Chef Boy ‘R Mine

Birthday Balloons

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

It’s Chef Boy “R Mine’s 25th birthday today. 

Until he was 19, I hung balloons over his crib or bed in the middle of the night so he could wake to a visible reminder that the new day was his birthday.

Once he moved out-of-state this birthday ritual proved more challenging.  Most years I managed in one way or another though not always over his bed.  This year I’m relying on a florist to at least get to his porch.  Twenty-five balloons weighted by chocolate chip cookies are supposed to be delivered before noon today.

I’ve said it before – the day he was born was the best day of my life.

Thanette

/ wvfurandroot / 10 Comments
Chef Boy ‘R Mine’s Thanette was better,
but this will have to do until I clean that damn closet.

The internet has been very good to me.

I’ve been hanging out on the ‘net since before sound and pictures – before there was a web. As for social networking, I dived into the Usenet groups somewhere around 1990.

There I met a significant number of people who became friends, sometimes good friends. The Ex referred to them as my Invisible Friends which seemed apt and so I adopted the description..

The arrival of the digital revolution was so new that home computers were a rarity; and trying to explain to folks how it could be that I was making friends was daunting. It can be a tough thing to explain. Nonetheless, I blathered on and on about my cyber-life to anyone who would listen. Over family dinner, I would talk about the funny things people said on the ‘net.

One bright Saturday the phone ring and my son, who was practicing his telephone etiquette, answered. I heard him say, “May I tell her who’s calling.” He ran to get me, proclaiming all the way that Thanette was on the phone. I searched my memory banks and could not summon any memory of anyone named Thanette or Annette or anything similar. Curious, I took the phone and said hello.

The caller was Jane who lived near Perth, Australia. She and I bonded in the rec.food.cooking group on Usenet. Chef Boy ‘R Mine, bless his heart, had listened to me babble on and on about the ‘net thinking it a person, one person, named Thanette. I asked Jane what she had told him in response to the who’s-calling-thing. She had announced herself as Jane, Jane from the ‘net. It’s curious that my son didn’t think of Thanette as a place. Of course, with her accent, it’s a wonder he understood anything at all.

I asked him to draw me a picture of what he thought Thanette looked like. The end result was a portrait of a woman with brown curly hair, glasses and a big smile. [Damn it all, I saved that artistic work and it’s probably in The Closet I’m Afraid Of. Resurrecting that drawing could be an impetus to start that project. I don’t want to start it, but I do want to find that drawing and frame it.]

My Invisible Friends were far flung. Most of them were in the states, but a good number were scattered about the globe. These were people I had never seen, but who I counted good friends – the kind you tell secrets to.

They lived in Mexico and Scotland and England and Denmark and New Zealand and Sweden and Australia and Canada and, I’m pretty sure, most of the states. Eventually, I started meeting up with people – to meet in 3D – learning what they looked and sounded like.

In the early days, my Visible Friends were shocked that I would travel, one time all the way to London, to meet people I found on the internet. They were sure my brutal death at the hands of a serial killer was an inevitable destiny given my loss of common sense.

Last night, I met and had dinner with the infamous Buzzard Billy. She represents the first Invisible Friend from West Virginia that I’ve jumped in the car to go meet. I’m sure it’s a badge of honor that she’ll wear close to her heart – Hillbilly Thanette.

Memento Mori (minus the mori)

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

Remember you must die.

Chef Boy ‘R Mine sent me flowers for Mother’s Day.  I’m one of those women who like to receive cut flowers as a gift.  It’s especially nice when delivered by a florist.  And better yet because they were from my son.  The first I’ve received from him. 

The florist delivered them to the wrong house, but they got to me in short order.  And they were beautiful – roses, ferns, asters and lilies.  They were beautiful as was the vase provided.  It’s a square, heavy, clear glass vase that will get plenty of use in the years to come.

I was pleased with the vase, because once the flowers were spent I would have it to remember the first time my son sent me flowers.

The flowers and the vase have comingled on my kitchen table for the past few weeks, one dead petal after anothing dropping.  The ferns browning, the roses drooping.  The water clouding.  The vase gathering dust.  As I tried to restore order to the house, I would walk past the arrangement making (another) mental note to throw the flowers out, wash the vase and store it in a cupboard.

Eventually, I got around to it.  When I pulled the remains of the flowers, I discovered that a few of the blooms were still beautiful, still “lively” – I discarded the dead and brown, washed the vase and restored the survivors to clean water. 

It’s a beautiful ensemble.  With only a few blooms and a couple of ferns, this new arrangement is much simpler. 

