bit of envy to those children I see playing carefree in my neighbourhood because they can stay outside and enjoy the day and not have to go back to work after lunch.

They really don’t know how lucky they are. But they will, someday when wisdom catches up to them.

Happy Tuesday!

The Power of a Storm

When I was a child, I was terrified of thunderstorms. I would dread them the way some people dread going to the dentist. I would listen to the weather whenever the weather was warm, just in case. I would have little superstitions that I felt warded off storms.

When we did have storms and I was young enough, I'd run to my parents bed and crawl under the covers with them. If they weren't in bed yet, I'd sit with them until the storm was over.

Then came the day when my dad got fed up of me being so terrified of storms and he made me go outside during a storm. I was very frightened but he managed to prove in that moment that a storm was just a storm. After that, my fear abated and I no longer dreaded storms.

Nowadays, for the most part, I love thunderstorms. I love the majesty of them and the power they have to clear the air after a string of muggy days. I love the comfort of being inside when the storm is raging and I'm able to watch the lightning and rain from safety.

Then there are the storms that still have the power to scare me just like the one we had tonight, for example.

I knew it was supposed to storm and when the sky started clouding over, it was obvious we were in for a thunderstorm. Since the pups are a little skittish about storms, I decided to change my routine and hop in the shower before the storm hit. That way the pups and I could sit together and enjoy the thunder.

It's amazing how quickly storms can arrive. I was in the shower when I heard the wind pick up. There was a rather alarming howl that began to echo through the small window in my bathroom even though it was firmly closed. Then the tornado sirens went off.

There's nothing that can put an end to a peaceful moment quicker than a tornado siren when it's fighting the sound of a hungry howling wind.

Needless to say, I was alarmed enough that I finished my shower quicker than you can imagine, hopped out and realized that the storm was not only here but it was a bad one.

The wind was blowing so much that the house was shaking. The tornado alarm was blaring. I didn't know whether we were just having wind or there really was a tornado. It's hard to tell because the sirens go off when the possibility is there. It's a little hard to tell if they're telling you there is a tornado there. Given the sudden strength of the storm and the speed of the wind and the fact that there were tree branches blowing by my window, I decided that it would be safer to act like it was a tornado.

The pups and I headed for our 'safe' room- the little bathroom with no windows in the middle of the house. Just as we got there, the sirens stopped. The wind had dropped a little so I decided to take a chance and turn the TV on.

The signal was spotty but it seemed that we'd had the worst of the storm. From that point onwards even though there was some pretty insane lightning and some rather goosepimple inspiring crashes of thunder, the storm started to die down.

The pups and I cuddled together on the sofa, watching the weather, just in case but the danger was definitely over. In the end, it turned out that we hadn't had a tornado but instead, we'd had 65 mph winds.

I felt a little silly afterwards for my fear. I think that often happens when you get scared- afterwards, you feel a little foolish.

Nevertheless, I'm glad that it wasn't a tornado and that it was just a very severe storm. If it taught me anything it's that no matter how old and wise you feel, certain things have the power to turn you back into a frightened child, even for a moment.

I think there's definitely a lesson in that. Also, I think I'll pick when to take a shower more wisely next time.

Happy Tuesday and thanks for reading!

Virtual Time Travel

It’s funny how some things can take you and throw you back in time as though you’ve entered a time warp. I’ve written before about how I think smells and sounds can do that but sometimes, it’s as simple as an email.

I had an email through Facebook from a friend I made when I was six years old in my very first year of Infant School (what we call Elementary School in the UK). It was in the days where I learned to read, using books from “The Village With Three Corners.” This was a series of books that they used to teach and encourage reading skills as well as other basic skills. The characters in the books were Roger Red Hat, Billy Blue Hat and Jemima Yellow Hat.

I remember the books. Once a child mastered basic reading skills, the books moved up to become a little more complicated with bigger words. I was a voracious reader. To this day, I remember my frustration of being in play school (Pre School to my American readers), holding a PB Bear book and wanting SO badly to know why PB was in bandages. The pictures told me that he was skiing and he fell but other characters were worried and trying to get him to eat something. I wanted to know more. I wasn’t satisfied with pictures. I wanted words.

So, when I did learn to read and those mysterious squiggles became meaningful words, I couldn’t be stopped. I moved quickly beyond The Village of Three Corners into the “Green Spark” series of books. I was the first in my class to do so. I’m not bragging. I don’t think I ever thought of that as an accomplishment. I always wanted to be reading my next book instead of worrying about why my classmates weren’t reading at the same pace as me. I was a junkie and books were my drug.

