When I was six, I thought grownuppery would happen at nine. At nine, I thought thirteen was the age of adulthood. At thirteen, I knew I was at the pinnacle of wisdom and maturity – if only my teachers and parents would acknowledge that I was their equal. Once I got over that assumption, I always aimed a few years ahead for the exact moment when I would become an adult, or at least behave like one. Now, at 33 and expecting a baby of my own, I pretty much feel like a kid most of the time. Except for one thing: I now read the directions that come with my toys. Which is how I found the following misdirections this morning in the packaging for my camera’s battery charger. This multi-folded bit of paper assures me that I am not yet an adult – after all, adults should be able to process even complex directions such as this:

When the charging is complete, the LED light will turn orange. As(sic) this point, the battery can be removed for use. It is recommended, however, that you leave the battery connected to the charger for another 30 minutes to ensure a full, or “topped off”, charge. It is best to remove the battery after charging but it is ok to leave the batery(sic) in the charger for a short time because the micro processor controller will reduce voltage loss.

Um, wha–? Take the “batery” out when? After the light turns orange, or a half hour after that, or after it’s finished charging, which is when, exactly? And if it’s supposed to come out a while after the light turns orange and there’s no buzzer or beep or bloop to tell me when that happens, how do I know? Do I time it? Do I watch the battery charge? That’s guaranteed to be a fun time.

And that is why I read the directions: They make me feel young. And they amuse me severely.

I am not a girly-girl. I’ve never treated myself to a manicure, I have less interest in shoes than most men, and my blow dryer last saw action several months ago when I removed one those flashy stickers some companies like to plaster all over their products. And yet.

And yet I am all about rainbows and butterflies and chirping birds and, yes, flowers. Not on t-shirts or binders or anything plastic and decorative, you understand. Just in reality, in this dimension.

Which is why I’m loving this summer so very much. Flowers are everywhere, blatantly growing and spreading and blooming. Three volunteer rosebushes sprouted in my vegetable garden, globe mallows are sweeping up and down the hillsides, and wild irises are grinning like lunatics in the mountain sunshine. It’s an obscene rainbow of blossoms carpeting everything outside of town except the rocks and asphalt. It’s like the Disney Channel, except no princesses.

What’s great about flowers, beyond the fact that they are nice-looking and they usually smell good and they stand still when I try to take pictures of them, is that they make no pretense whatsoever. They are all about the pollination, their petals and perfumes and colors brashly yelling, “Come and get it!” to any passing insects. It’s hard not to admire such honesty, especially when packaged so prettily.

Alas (if one can use such a word in 2009) this year the ridiculous abundance that overtook the local flowership completely skipped every fruit tree I know and love. Our neighbor’s apricot, which hangs halfway into our backyard, always produces enough to make any self-respecting fruit-lover sick to her stomach. This year, though? Only leaves. The plum tree? Nothing. Peaches? Not a one.

Only the Bing cherry in our front yard deigned to bring forth anything remotely edible – lots and lots of gorgeous cherries, swinging merrily in the early summer breeze. No doubt they were delicious, too. I wouldn’t actually know, you see, since the birds cleaned off the branches exactly one day before I planned my harvest. They did look yummy, though, plump and juicy and deep, sweet red.

Hrm. Now that I think about it, I take back what I said above about liking birds. Greedy little suckers. Flowers, though. Those I still adore. And rainbows and butterflies, of course. And once our trees start making fruit the way God and the garden center that sold them intended, I’m sure I’ll start liking them again, too. Check back next July, and I’ll let you know.

Obligatory flower photo. This one’s in our front yard.

I bought a tub of cottage cheese the other day, which means my weight loss plan finally has a chance of working. I never would have made the connection, except the other night hubby and I were in a restaurant and, while I was trying to decide which delectably greasy item to order, guilt nudged me toward the “On the Lite Side”(sic) portion of the menu. You know, all that heart-healthy, tasteless crap they dish up just so they can say they cater to everyone. It was there that I saw the key to effortless weight loss. It’s a trick that all restaurants seem to know, yet women’s magazines still have not picked up on: eat cottage cheese. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, according to menus across the country, one scoop of cottage cheese is all you need in order to stay healthy and lose weight, no matter what accompanies those blessed curds. And the good news is, all restaurant diet plates come with it, so you’ll never be without this magic gut-shrinking agent. And to think, you’ve been lied to all this time: Dieting is not about the portion size, the fat content, or even those now-meaningless calories (or kilocalories for those sticklers out there).

Skeptical? Itching for more specific proof than “every restaurant’s doing it”? Fine, then. Just witness this listing under the diet section of the restaurant menu mentioned above: ½ lb. ground top sirloin with a side of peaches and cottage cheese. And, no, I swear to you I’m not making this up. In fact, I just called the restaurant to verify, in case it was actually supposed to read “Mixed salad greens tossed in a light vinaigrette dressing, accompanied by a side of steamed broccoli and a dish of low fat cottage cheese”.

