Author Archives: Kami

“How Big Is Your Brave?”

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Kami

Did you hear what I said?

More importantly, did you hear what I meant?

Watch and listen to this and then we’ll talk:

You know how you can never think of a clever thing to say when you really need it? It’s like the next morning midway between breakfast and lunch when you think of the perfect comeback.

Too late.

And then there’s the text, email, instant message, private message or phone message you put out there that gets NO response whatsoever. What does that mean? Did it go through? Did you say something wrong? Are they avoiding you? It’s like the written equivalent of “do I have something green and gross in my teeth?” but much much worse.

I know, I know, the logical thing to think falls in the category of they’re busy, gone, their device isn’t working, or they missed seeing it among the three thousand others they received yesterday.

But still, I worry and wonder. Okay, fine, I obsess a little, too.

Or you post some witty or smart remark on Facebook and then read it a while later. You wonder who hacked your account and wrote such an abominable sentence that doesn’t even come close to what you meant to say.

Crash!

Laptop Keyboard

Return. Oops! (Photo credit: nist6ss)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve, fortunately, read what I just typed, BEFORE I pressed the return button. Snarky, mean, thoughtless, manipulative, stupid, airheaded, too much information, ridiculous. Whatever. Dodged that one!

But, I’ve also pressed return without really paying attention and then shortly after wanted to crawl under a rock and ban myself from all forms of social media forever.

Sometimes just a regular conversation can leave me wondering what in the scrap-heap went wrong. I thought the conversation was about abc and the person I’ve chatted with  thought we were talking about xyz. Totally different wavelengths. Complete and utter misunderstanding. My brain throws its hands into the air and walks away disgusted with my lack of socializing skills.

Then there’s this other aspect of it all.

Pendulum

Pendulum (Photo credit: MrPlow5)

My communication pendulum swings rather wide. I fluctuate between two extremes.

I’m sometimes fairly quiet, uncertain about talking and keep to myself. Almost like a hermit, I mumble things under my breath, but rarely share out loud. I think way too much and have incredible inner conversations. Talking with others? Not so much.

Or the pendulum swings and I’m a little too talkative. I find myself answering a simple, basic question with Way Too Much Information. Those WTMI’s give me more anxiety than four teenagers combined ever did. (No, that’s not true, nothing could top that.) But anxiety levels rocket to stupid heights because of my over sharing, and again, I want to crawl under a rock and disappear for a month or three.

grizzly bear mind meld with boy

Grizzly bear mind meld with boy (Photo credit: woodleywonderworks)

Why weren’t we made with, I don’t know, brain to brain communication? Spock’s mind meld technique could come in handy more often than you’d think. I really need a verbal delete button. More than a shoulder angel or a shoulder devil, I need a shoulder editor.

“Hey, Kami, don’t say that. ”  Or better yet, “Shh… Just keep quiet for a minute. Listen…listen…wait… okay, now you can talk, but don’t empty your entire thought process here.”

Maybe that’s more like a quarterback coach with a headset on running the game mouth to helmet.  Fine, then, that’s what I need.

Or do I just need to stay BRAVE and say what I think and what I mean as best I can and roll with it.

Gaaaaaa!!!!!!!! Whole wars are fought over words that are misunderstood, misinterpreted, misused, missing or mistakes. No pressure!!!!

Do you sense the pendulum swinging here? It’s swinging so wide it may crash through a wall this time.

Why such angst? This is silly! These brave souls in this music video that accompanies these wonderful lyrics make me feel braver, make me smile, make me think I can just say what I think and the worlds walls won’t come crashing down around me.

It’s possible to just be there, move with the music, throw myself into living with abandon and silliness and guts and let things happen. It’s more likely that JOY will happen if I’m dancing. It’s more likely that JOY will happen if I’m at least TRYING to let my voice be heard.

Sure I’m gonna trip over myself. Probably way more than I think I will. (I already do, actually.) But maybe, just maybe I’ll make someone smile as I dance my words across the page or across the room. Maybe because I say what I think, I dance to the music that I’m hearing, someone else will get on their brave and dance with their words, too. It could happen.

Being brave with my words.

It’s surely worth the risk.

At least, I hope so.