Yet I don’t just remember the books. I remember my classroom and sitting next to my friends. I remember the Christmas play and how our class was disappointed because Mrs. Herris’ class ALWAYS got to be the angels in the Nativity and got to sing “Away in a Manager” and just had to stand around in our normal clothes with a homemade hat and sing boring songs like “Once in Royal David’s City.”

I remember the exciting days of writing with pencil and having trouble with that pesky letter “Q”. I could do it, I just took my pencil off the paper in the wrong place and my teacher said it was wrong. We’d line up at the pencil sharpener in the mornings to make sure our writing implements were ready.

Then came the day when they let us get to use pens in class for the first time. We used Beryl pens. They were blue ink. They bled through the paper if you pressed too hard. The pen was red. The caps had a knob on top that we’d chew off absentmindedly. Some of the boys chewed it off on purpose just to get a new, unmarred pen.

They were the days where we collected erasers and swapped them. (We called the ‘rubbers’- it was before the U.S. translation of the word ‘rubber’ was even so much as a blip on my radar.). We had milk from little glass bottles that was room temperature. School lunches smelled like bread, spam and gravy. We didn’t actually eat bread, spam and gravy but to a young child, that’s how it smelled.

There are so many memories from those early years of my academic development that came rushing back when I got the email on Facebook. The email came from a friend named JoAnne. She was in most of my classes from the first year of infant school until my last year of school in the U.K. when I’d moved up to senior school. She wasn’t my best friend but she was a friend who was one of those rare people who are so familiar and part of your life that they feel like they’re supposed to be there. As a child, you take those for granted.

I went to her birthday parties. I remember her little brother. I remember her parents.
Yet because she wasn’t my best friend and, by the time I left England, we both moved in different circles, I lost touch with her after I moved. She became part of the landscape of my childhood without standing out as a significant part of it.

Yet, clearly she was. When I got her email, I was so excited and overjoyed because with the email came that string of memories. For a few brief moments, I was back in the classroom of Mrs. Simpkins. I sat at a desk that opened up to let me put my books and pens and pencils inside. It had an old inkwell that we no longer used since our ink was already in the pen but we used the inkwells to hold our mini pencil sharpeners and sometimes, we sharpened our pencils into the well. Thus, if you stuck your finger inside, it emerged black with the lead from many a sharpened pencil.

This memory as well as so many others rose again in my mind. The memories have been there, dormant for a while. They surfaced individually as something triggered them but never as a flood that became an almost time-travel experience.

I was back, for a time, in the territories of my youth. It is a fun and nostalgic place that I should visit more often. It was before the days where boys became more than smelly, spitty things to girls and getting to stay up late meant staying up to 9 p.m. on a Friday or Saturday. Those were uncomplicated days and in many a way, I miss them.

It’s nice that such a simple email from a long lost friend can be an experience. Not only does she bring back memories but she also brings forward the chance to reconnect with someone who’ve I thought of over the years but thought was lost to the passing of time.

I’m a firm believer that time travel does exist. It’s not physical and we can’t change anything but with a simple reconnection, we can be thrust back into the life we’ve lived before.

And I, for one, think that’s a magical thing.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

Playing "Office"...

When I was a child, one of my favourite games to play was "Office." My dad had this old, old computer from work. It was before the days of quick loading computer software, USB's and flash drives. It didn't have a mouse. It was an all in one machine that didn't have an operating system. What it had was its own special language and nothing but green text on the screen. I was too young to know what it really did but I did manage to make up games on it. I'd sit and turn it on, typing away as if I was actually doing something. Nothing every happened except I made it beep. Yet, I had a fine old time typing and pretending I was in my very own office.

Other times, I'd sit at my desk in my room and pretend I was sitting in an office, my pens ready to go. I had a child's typewriter and I would type Very Important Things on it. It was one of the old school typewriters, no correction tape and an old ribbon that would dry up if you didn't ink it.

Office was one of my favourite games to play by myself. I think I attempted to solicit other players but it was hard to get anyone interested in writing letters and things.

You might wonder why I'm telling you about yet more of my rather odd childhood games. The reason is that, today, at my new job, I managed to finally accomplish that which I'd only pretended to have as a child: I have my own office.