Since all evidence points to syrupy canned peaches, and we all know a whopping ½ lb. serving of beef doesn’t fit into traditional heart-healthy parameters, it must be the cottage cheese that makes this dinner choice “lite”. Which is the reason I had no worries about the contents of my plate at a family barbeque I attended on Saturday. All I had to do was add a spoonful of the miraculous side dish, and I could eat whatever I wanted. In fact, when I weighed myself that night, I had actually lost weight. It’s a miracle.

My kind of diet: Cheeseburger, baked beans, brownie and, of course, cottage cheese (which makes it all good for me).

These days I’m finding it unusually hard to get out of bed. It’s not the time change, hateful and inhumane though it is. And it’s not that I spend each sleeping minute lumped upon by three dead-weight felines, whose combined corpulence equals thirty-six pounds of purring, furry, gelatinous cat. No. It’s the fact that our new mattress pad begins each night with about as much give as a slab of concrete, but by morning it has the structural integrity of warm marshmallow.

Here’s a tip: Do not buy a mattress that tries, night after night, to eat you.

Once upon a time, investing in a Memory Foam mattress topper seemed like a sensible plan. Long before we met, my husband — who had taken to sleeping on the floor of his college dorm room — finally broke down and purchased a bed. Since habit dictated that even carpeting was too soft for sleep, he asked for the firmest mattress they had. Unfortunately, they delivered. He was thrilled. Plywood would have been softer, and asphalt more forgiving. Life was perfect.

As it turned out, when I married my husband his bed came with him. While I immediately abhorred the thing, hubs’s turnaround came more slowly. Recently, after years of tingling fingers, aching shoulders, and dead arms, I made an executive decision: It was time for a new mattress.

Here’s another tip: Executive decisions should only be made after a full night of sleep.

To our surprise, mattresses, while they seem simple, cost as much as both our cars put together, but without the handy test drive to make sure everything feels okay. Time for a new plan. And so, several weeks later, a thick, gray, queen-sized expanse of foam came into our lives. Filled with enthusiasm, we tore open the box, poured it out, and ripped off the plastic bag in which it came. Then we stood back as it slowly unfurled itself, like a prehistoric beast stretching after a long winter’s sleep. We watched it rapturously. Soon life would be perfect, our dreams delightful and uninterrupted, our nights unmarred by discomfort.

The cats were more skeptical, sniffing the air around it with great distrust, jumping away when we nudged it, and daring one another to cross its dimpled expanse. Dropping them in the center sparked duck-and-cover maneuvering as they tried to escape this brand new enemy.

Final tip: Sometimes cats have a good point.

Bubbling with anticipation, we ignored their fears. Instead, we tossed it into place on top of the old mattress, fitted the sheets over it, and waited for night to fall. To our horror^[1], though, when bedtime hit we quickly discovered that our revolutionary new Memory Foam mattress topper morphs into a four-inch-thick brick in the cold evening air. We didn’t so much crawl into bed as on top of it. The pad hesitated^[2] and then, with an almost audible sigh, it slowly began to give under our weight and warmth. Fighting back giggles, we watched each other sink until our bodies had formed deep, steep-sided troughs from which we then fought to free ourselves each time we rolled over, reached for our bedside glasses of water, or flailed for the snooze button. In the morning we excavated ourselves with effort, as the sleep-softened foam beneath us sucked at our tired bodies and the untouched, cold foam beside and between us formed impossible, unyielding walls. Once we had escaped, a glance back at the bed showed the outlines of our sleeping positions, as crisply formed as chalk lines around a murder victim.

It has been thus for weeks now. While we are gradually growing accustomed to this new arrangement and the mild spring days make for softer nights, well, it’s still no wonder I was late to work today: My mattress tried to have me for breakfast.

1. mine more than my husband’s [↩]
2. which led my husband to quip, “Foam has slow memory. Needs more RAM” in a stilted, computer-esque voice. [↩]

Dear Spring:

We would like to thank you for your continued years of faithful service. Your performance has been unfailingly cheerful and, at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, your grooming beautifies the place.

However, it has come to our attention that your lack of consistency has caused a number of problems, especially in the areas of production and public relations. This has resulted in considerable delays in crops, such as those illustrated below, as well as dropping customer approval ratings. As a result, the board has determined that you shall be subjected to a probationary period, which will last no less than one half decade and no longer than one century. This is effective immediately. This has been a difficult decision, made with heavy hearts, but in the end we must ensure that all seasons, fronts and spells we oversee best represent the Weather Oversight Board, as well as the weather in general.

In order to receive full reinstatement of your powers, you must agree to and meet with the following requirements:

1) March shall no longer “come in like a lion”. It shall be a lamb throughout. Leonine behavior is merely an excuse for spotty service, and shall no longer be tolerated.

2) Once the flowers arrive, you do, too. This means no more frost, and most certainly no more snow. You may exercise your powers to the point of providing brisk breezes and occasional hail; more extreme weather is limited to those who control winter and, in some cases, late autumn. If you wish, you may request a transfer to either of these departments.