I think I’ve found my new personal anthem.

_________________________

“Brave”

You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love
Or you can start speaking up
Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do
And they settle ‘neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if you

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

Everybody’s been there, everybody’s been stared down
By the enemy
Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing
Bow down to the mighty
Don’t run, stop holding your tongue
Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

Innocence, your history of silence
Won’t do you any good
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

*****

The title of today’s post is thanks to Sara Berreilles. You can also thank my young with-it daughter. When she heard what I was thinking about writing for today’s post she aimed me Sara’s direction.

Categories: People, Relationships, Writing | Tags: , , , , , | 12 Comments

Waffles Again?

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Kami
Deutsch: Waffel.

Heart shaped waffles. yeah, right. Not tonight, not at this house.

 

Yup, waffles for dinner twice in one week.

 

The first time felt like a treat. This time felt a little bit more like desperation.

 

Why the difference? Overscheduling, multiple stress levels, small children in the mix, missing naps, moon phases, hormone levels, the barometric pressure. Who knows?

 

And honestly, it seemed like something I could pull off one handed while holding a very fussy five week-old baby in the other arm.

 

The mother of said infant was busy entertaining an over-technologized, overly tired two year-old in the sand and on the swings. Everyone involved needed some comforting. The only way the adults might get much comfort  would be disguised in the form of food. Hence, waffles.

 

Oh yeah, and bacon. Gotta throw that in there. The smell of bacon cooking is enough to take the stress level down a notch or two. I think the two year-old ate most of it.

 

But there was no idyllic strawberry freezer jam, or lovely semi-staged photos. The adults took turns eating so the infant could be swaddled, rocked, shushed, pacified, walked, jostled and held just so.

 

Sleep might descend blissfully for all involved soon.

 

I wouldn’t count on it, but we can hope.

 

In the meantime, reality trudges on.

 

Categories: Family, Food | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

Irony

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Kami

I call my bulletin board “Irony” for good reason. Notice the word top center? I think I might have some changes to make.

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My bulletin board as is, untouched, unedited, unreal.

Situational Irony: A difference between what you expect to happen and what actually happens.

I would expect my bulletin board to help me simplify and organize my life. When it actually just serves as another place for chaos to happen and apparently propagate then it becomes irony.

I’m afraid I overflow all the edges and boundaries in my life, just like all the papers, photos, notes and other crappage expands way past the edges of the cork board.

Am I going to do something about this?

Eventually.

Luckily no one sees this, but me. Oh, and MSH. And occasionally one of my children.

And now, you and the world.

Just keeping it real.

 

Categories: Humor | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Persuasion of a Cool Breeze

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Kami

It’s Gratituesday! Today I’m grateful to have stepped outside two nights ago and felt actual cool air. I know in most parts of the world that’s a normal occurrence. In the Phoenix area it only happens for about five months of the year. After the summer’s onslaught of daily blast-furnace heat followed by evenings of sweltering baking, a cool breeze in the evening amazes and soothes.

Flower sad

(Photo credit: @Doug88888)

When the cooler weather arrives, a morning walk could happen without a bottle of water as a basic survival tool. The cobwebs get cleared off the front porch swing and long evening chats can happen again.

There’s a lighter quality to the oxygen in the air, a weight of oppression lifting. Hope returns that once again the park will fill up with people playing  games of capture the flag, soccer practices, tag, frisbee and lacrosse.

In a few days the air will begin to fill with the October smells of overseeding for winter lawns. Steer manure is the seed cover of choice around the valley. Things smell like a million head cattle drive moving  through for a few weeks. But after a brief spell of that malodorous scent on the breeze, grasses will green up in a riot of brilliant color. Flowers will burst out in a song of relief. Kids break out of their air-conditioned confines and populate the neighborhoods once more.

The idea of a walk in the moonlight no longer oppresses but instead sounds delightful and romantic.

With cooler air that blue hue in the sky just feels lovely instead of boring and repetitive.

To be honest with you, a few weeks ago I thought about moving. The idea of leaving this wretched heat played with my heartstrings in spite of the people attached to them. Now that the coolness, at least evening coolness, has arrived, I think I can stay.