It really isn't the first office I've had. When I was a legal secretary, I had an office but it wasn't really mine. It was a room they stuck me in and I was across the hall from our grumpy office manager who could watch my every move. When I was in my international market research job, I had an office but, again, this was just a room they put me in and we had to swap constantly. It wasn't really mine.

The office today is mine. I'm finally in a job where I don't have to be administrative support as I have in the past. I don't have to type memos for anyone. I'm in my very own office doing my very own job. I have my own supplies and even have the freedom to order more supplies if I'm lacking anything. I have a new computer with the newest versions of Windows and Microsoft Office on it. I can close my door. I can decorate my office.

It's an exciting thing. I think if I hadn't been so...deprived in my last job, it probably wouldn't seem like such a big thing. However, when you used to have to take whatever office supplies were available or bring in your own and you didn't get new software, even when you needed it....it's the small things that make a new job all the better.

Better yet, I'm getting training.

(Private aside to one of my readers, known as Raindancer...YES, Raindancer, there IS such thing as training in a job! It is not a myth! It exists. I am living proof that it is possible!)

This, again, may not seem that unusual but...it actually is compared to my last couple of jobs. There was no training in those except to possible read a handbook. In this job, I'm sitting down with my boss and learning things.

It's exciting. I won't lie and say it was a perfect day. First days are always awkward. It's a strain to have to keep taking in the new information and to get to know the coworkers who have been working together for years. Yet, they all seem so nice. I'm a bit alarmed by that. It's a bit like the first time I went to Chick-Fil-A. That is the first fast restaurant where everyone in there was happy, genuinely friendly and seemed to like their job. I thought it was creepy at first, being used to the typical fast food experience of having someone take your order without making eye contact and being as slow and unfriendly as possible. Then I realized that it was a good thing. I like going to Chick-Fil-A.

My office is a bit like Chick-Fil-A. My coworkers have been there for years. They like their jobs, the office and one another. They're willing to share knowledge without trying to steal credit for each other's work. They don't gather in each others' offices, close the door and whisper.

It's a change and a welcome one. While my first day was exhausting, I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it a lot.

If you've ever seen the movie, "Working Girl," there's a scene at the end of the movie where Melanie Griffith's character gets a promotion. She goes in and sits down at the secretary's desk only to discover that it's not her desk, she actually has earned an office.

Today, I felt like that. I felt the inner child in me rejoice at the actual realization of what used to be my imagination.

And, this time, I didn't just randomly hit buttons on a computer and pretend to do something. I actually hit real keys and did something. Also, I have a mouse and the screen isn't just green text.

I've come a long way, baby.

Happy Tuesday!

Time Traveling by the Scent of a Leaf

I promise not to whine or moan about my air conditioning today. After a four-hour visit from a new repairman, my system is up and running with a cleaned-out evaporation system and a new fan and motor. It wasn't cheap but I didn't expect it to be. I now have blissfully cool air pumping out of my vents while the weather outside is very hot and clammy. All is good.

Instead, I'm going to talk about time travel which may seem like an odd topic of blog-versation but, well, hopefully it'll make sense.

It all began with a hydrangea leaf.

While the very nice air conditioning fix-it man was outside working on my pesky unit, I was

outside with the puppies, trying to make them stop barking. Rory isn't a barker but Sookie is. It's only with strangers which is actually not such a bad thing. She's very protective of me.

We were outside and it was mid-morning. The plants and grass were still very wet from the rain/humidity that we had last night. In one of my side flowerbeds, I have a large hydrangea bush. I didn't plant it but I enjoy it nonetheless. The puppies ran off to chase a bird, and I was left standing there. Without thinking, I reached out and picked one of the large green leaves from the hydrangea bush. I folded it in half and tore a small circle of the folded leaf and then, still without realizing what I was really doing, I gently tore a slit below the circle. I unfolded it and realized I had made a face on my leaf.

It was something I haven't done in many, many years but, obviously, something I had done before. I cast my mind back and remembered doing it as a child. Just then, the scent of the leaf caught my nose and, for an instant, it was like travelling back in time.

The smell invoked in me a set of memories from my childhood. It's a fresh, green, almost herbal

scent. I remembered, then, picking leaves from the large hydrangea bushes that belonged to our next-door neighbour, Mrs. Olly. Mrs. Olly was a mean old lady who hated the neighbourhood children. She would constantly be telling tales on us or watching us from her living room window. She had a lovely garden though and her hydrangea bushes were lots of different colours.
The scent made me remember how my friend and I had invented the face-game with the leaves, making little leaf-people with each small circle that was torn out for eyes. Then I remembered using the leaves to play teaparty- the leaves were our plates. We used the leaves to cover insects, to make leaf trails.

