Friday, May 29, 2009

My Dad just gave me $20 bucks

I was sitting at my desk which sits in front of a huge paned window. The window looks out across my back garden. From my desk I can see the through 30 or so trees up into the snow covered mountain peaks reaching for patches of blue sky.

It is a rule in my house that if Mom, me, with her back to the door, is seen furiously typing away or conferencing on Skype, she is NOT to be disturbed. Sometimes as I type, face toward my lap top, sun streaming in, I feel as if I am truly in my own world, the words flow through my fingers on to the keyboard and it is those moments, lost in lap top reverie that my family knows not to interupt. Even so, I can always feel when someone has come up behind me hoping for a break in the conversation or the keys.

I usually know by instinct, who they are and what they may want. Remember the old saying "Mom has eyes in the back of her head?" my kids think I do. I let them think this though I can just tell by the shuffle of feet who it is that has entered from behind threatening to interrupt the flow of my work. I hate to be distracted when on a roll and will sadly often snap out, "Ask your father!" before they get within 3 feet of my chair. Some days they get a little closer and actually place a written note in front of me. One, from my daughter, was simply written, "Sleep over?, Kiersten's, her parents will be home! Check if Yes!" As her note left out an option for a no, I checked. Approval more so, for her positive and respectful approach, rather really than the plan.

On this day I was so immersed in work that I did not sense or notice anyone beside me and when he spoke I was startled. My Dad lives in our basement apartment and often pops in during the day to check on happenings. Usually I am too busy typing away to pay him much notice. Often he will speak at me from the hall and if I don't answer he gets the message that I am on a deadline and not to be disturbed.

Today was different, he said, "Working away?" and as that was obvious I felt both irritated and annoyed to be interrupted. Usually I ignore anyone who breaks the rule but for some reason on that day I gave in and partially turned round to see what he wanted, and when I did, he handed me $20 bucks.

Now I don't know about anyone else but having my father hand me $20 bucks hasn't happened in years. Suddenly, I was 16 again, hoping for the car keys and a little spending money.

Back then it was a tradition to go to Thrifty's for ice cream. Thrifty's was at the edge of an outdoor mall where I lived in California. Cones were a quarter and sometimes there were cute guys hanging around. Now Thrifty's was only a mile or so away and in our pre-driving days had been content to walk. Yet now 16, some of us had our licenses and we felt we could not be seen walking, it was only fitting for us to drive!

Yet to drive required the privilege of keys. So we would call around to see who could get money and car keys out of their Father for an ice cream run. Each of us would hang up the phone and cautiously risk the wrath of Dad to ask for the keys and a few bucks. The person first victorious would ring the rest of us.

My father was an unpredictably tempered man and I would stall hoping for the phone to ring before I had to actually ask him. At my house we had one car, so keys were tough to get, but money was even tougher. My dad was an entrepreneur, molded by his hard-fought youth in the post war days of England, and cars and money were not something you availed yourself of lightly! So, with lead feet, I rarely made it to ask my father when with relief I would hear the phone ring. Usually, it would be Kathy, happily sharing that she had the keys and the money and the money as well. (Her family had two kids to our six kids and they had 2 cars as well.) Victorious, we would hop in to her parent's huge van for 2 minute ride to get ice cream. Later that year we also took ice cream jaunts to the unapproved hour distance of the beach, but that is a different story, one with another ending.

With that history in mind you can understand why I asked "What's this for?" about the unexpected gift of $20. My Dad said, "Just a little walking around money."

Now my dad knows as well as I do, that aside from a weekly jaunt to the radio studio for my show and Sunday attendance at church, that I have become a hermit. I injured my knee in October and that injury and writing my "eMPowerment Series" books, there are 7 of them (finally available on www.powerstrategies.TV and www.WcWW.com), has left me glued to my desk the last many months. Pretty much my life revolves around my laptop and whatever can interrupt me from behind it.

I don't why but I then did something I never do when someone interrupts me, and I turned completely around from my desk to talk with my father. I don't know if it was the $20 bucks or the shock of it. Pleased he had my full attention, he told me he hadn't been feeling well, pain on his side and then a welt on his leg, and I suddenly saw him for his age and his place in his life. He was no longer the dad of my 16th year, vibrant and edgy, but a more softened version with worries. He talked for a while, patted my on the shoulder (something he rarely does, the British are not renowned for their displays of affection) and said he was off!

Rather mystified at the encounter, I thanked him for the $20 bucks and turned back to my computer before he was gone. After he left, I didn't get any work done. I sat with my hand on my chin and thought about life. How rapidly life moves. How my father had aged. How the years had passed since I had worried about interrupting him to ask for the hallowed funds and keys. 20 some odd years later , why had he just handed me $20 bucks?

Lost in thought, a short time later, I sensed my husband come up behind me. He was hesitant I think because without a call going or the keys tapping, he wondered if I was truly interruptible. He had never seen me just sitting at my desk before. I had a lot to do that day but I don't think I had moved at all since my Dad had come in.

My husband cleared his throat, and said from behind me that he was going to pick up my daughter in town and he would be back. My husband, who has his desk on the other side of the house, is unlike me and will jump at any excuse to leave it. He has become the errand runner, the kid-picker upper, the driver, by his anxious-to-get-away-from-the-desk own choice. It works well for us!

Chad used to not getting an answer if I am busy, yet not wanting to interrupt me, yet perhaps worried about my stillness, jiggled his keys and then asked from behind me if I needed anything.

I suddenly turned from my desk, stood up and said, "I am going with you!" which shocked him! Then I added the ice water to his shock and said, "Let's go get ice cream!! My dad just gave me $20 bucks!"