Clean, fresh, nice lines.

Memento Mori is a Latin phrase that translates as Remember you must die.

Well, I suppose so. 

But not today. 

Sometimes when you get rid of that which is spent, you uncover something equally delightful.  And there’s no need for the cupboard – not yet.

Remember.

Woman who runs with the dogs.

/ wvfurandroot / 12 Comments

Run, Dee, Run!

Dee over at Tangled Up in Sticks and String mentioned she’s entered a 5K race.

I’m not sure if I’m jealous, awed, or guilt-ridden.

The idea of “racing” appalls me, but I like the idea of running IN THEORY. It’s the actual running part that stops me (in my tracks or on the track?).

In the early 70s when the running/jogging craze was sweeping the country, I went out for track. I was a fairly normal, hormonally volatile, meaner ‘n snake 13-year-old. [Most of the previous sentence is redundant. All 13-year-old girls are hormonally volatile and mean.]

I was never much of one for group activities, but something about running appealed to me even at that age. Pity the track coach ruined it. My life might have been completely different had she believed in water.

In the southern-most part of North Carolina, late August/early September was brutally hot and so humid a body needed gills to process oxygen. This was girls track season.

My best friend and I showed up for try-outs not knowing that just showing up guaranteed a spot. That first day we were given a 10 minute pep talk and sent out to run laps under a sun beaming 98 degrees to ante up with the  98% humidity level. This was before decent athletic shoes were a norm and during the unfortunate time period when expert wisdom decreed that drinking water before or during running would provoke Big Problems.

About the fifth time around the quarter-mile track, I was dying. This was before cigarettes, sloth, hedonism and general laziness had taken its toll. I was healthy, bright-eyed, very active, and had a fair amount of muscle for my long and lanky frame. 98 F at 98% can annihilate even the most dedicated of athletes which I surely was not. I gave it another week. Each day was the same: pep talk followed by laps. I wanted to die.

I dropped out of track – one of the first (of many) failures in my life. It never really ate at me much. For years, I’d roll my eyes and decree “Running is not for me” any time the subject came up.

Ten or so years later, the Ex and I started dating. He liked to run. He wanted company. I agreed to give it another shot. I’d been doing high impact aerobics for a year and figured I could handle a jog. I went. I ran. I sat down. Hedonism, sloth, and cigarettes trumped the Jane Fonda Workout and running was simply torturous – and if all that wasn’t bad enough, I was still trying to do this in K-Mart Blue Light Special tennis shoes.

Along came Chef Boy ‘R Mine and by the time he entered high school, he’d taken up running. The kid was a running fool. He was on the track team and the cross country team. He ran in the fall. He ran in the spring. He ran at school and at home. When he was running on his own time, he used to take our dachshund with him. She ran every mile with him – usually two to every one of his (investigating smells and whatnot).

His cross country days appealed to me. I could see the attraction in that – track and field events like sprints and relays just bored my innards into paralysis. Ah, but cross country. . .I can feel the wind in my hair, my legs pumping like a well-oiled machine, blood coursing, and water – lots of water. I envision the dogs and I running through the Appalachian hills singing songs from the Sound of Music, our hearts beating as one, our lungs breathing in and out to the hum of the Universal Om, yada yada. In short, the four of us working in tandem to provide a goofy scene of health, vitality, and eccentricity. [Really, who runs with a dachshund, a shih tzu and an Italian greyhound?]

Running BY water could be the motivation I need.

The water thing has provoked me into thinking maybe I should give it another go. It seems the Running Experts are now unanimous in thinking that water before, during, and after running Might Not Be a Bad Idea. Hell, they even make a thing, I think it’s called a Camel Back, to strap on your back and suck water out of while running. (That seems way too Navy Seal for me, but it proves my point.)

Of course, I’m putting a lot of faith in water to keep the whole experience from being another failure, but collapsed on the ground somewhere will have to go better if I’m at least hydrated. Right?

I probably won’t take up running, but I still like the idea of it. I could get some cute shorts and one of those spiffy combo bra/tank top thingies and some wicked cool running shoes. I can stand around and stretch, sipping water, and talk to the dogs while checking my resting heart rate (I don’t know why they do that, but presumably it’s important.) Until summer, I’ll need an even spiffier warm up suit – one without a hood (I hate hoods). Maybe red laces for my shoes. And a bumper sticker – Woman who runs with the dogs. Something like that.

Y’all know I’m not going to do this. But I like the idea of running. IN THEORY.