With another sniff of the leaf, I remembered summer afternoons during our British summer holidays which lasted six-weeks. Compared to the American summer vacation of 12 weeks, that seems short but, at the time, it seemed like a lovely long, near-eternity when you're only eight or nine or ten or even eleven. Then again, if you didn't know better, it would seem like a long time to any child, no matter how old.

The smell made me remember the British summer days. We'd get up early, the dew wet on the lawn. I'd be wearing a summer dress because girls really didn't wear trousers much when

I was little. We did on weekends but our primary wardrobes were skirts and tops or casual dresses. I remember putting on my sandals. Buying my summer sandals was an annual affair where my mum would take me and my sister to the shops so we could pick the sandals we were to wear all summer. At first we had to wear socks with them. Nowadays, I'd think that dorky but, back then, it was perfectly normal. As it got warmer, we got to wear them without socks.

Once I had my sandals on, I'd go outside and look at the world. It would be deep in its morning colours, the shadows and light closer together than they would be for most of the day. I remember how wet the dew was and how my feet got wet.

As the morning past, I'd probably either play with a friend, play with one of my siblings- most likely my little brother or I'd read. I loved to read. It was my favourite activity. It still is, actually.

In the afternoons, my mum would often take us to the park. I don't know how she did it,

honestly. She'd not only escort me there but often one of my friends. My sister would take her doll, sometimes in its stroller and my younger brother would always want to bring his friend Andrew. My older brother was often already down the park with a friend. He loved to fish and would often be fishing with his friends.

My mum would patiently lead us down the park. Sometimes we'd go through the brickfields- over the little waterfall things that, to this day, I'm not sure what they do. There was a bridge over them and we always had to pause to watch the water. On the other side of the bridge, there was a river. My brother would sometimes be fishing here so we'd go see if he'd caught anything. If not, we proceeded along the way to Admirals park. We'd pass through a little spinney of trees where there was a tiny, algea-crusted pond. I'd always look at the pond, wondering if, one day, the entire surface would be light-green with algae instead of just patches.

We'd walk a little further and then, finally, we'd be at the park. It was a typical park with

a see-saw, roundabout, swings and slide. Yet it also had a river in which, when we were permitted, we could fish.

That was another annual tradition: Fishing nets. When the summer holidays began, we'd go to the sweet shop (aka, the newsagents) and they'd have a stack of coloured fishing nets leaning up in the corner of the shop, against the window. They were just little nets on a bamboo stick, like a butterfly net but of a stiffer material. We'd proudly buy our nets. After a couple of years experience of fishing for minnows, my brother and I had learned that the nets easily detatched from the bamboo stick so we knew to tape the net to the handle for security.

So, when we'd go to the park, we'd take our nets. When mum was ready, she'd allow us to join the many other children who were already in the river, fishing. Some places were deep, others shallow. The trick was to try to go somewhere where no one else was. We'd be wearing our wellington boots because there were rocks and glass on the bottom of the river.

When we caught a minnow or, even better, a bigger type of fish, we'd put it in a jar that we had with us, just for this purpose. We'd continue until we were summoned by mum to get out. We'd leave with a protest. Most of the time, we'd let the fish go but sometimes, we'd take them home with us.

After that, we'd play in the park for a bit longer and then, tired, hot and ready to leave, we'd go back home, have tea (the meal, not the drink) and then go to bed even though it was still light out and, most likely, would be for a couple more hours.

All this, I remembered in a few brief seconds just by the scent of the hydrangea leaf. It sounds dramatic but it's true. As soon as I smelled the leaf, I was back in England, on a warm, sunny, summer day, my hands smelling of hydrangea, nagging at my mum to see when were going to go to the park.

In a way, to me, that was time travel. I may not have physically gone but for the moments that I remembered, I was there, in my past, back to being a child and remembering every sensation, every sound and every smell of my youthful summers. The memories were so powerful, I could almost hear the trickle of the river as I fished.

Of course, as an adult, I've been back to the park and realized that it wasn't even really a river but more of an over-wide stream. It turned into a river above and below where we fished but, in the park, it wasn't much to speak of; it was just a long, muddy stream of water with a little man-made path on both sides.