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

How to eat with a knife and fork while sitting!

About a year ago, I opened the utensil drawer to find a spoon. I noticed we had hordes of spoons and not one fork. Mystified I looked in the dishwasher and then the other obvious place, the sink, and could not find one solitary fork. Not one! I asked out loud, "Where are all the forks?" and my, then 11-year-old daughter, answered, "We don't have any, we don't use them anyway!" Her comment and that search process made me think. Where had all the forks gone? How could we have lived this long without forks and why would my daughter say we don't use them? Why hadn't I noticed their disappearance sooner? I started to think about our Utensil usage – not that I had time but I do love a good mystery, so I couldn't help myself. Sure we use spoons daily . . . cereal in the morning and ice cream at night. How about knifes? I use knifes to spread the jam on the toast I had out the door as the door to catch the school bus. I use knifes to make the sandwiches that I pack in their lunches for school. Four sandwiches every day like clock work . . . 1 knife for to spread the peanut butter, one knife for the jam, one knife for the honey – heaven forbid any of those items touch before they reach the bread – and one for the mayonnaise. Yes, I use a lot of those knifes every day. I opened the drawer . . . brimming with knifes. Still now forks! What could have happened to the forks? Do forks become extint with lack of use? I had a wild thought and then ran for the hutch where I keep my so-so nice and so-so matching set of utensils for the fancy dinners, you know the wedding gift sets, the ones I was so sure I would use each Sunday for family dinner. I opened that drawer, everything was there, forks included, and for now felt safe that the mystery hadn't reached the hutch. Still, I wondered, where the forks were.


 

I told my husband about the mystery and he seemed to agree with my daughter. "We don't use them so why worry?" Still he could tell by the look on my face that something more serious and sinister was afoot. "What kind of family doesn't use forks?" I shouted much to emphatically for the loss of forks. Suddenly the mystery seemed some kind of heathen sin, so my husband, unable to escape, walked me through it. "We just don't use forks because we never formally sit down to eat! Think about it. We eat while running out the door, while driving in our car, while in a meeting, while typing at our desk. The fork has been replaced by our hands. We eat with our hands! We don't need forks!" He held up his hands and turned to walk away with that Mystery solved kind of air that husbands get when they have found a solution and no more words are necessary. "What mystery solved? Now that I realize we live like heathens, I still don't know where the forks are! If we don't use them then where have they gone?" The day was busy and the my continued drama unnoticed so I changed the subject and went to work . . . eating my toast and drove. I could not help but think of the situation. I was raised in a home where manners were important. We ate a the family table, with napkins in our laps, with our mouths firmly closed as we chewed and we didn't really even speak unless spoken too. We ate together with full utensils while sitting still. I remember bouncing my legs under the table and getting a fork poke in the arm for my efforts. "Sit still while you eat!" growled my father more than once to me or my 5 siblings. Forks where used for dual purposes then, eating and stabbing, I still have a tiny scar, but that is another story.

I went to work, asked a few people how often they sat round a table to eat with a knife and fork and I got enough blank stares to realize this mystery may be an epidemic. I stopped myself from asking them if their forks had disappeared as well, no need to give any extra reason for thinking I was a little crazy. Still the issue haunted me and I decided I would insist we would eat dinner as a family, forks, knifes, plates and napkins at the table . Well life got busy, I worked late, my husband picked up pizza and still determined to keep my goal I called everyone into the dining room – even my son, with a piece of pizza in each hand in front of the TV – responded with worried looks on their faces. I announced we would sit down and eat with utensils at the table that night and every night and this is the response I got . . . in this order. "What are utensils?" "No one eats pizza at a table?" "Why are you doing this to us?" "Is this the fork thing again?" that from my husband. "We don't have any forks!" this from the same daughter. I made them all sit down, passed out the napkins from Little Caesar's pizza, thankfully they sent those, and then remembered a box of plastic forks from the last camping trip and passed those out round the table. The looked at me like I was insanse, really I even felt a bit deflated then, I mean who really does eat pizza with a fork and knife anymore? (I did as a kid!) Still I was determined.

The next night I made spaghetti, almost triumphantly daring anyone to question the use of fork with the long stringy pasta. We sat down to dinner, again with the plastic forks, and I made them put napkins in their laps, had them say a blessing on the food (something we always did when I was a kid) and sat down for a nice knife and fork dinner. What happened I realized their manners were atrocious – all of them even my husband! The slurping, the fork waving for enunciation while my oldest daughter talked about the math teacher she hates, the dropped pasta . . . not in the napkin on the floor . . . it was awful. I told them that when I was a child my father would have poked me with a fork had I displayed such manners and they said – again in order, "That would be child abuse mom, they won't let you do that now!" this from my oldest. "Did you defend yourself with a knife?" this from Clone Wars-loving son. "We don't have any forks?" you know who said that. "Is this the fork thing again? " you know who said that too.

It has now been a year . . . as a family we sit down to eat with a knife and fork at least 4 times a week. Teaching them to eat with a knife and fork while sitting was a painful labor of love. The good news is that my children's manners have improved enough that I can safely invite my father over and not fear a stabbing. Food still flies occasionally when I fork is wave emphatically during our great family discussions. I no longer allow them to eat while standing and we rarely eat in our cars. I have found we gravitate to the table. I still don't know where my forks went . . . my new mother-in-law; Grandma Cheryl brought us a bag of forks she found at a garage sale last week. Everyone was excited! The fork section in the drawer was overflowing for the first time in years! Funny though, last night we sat down to dinner, a rice and bean concoction, and I realized we needed utensils, I asked my now 12-year-old to them. She called from the kitchen, "We are out of forks? Will spoons work?"