English: Fishhook Barrel cactus (Ferocactus wi...

I’m pretty sure, in spite of the portent of milder weather and loveliness ahead, that deserts weren’t intended for human habitation. And yet, we as a species continue to insist on living  in them. Why do you think that is?

Is it like the mountain thing? We climb it because it’s there? We live here because we can? Do we always have to pick up the gauntlet when it’s thrown down at our feet? Could we just pick something in-between-ish for a change?

Or is that giving in to something, fence-sitting somehow?

I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m still not sure why I’m here after all these years later. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I’ve been here. Mostly. What an incredible sixteen year ride it’s been.

Still I wonder how I’ve managed to get through that many summers. And why I continue to stay.

If I had the choice would I go?

Maybe.

Depends on if the breeze blowing through my cropped hair was a warm one or a cool one.

Categories: Gratitude, Gratituesday, Nature, Outdoors | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cat Highways

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Kami

When we first moved here to the Arizona desert eons ago I had a learning curve to scale. It took a bit of time, but I got used to the oddities. Lizards, crickets, scorpions,  white flies, warm water coming out of the cold tap, the juxtaposition of police helicopters at night and roosters crowing in the morning,  running errands after the sun went down or before it rose in the morning, the pungent odor of dairy farms, pine trees in the same yard as palm trees, and monsoons that involved no rain whatsoever.

Portrait of a Wall lizard (Podarcis muralis

Portrait of a Wall lizard  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Assorted other desert adaptations for survival became necessary, but I think I’ve blocked those from my memory.

One of the first things I said to myself when I made the mistake of running to the grocery store at noon was, “who in their right mind would start a settlement here and then stay in this inferno?”

No one answered me.

I figured whoever decided that this was a good place for a town, and then another town and then a dozen or two more, most likely was suffering from some heat exhaustion or heat stroke. That was the only explanation.

I imagine the land was a great deal too.  Kind of like those real estate plots in the Everglades.

But I digress. Sorry, it’s been a long, long, long, long, long, long summer. I think someone mentioned breaking records, but I’m sure they meant CD’s or DVD’s.

Anyway.

The point I was trying to make was there’s this oddity I don’t recall seeing in other parts of the country where I’ve lived.

Most everyone in the country appears to believe Robert Frost’s adage that “good fences makes good neighbors.”

Chain Link Fence

Howdy neighbor!

Oklahoma had chain link fences, but then, they’re a really friendly bunch. They pretty much adopt you into their family right after you’ve made introductions. So the fence is really more of a dog deterrent than anything.

There were long expanses of six-foot tall wooden fences in North Carolina. Mine, mine, mine seemed  the word each nail punctuated in those fences. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the people alright, but boundaries seemed very important and well-defined. But then I lived there less than a year. I’m open for discussion on this one if you’re from Charlotte, or parts thereabouts.

The Seattle area employed a combination of wood and chain link depending on the neighborhood. Those fences seemed more of a suggestion than a real threat or barrier.

Creative Block

Cement block wall. More than just a fence between neighbors. (Photo credit: lukeroberts)

By contrast, here in the desert, the fences are really walls. Six foot high cement block walls. I still haven’t figured out what that means. Go away and leave me alone? I’ll stay on my side and you stay on yours and we’ll get along just fine? I have a room full of guns and I’m not afraid to use them?

What I noticed, early on after moving here were the cats on top of these lovely interconnected walls. The cats made really good time from one section of the neighborhood to the other and stayed well out of reach of any dogs. In fact, I believe they stopped and taunted dogs as often as time and speed allowed. I took to calling the walls “cat highways.”

Just last year I realized that teenagers had adapted and learned by watching the cats. They frequently scale the walls and run along the tops to get to where ever they want to go. Not sure if they taunt the dogs, though.

It’s important to know that the top edge of the wall is only six inches wide. The kids I know who do this seem oblivious to the possibility of falling, trespassing, irritating a rabid neighbor or injuring their often bare toes and feet. But then, most teenagers are oblivious to most things not orbiting their own personal universe. (No disrespect intended, just stating a fact.)

I guess if you live in the desert you adapt, change, melt a little, and do whatever it takes to survive.