Yet, as a child, it was a river. It was our summer place. It was our tradition. It was a place I remember now but remembered far more vividly when I smelled the scent of that leaf.

I was back there, in the past for just a few moments. The air conditioning man had faded from my mind, the puppies were a distant concern and I was back to being a child.

So maybe it wasn't time travel as most people imagined it but, to me, it's as close as I'm likely to get. I think from now on when the woes of the world get to me in the form of broken air conditioners, office politics, writer's frustration and no PTO at work, I will just go outside, pluck off a leaf from my hydrangea bush and smell it.

And, if it's winter, I'll just find another way to travel back in time, just for a little while.

Happy Thursday!

You Don't Know What You've Got....Until It's Gone...

So, it’s come to my attention after now whining in my last two blogs about my lack of air conditioning that I may be a wee bit spoiled.

After all, when I was growing up in the UK, we didn’t have air conditioning. I don’t think I even remember knowing what air conditioning was. During the English summer, in my area at least, we would have a few really hot days in the summer where it went up over 80. Of course, being a little island, that means it was 80 degrees with a lot of humidity. Mostly, though, summer days weren’t intolerable. We expected it to be warm but not too hot, most of the time, at least. Since we moved to the U.S., it seems global warming has affected the UK and they do have a lot more heat over there. My relatives and British friends are always talking about how hot it gets. I’m not sure what the status of air conditioning is over in the UK but I venture to guess it’s still not as prominent over there as it is here in the U.S.

In fact, my very first memory of arriving in the U.S. was in August. When we got off the plane, we were met with a wall of heat that seemed so thick, it was difficult to breathe. When we went into the airport, it was freezing. The air felt…weird. It took me a while to get used to air conditioning though it didn’t take too long for me to appreciate it. The house we moved into was an old farmhouse and it didn’t have air conditioning. In the summer, we sweated and roasted and would find ways to cool down- going to shopping malls, going to the pool, etc. The nights were hot and sticky. I would lie in my room, too hot to sleep and listen to the honk of the Canadian geese that were swimming in our neighbours ponds over the road. I remember those nights well. There was the sound of cicadas, of crickets, of the odd bird chirping, all intertwined with the honking of those geese.

When the sun rose and we’d get up the next morning, I remember getting up earlier than I did during less hot days. The mornings were cooler and I’d go outside to appreciate the fresher air than was in the house. As the day went on, the heat increased but there gets to a point in the house where it can’t get that much hotter- it’s just plain…hot.

After a few years of this, my dad caved and bought one of those window air conditioners. We’d gather in the living room where it was situated and breathe a sigh of relief. It did little for the hot nights, particularly for my sister, brother and I who all slept upstairs, but it was a pleasant relief in the evenings before bed.

Naturally, after I went to college, my parents had central air installed. For the summers I was home, it was a nice change from the hot nights. They also moved my bedroom downstairs and I could no longer hear the sound of the honking geese, nor any other night sounds since I now slept with the windows closed.

Ironically, nowadays, when I visit my parents, I stay in my first room- the upstairs one. The air conditioning sort of reaches up there but doesn’t keep it too cool so I use a fan. I also sleep with the window open and get to hear the sounds of the summer night again. I like that.

What my point comes down to is that I managed to survive years without air conditioning. Nowadays, if it breaks, I have a little whine and moan and act like it’s the end of the world. Granted, it did go out at the worst time- the night prior to taking the puppies in to get spayed and two days after when it was important to keep the pups comfortable- but…still. I acted like a prima donna, like it was my divine right to have working air conditioning.
Of course, my whining was probably influenced by the fact that I was covered with a layer of sweat, had two panting puppies at my feet and only warm, sultry air flowing through the house with no cooling, comfortable breeze to make it tolerable.

I’m obviously conflicted. I know it’s possible to live without air conditioning but since I’ve experienced life without it- both recently and in the past- I don’t want to live without it. This of course makes me sound a bit like an awful human being- after all, lots of people don’t have AC- the starving children in Africa, the third world countries and lots of people in Europe.

In my guilt at feeling like a spoiled whiner, I did some searching on the internet about how people lived without air conditioning. I came across a blog post by a lady who offered tips based on how she lives without air conditioning. She wants to save the money it costs over a summer to run the AC. Her tips included making sure you don’t go into any place that has AC: You don’t know what you’re missing until you experience it. Also, she doesn’t cook indoors but grills out every day, using picnic-style foods to feed her family. Also, the coolest room in the house is the living room so she and her kids camp out in the living room over the summer months.

Now, while I salute her attempts to save a few dollars, I can’t help wonder how her kids feel. My guess is that they go to their friends a lot. They can’t have much company in their house because they obviously have a bit of a muddle in their living room due to the ‘campout’ situation. Also, as a guest, it can’t be too comfortable in a humid, hot house. Also, while I’m quite fond of grilled foods, I couldn’t eat them everyday. There’s only so many sandwiches and salads you can eat before you start wanting a nice, non-grilled, homecooked meal

My guess is that when they get older, that lady’s kids are going to be the ones who crank their air conditioning up so it’s only 60 degrees in their houses. I’ve met a few of these people and when you find yourself wishing for winter woolies while visiting them in August…you know they HAD to have grown up without AC.

I suppose my point is that, as humans, once you get used to something, it’s hard to lose it. It can be a relationship, a pair of comfy socks, Cost Plus World Market (at least in this area), a chocolate bar you were craving, only to discover it’s a melted, inedible mess….the list is endless.

You just don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Especially when it’s air conditioning.
Happy Tuesday!

World Cup Nostalgia

This week seems to be going quite quickly. That's not such a bad thing though. I'd rather the week go quickly than the weekend although I've yet to have a weekend that passes too slowly.

Work was actually quite fun today. Since we have cable television, a couple of my coworkers and I decided to go work in our training lab so we could watch the World Cup on television. We knew we'd be allowed since during March Madness basketball, the men in our office all got to sit and watch basketball and work.

Strangely, enough, I managed to get quite a bit of work done and cheer for England at the same time. Since we could only watch one match at a time, we flipped between the England match and the U.S. match. Luckily, both teams one and will advance on out. I'm a little nervous since England now has to play Germany which rarely goes well but, all the same, I'm excited for my team.

I'm not really a very sporty person, generally. I think I like the competition of sports more than the actual sport itself. I do watch American football now although I don't feel compelled to watch every game. If I'm really in the mood, basketball doesn't offend me. I can't watch baseball because, well, frankly...it's boring to watch. Mostly, I'm not really big on sports. Yet there's something about the World Cup that I always find addictive. Every four years, I learn the England squad and keep my fingers crossed that this is their cup, that this time they will win. I've never seen it in my lifetime but I live in hope.

I've actually been into the World Cup since when I was young. Living in England and playing with the kids on my street made us into football (ok, fine, soccer) fans. I remember the first world cup I can remember, back in the days when Pele played for Brazil and Diego Maradonna played for Argentina. We'd play on the green in front of our houses, always wanted to be our favourite player. I always got stuck being Kevin Keegan who was an England player at the time. My friend, Glen, would be Maradonna and his little brother, Stuart, would be Pele. We played a lot around World Cup time.

We also played Wimbledon a lot during Wimbledon season. We never had a tennis net so we'd play tennis on the path (sidewalk) in front of my house, drawing a line for the net in chalk. We'd enjoy ourselves but occasionally get carried away and hit the ball too hard. It only was an issue when it'd go in the neighbours back garden and we sheepishly had to ask for our ball back. Sometimes, we lost the ball and couldn't play. We got to the point where we'd all try to have a supply of tennis balls. My favourite tennis partner was my next-door neighbour, Darren. My dad had put up a high fence to keep the afghan hounds in. We used to play Tennis-Over-The-Fence and try to play over the high fence. We were pretty good at it but that's usually when we'd lose the balls the most. One time, we lost our only ball and in desperation, tried to make one. We actually made a newspaper ball filled with little rocks and taped it up. Needless to say, it was a disaster. We soon realized it had no bounce.

Clearly, physics was not my speciality. In my defence, it wasn't Darren's either.

These days, especially around the World Cup and Wimbledon time of year, I often think back to how the sporting events go on even though life changes. I have no idea what happened to Darren, Glen, Stuart or any of the other kids we used to play with regularly on the street outside in the summer evenings. I sometimes wish I did, just because we such a part of each other's childhood. We fought together and against one another, made up games, fell off bikes, climbed trees (or, in my case, tried to climb trees), and swapped comic books. Times like this, watching the World Cup, thousands of miles where I grew up, take me back to those summer days. Even though my memory has become horrible with age, I still remember the details of my youth.