You use what nature and construction offer and you run with it. Or, in this case, you run on it.

My take on it all? Extra good fences make good neighbors and in some cases, really good shortcuts.

_________________

Just in case you were wondering, here’s the actual poem by Frost that I was referring to. I consider it an astounding work of art. Enjoy. Read it out loud! It rolls in a warm wave and fills the room with the scent of an open meadow, pines and apple blossoms. At least in my mind it does.

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Robert Frost
Categories: Humor, People, phoenix | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Happymess is…

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Kami

photo-17 copy 8

Yes, that’s how I meant to spell it. It’s what home life with children can evolve into. A Big Happymess.

Life with kids is messy. And it’s often happy. Sometimes both things at the same time. Sometimes it’s just messy. Rarely does blissful, unadulterated happiness occur. But it does happen. Often when the children are asleep. But awake time happiness happens, too. Admit it.

Read the following quotations, then you tell me. Does the word Happymess fit when describing family life?

“We spend the first twelve months of our children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.” ~ Phyllis Diller

photo-18 copy 4

“The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable.” – Lane Olinhouse

photo-17 copy 9

“What it’s like to be a parent: It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do but in exchange it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love.” – Nicolas Sparks

photo-21 copy 2

“The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.” – Dorothy Parker

photo-19 copy 3

“Few things are more satisfying than seeing your own children have teenagers of their own.” ~ Doug Larson

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“I don’t remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don’t even know exist until you love a child.”– Anne Lamott

“Parents are not interested in justice, they’re interested in peace and quiet.” – Bill Cosby

So what do you think? Am I right? Life’s a happymess, if you take the chaos with a grain of salt. A dose of laughter every day helps, as well.

Remember, If you don’t laugh a bit, you’re gonna cry a lot.

Enjoy the mess.

Categories: Family, parenting | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Breakfast for Dinner

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Kami

So is it just me, or is breakfast for dinner one of your favorite go-to meal plans?

Breakfast at dinnertime satisfies like nothing else I know. Add in that it’s fast and easy to prepare and smells divine. It’s the perfect comfort food.

photo-17 copy 7Obviously, I’m not talking cold cereal or oatmeal here. Bacon, eggs, hash browns. Or biscuits and sausage gravy, with an extra biscuit slathered in butter and dripping with honey on the side. Now we’re getting somewhere. Or some pancakes or French toast, now there’s easy and delish. Or my fav, waffles! Some homemade strawberry freezer jam on one half and syrup on the other half. Followed by a cold glass of milk.

Ah, perfection.

Imagine what I’m planning for my dinner tonight! Are you jealous?

Mmm. Decisions, decisions.

Now I’m waffling. And that does not mean eating waffles. Which I find weird.

The waffle we eat and the waffle that we do are both spelled the same way. The “crisp batter cake baked in a waffle iron” (thank you Merriam-Webster) had its humble beginnings in the early 1700’s as a Dutch word meaning to weave. Whoever was brilliant enough to create a pan that makes tiny square bowls for syrup to seep into deserves a medal and knighthood.  And in case you were wondering,  something can have a waffle pattern, which would be a grid like, indented design.

The verb waffle didn’t show up in Britain until the mid-1800’s. It means “to sit on the fence” or to be indecisive, or failing to make up one’s mind. Members of the US House and Senate will appreciate this word as well, as its secondary meaning is to speak or write at great length without saying anything important or useful. We all know someone personally with this “skill” don’t we?

photo-19 copy 2Why do I bring this up in the middle of breakfast for dinner?

Because I was wondering about it. Why one word for two different meanings? English runs skiwampus that way.

I suppose eating breakfast at dinnertime would be considered skiwampus, too. But then who decided what foods are proper for morning meals, which are appropriate for evening meals and what constitutes an afternoon meal? Custom, culture, habit. I blame habit more than anything.

Don’t even get me started on what to call those meals: supper, lunch, dinner, brekkies, brunch, tea, high tea, late dinner, second breakfast, elevensies, snack, late supper.

Enough wondering and talking. Let’s eat!

Who’s cooking what?

Categories: Food, Fun | Tags: , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

A Brief Pause in the Dawn’s Early Light

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Kami

Every school morning there’s a bit of extra traffic in front of my house. Foot traffic, bicycle traffic, car traffic. It’s spread out over forty-five minutes of drop-off time, so it doesn’t seem like that much. When that traffic clears and school starts what follows has made living so close to the school a sweet daily reminder of how charmed a life I lead.

English: Flag of the United States of America....

The American National Anthem plays on the loudspeaker system every school morning. It’s broadcast outdoors apparently, not just indoors. It’s loud enough that I can hear it inside my house.

I remember hurrying across campus at college to get inside a building before the National Anthem and flag raising started so I wouldn’t have to stop and stand with my hand over my heart, freezing, for those interminable minutes while it played. What a dweeb! I was young and shallow and clearly didn’t appreciate what that really meant. Decades later I get it and will stop and listen and pay respect with my hand over my heart.

One of the parents in the neighborhood walks his kid to school and brings the family dog along. When the anthem plays the dog “sings” along. I kid you not. The dog barks and yowls in this high-pitched singalong dog falsetto that is something crazy to behold. I like to think the dog gets it. I know that’s stretching it a bit, but it makes me smile to imagine that a dog knows what a charmed life it lives, too.

US Navy 041217-N-3236B-022 A World War II U.S....

A World War II U.S. Army veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, salutes the American flag during the playing of the National Anthem.

It surely makes me pause every single time I hear it. It’s not the words and it’s not the music. It’s what it represents; a daily memoir of thousands and thousands of lives shared, lived, changed and lost. Today, September 20, the third Friday in September, is National POW/MIA Recognition Day. Is there an appropriate way to remember and honor people like this? Gratitude for  their sacrifice, mindful of the price of the freedom I enjoy. I can start there.

The National Anthem is also a daily question: “Can you see?”

And so I ask myself. Can I see? Can I see what abundance lies before me? Can I share that somehow today?

I hope this doesn’t sound arrogant. That’s the last message I’d want to convey here. I guess I just want to acknowledge that I feel lucky, grateful, humbled. I don’t want to take any of this for granted.

I’ve included all four stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key. Read it with the tune in your head, or read it as a poem.

But please, read mindfully and see what it says to you today.

Can you see?

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Categories: Gratitude, Poetry, The World | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

All Things Chia

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Kami

Today’s Daily Prompt from WordPress asked:

“What’s the most dreadful or wonderful experience you’ve ever had as a customer?” 

My post twists the question around somewhat to reply as the one providing the customer service. I’m sorry to have to report that it turned out as rather inept service.

“I’m making a chia cava,” the woman said. “Can you tell me what fabric would work for that?”

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I’m not sure I heard you right.”

“I’m looking for fabric, for a chia cava,” she said again.

After the tragic and premature death of Fernan...

Chia cava. Chia cava. Chia cava. I repeated in my head. I’m picturing chia plants, chia pets, chia heads. But what’s a cava?

“My hearing isn’t very good, ma’am,” I said apologetically, “could you say that again?”

“Chia cava,” she repeated louder. “Fabric for making a new chia cava.”

She didn’t have an accent, she wasn’t from a foreign country, she could pass as my grandmother and yet I couldn’t tell what she needed.

“Just a second,” I said as looked for the other sales associate to call her over.

“I’ll just find it myself,” the woman said and she walked away toward the stacks of fabric. Exasperation wasn’t exactly the look on her face, but I had clearly failed her.

I explained the misunderstanding to the other sales associate who looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Seriously, she said ‘chia cava,’” I whispered to her. It wasn’t a very big fabric shop.

Fabric shop in Hilo, Hawaii

Fabric shop in Hilo, Hawaii. Not, unfortunately, the one I worked at.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My coworker walked over to the misunderstood and somewhat frustrated customer and started chatting with her. They ran their hands over the bolts of paisley’s, prints, stripes and solids. They took out a bolt or two and spread out the fabric a bit. There were hand gestures I couldn’t quite make out. I still had no clue what a chia cava was. They walked over to another section of the store and talked about some of that fabric.  And again, there was the touching of fabric, more pulling bolts and spreading it out across the top of the other bolts. There was some laughter. Then they walked over to another section and chatted some more.