I'm sure the World Cup will continue every four years for the rest of my life. Each time, I know it'll trigger my memories and make me nostalgic for the more simplistic days of my youth, even though I like where I am now in life.

I just hope England wins one soon though.

Happy Thursday!

Oh, To Be Nine Again...

Today is one of those days where I have a million little ideas for things to blog about but mostly they're lost in the haze of my mind which is currently sluggish with sleeplessness and stressed about life.

It's during somewhat stressful times that I have a strange little yearning to be a kid again. Not a high-school type kid but back to about nine or ten. Life was so much simpler then. I was old enough to understand some things but blissfully ignorant of others. I probably have a completely different notion of how I was as a child to the way I really was but I suppose that's true of everything.

I was a reader, just as I am now. At that age, I think I was obsessed with Enid Blyton books. If you're not British, the name might not ring a bell but, trust me, she was the queen of children/young adult books at my age. She was a pre-J.K. Rowling if you take away the magic and just focus on life at Hogwarts. Of course, now, she's horribly dated but when you devoured books as quickly as I did at that age, you tended not to mind.

I know my mother used to want me to play with dolls. I really, really tried. I had the dolls. I had a pram. I had a tea-set. I'd get everything set up and I realized that I'd much sooner drink the tea myself and read a book than try to pretend my stupid dolls were talking. Which is ironic, given that I like my imagination and still use it as much as possible. I just didn't get dolls. They didn't do anything. Well, ok, so I had one that you could give a bottle and it would pee. At the time, I thought that was actually pretty cool. Now I wonder what possessed me to think a doll peeing was cool. Maybe it's because I've held babies and they've peed on me. When you have baby-pee on you, you tend to realize that it's not cool. It's actually a bit vile, actually. Fortunately, I've liked all the babies that have peed on me so I didn't drop them in disgust and say "EWW! GET IT AWAY!". Not that I didn't think about it.

Now, my brother and I did have these cool bath toys that my relatives from Germany brought us. They were little boys that were standing up holding their you-know-whats. When you filled them with water and squeezed them, they would send shoots of pee at one another. When you're a kid, that really is one of the funniest things ever. I'm sure my mother got tired of us. We tended not to care where the water streams actually went.

It's amazing how easily amused you are as a child. Then again, being totally honest, if I had one of those peeing boy dolls, I'd probably still think it was one of the funniest things ever.

Yet aside from the peeing dolls, I just never really understood what to do with them. The dolls were never forced on me; I actually used to ask for them for Christmas. Then when I got them, I would change their clothes and bath them and then...that was it. There were times when I'd beg to take my dolls in their pushchair or pram up the road to the shops with us when my mother would go. She'd sigh and let me knowing full well that she'd get stuck pushing the dolls pram/pushchair home because I'd be bored of it. My mother was very good to me and let me do it anyway.

Truthfully, all I ever really wanted to do was curl up with a book when I could. I was an active little kid, enrolled in all kinds of activities like ballet, brownies, gymnastics and country-dancing. Yet I still managed to be an avid reader, pulling out a book whenever there was a lull in the world around me. I could escape into the books, become part of the world, feverishly tearing through each word to get to the next.

Nowadays, I still like to do that. It's just harder. My fellow writer, Samantha Elliot, wrote a blog last week called "Embracing How I used to Be" in which she, too wondered why it was harder to find time to read, how her priorities had changed over time.

Truth be told, I wonder that too, sometimes. To escape into a book these days is more of a luxury than a necessity, the way it seemed to be back then. I find time but there's always something else to do, something that calls louder. I have more responsibilities, more awareness of the fact that while I want to be reading, there are other things I have to do. Yet, when I look at it, do I really have to do them? Can't I just say "phooey on it!" and read anyway?

I can. Occasionally, I do. Sometimes the appeal of a book is so strong, it allows me to ignore the world around me for a while. Sometimes, when life gets too stressful, the pull of a book allows me to escape and ignore life for a while and, for the most part, I emerge from my reading session feeling better, realizing that nothing is ever as bad as it seems. Sometimes it takes a visit to another world, another person's life to realize that the black cloud of stress and anxiety is really just a series of small events and if I take each one at a time, I'll look back and wonder what I was so worried about when it's all passed.

Yet it doesn't stop me from looking back and wishing I was nine again somedays. Give me a Cherry Coke and an Enid Blyton book and I'd be perfectly happy. I might even attempt to play with dolls again. You never know, maybe I'd like them this time.

Though I doubt it.

Happy Wednesday.