I stayed busy restocking a few notions while I surreptitiously watched the two of them chat and talk about fabric. When the customer selected the fabric she wanted the two of them walked back to the cutting counter together. I found something to do in another section of the store. Embarrassed at my inability to understand or help, I made myself as scarce as possible.

After measuring the fabric, cutting it, bagging it and collecting the money, my coworker walked to the door with the customer, chatting comfortably. As the door opened they both looked back at me briefly and I hid my face again. I’m not certain but I’m pretty sure I heard chuckling. The customer left with a look of satisfaction clearly on her face.

I stepped out from my hiding place near the notions wall and lifted my hands and shrugged my shoulders to ask, “well?”

“Well, what?” my coworker laughed.

“What is a chia cava and what kind of fabric do you make it from?”

She pulled up a chair behind the counter and sat down.  “See this?” she said, leaning back in the chair and letting the front legs lift off the ground.

“What? The chair?” I said exasperated.

“Yes, the chia,” she replied, dropping the “R” in the word chair.

“A Chair?” I said hitting myself in the forehead with the palm of my hand. “But what’s a chair cava?” I asked, but as I said the two words together out loud I understood. “A chai cava is a chair cover?” I said emphasizing the “R” sound in each word.

English: Chair

“Yup, simple as that,” she said. “She wanted to recover a chair in some new fabric, and if it turns out well, she’ll be back for more fabric.”

I looked at her, stunned and sheepish.

My coworker laughed. “That customer thought you were the strangest, dumbest salesperson she’d ever encountered in her whole life.” She laughed again. “I told her you were really new to the job and didn’t even know how to run the cash register yet.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. I’d been working there for over two years. I thought it better for the customer to think I was silly and inexperienced than for her to feel awkward or embarrassed herself.

I’m sure she told her friends and her husband about the airheaded sales clerk who couldn’t understand simple English. Just as surely as I told my family about the customer who couldn’t make herself understood by a simple sales clerk in a fabric store.

Occasionally when one of my kids says something I can’t quite hear or understand, I’ll throw out the phrase, “you want a chia cava” and get a laugh out of them. Then they’ll repeat themselves very slowly as if I am hard of hearing and dimwitted, laughing at me the whole time.

At least they all get a laugh out of it.

I’m happy to be of service.

Categories: Humor, People | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Not my “A” Game

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Kami

Do I have to show up with my A game?

Or can I just show up?

How about if I show up in my pajamas?

My A game is definitely down today. Might be best not to show up at all, even in pajamas.  Does anyone have the number for calling in sick to life?

Open bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol and Ext...

Sore throat, earache, head ache, me ache. Sleep remains elusive and fickle. The doctor and I get to chat today. With any luck I’ll leave with a prescription or two or five that will a.) help me sleep; b.) take away some of this dumb pain; and c.) cure whatever this is that’s ailing me. Maybe he can even write one up for d.) an attitude adjustment that minimizes whininess and self-pity.

It’s probably a virus. That’s why I’ve waited this long to visit with the doc. When I go to the doctor only a few days into an illness, I’m told it’s a virus, or it’s what’s going around, and I should drink lots of fluids, get rest and (ha) take it easy.

Somehow my body isn’t getting the message that this is “just” anything and that it should heal itself.

I feel so whiny and wimpy when I think of how my best buddy has suffered through five flipping years of pain, chemo and crap. And she’s done it with less whining in five years than I’ve produced in the past week. You’d think I’d have learned something from her amazing example of perseverance and perkihood and optimism.

I have.

I’ve learned that she’s exceptional and strong and gutsy. I’ve learned that she’s kept her focus on her family. Her priorities have been on three things: 1.) doing what’s essential for her own spiritual well-being; 2.) doing what she can that’s necessary in caring for her family; and with any remaining energy 3.) she does some nice stuff that brings variety and beauty and enjoyment into her life.

That order of priorities has kept her focused and hopeful and happy, in spite of the pain and loss and sickness.

So maybe I can’t bring my A game today. But maybe I can muster my B game and stop being whiny. I could do that.

Right after a nap and some Tylenol.

Categories: Family, People | Tags: , , , , , , | 5 Comments

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