3) Blatant favoritism shall be considered inappropriate and grounds for immediate dismissal. This refers specifically to your habit of providing certain areas of the country with balmy, late-spring weather while other parts are mired in temperatures befitting mid-January.

As you are aware, we encourage communication between members of the Weather Oversight Board and those seasons, fronts, and spells we oversee. For this reason, if you have any questions during or after this probationary period, we encourage you to contact us.

Once again, we would like to thank you for your continued service.

Sincerely,

Jack O. Frost
President, Weather Oversight Board

Around the middle of July, when the sidewalks sizzle and the sun scorches, I begin to fantasize about winter. Ah, the crisp, cold air! The pretty swirling snowflakes! The hot chocolate and baths and cozy evening fires!

It takes exactly one snowfall before my naiveté dissolves and memories of past winters rush in. From that moment on, I long for spring to come again.

In our area, hints of the changing seasons can appear as early as late January: bickering birds, a breeze whose arctic bite is more of a nibble, and — my favorite — the unfolding of flowers. This year the flowers held out on us, popping up well into February. Finally, a week ago the delicate creations below poked through our dry, winter-brown grass and opened up to the sun. While we’re not ready to break out the shorts and sandals, I’m already helping winter pack its bags and hinting that it should hit the road before rush hour clogs the interstate.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to enjoy whatever springly attributes this month has brought. And so on Saturday morning, the first bright, clear day since the crocuses’ appearance, I carted my camera and my new tripod (the latter courtesy of my brother and sis-in-law) into the yard and let loose. Recorded now for posterity – or at least the extent of this digital age – are this year’s first flowers. Click on the photos for larger renditions in more detail. Trust me; they look much better that way.^[1]

1. If you like these, check out my photoblog, Playing with Pixels, at http://www.caryncaldwell.com/photos! [↩]

My dearest blogosphere,

In the words of a pen pal from my elementary days, how are you? I am fine. Mostly. I know that it has been ages since I’ve written, but I promise that there are reasons, many of which are even valid.

For one thing, blogging minus the internet doesn’t work so well. It’s been nearly a week since my (former) phone company, a bottomless reservoir of brilliant communicators, interpreted a clear request for ditching our land line as an order to disconnect all service, including our internet and every one of our well-established email accounts.^[1] It’s possible it was an act of spite, brought about by their jealousy at our choosing somebody else’s cell service over their land line offerings. I, however, prefer to think of it as an honest mistake somehow perpetuated by, well, no fewer than six different customer service reps, four technical support gurus, and two managers.^[2] In an act of breathtaking incompetence, they managed to make the problem worse every time I called. While their communication skills may be lacking, their determination to screw things up is admirable.

Whatever the cause, this incident, as you may imagine, has not exactly filled my days with sunshine and rainbows. The good news is that I have now developed an exciting new hobby: unsuccessfully battling the company that ate my internet. Which is excuse number two for not having written. You know how hobbies can be, so all-consuming that at times they almost cease to be fun.

The public library, with its abundance of light, foliage, and wireless internet, is perhaps an obvious choice for those who find themselves marooned in a house without a workable way to surf the web. If only I hadn’t also been battling something mean and contagious, a fight I plan to win tomorrow, or maybe Friday.

Then there was the possibility of writing from work, with its many doors to all things online. Let’s just rule that option out now, though, shall we? I don’t typically blog about work, and I definitely don’t blog at work. The two entities go together like plaid and stripes.

I would like to think that my remaining time has been spent well, however. For example, I’ve attacked my new cell phone, associating different ring tones and photos with almost all of my contacts, a crucial first step in breaking in a new device. And then there are the book revisions. It’s astonishing how much less painful they can be without the worldly web tempting me at every turn.

All of this is to say that there is more coming soon, when I am less annoyed and more coherent. And to apologize for my lack of communication. A new company swooped in a few hours ago to hook us up to the rest of the world, which means I’ll be touring the blogosphere – and adding to it – in no time.

More soon,

Caryn

P.S. I think everyone should probably be without the internet for a while. At the very least they can rewnew their relationships with the dictionary and the phone book, two worthy publications that don’t see a lot of use these days.

1. That means that if you wrote to me in the past week, I may not have gotten it. And since I’m not about to post my shiny new gmail address online, you can use my contact form to try again. [↩]
2. This is no exaggeration. I actually counted how many people couldn’t help me. I had to do something with all that time on hold. [↩]

I looked up when she came in the door, this girl in her twenties wearing jeans and an old tee shirt, blond hair pulled back in a messy pony tail.

“Can I help you?” I asked, thinking I sounded like a stereotypical sales girl.

“Uh, yeah.” She leaned forward against the counter between us. “Do you have any job openings?”

Since it’s not my place to make personnel decisions, I told her when Those in Charge would return. “Or,” I added, trying to be helpful, “You could always drop off a resume.”

Her eyes lit up. Ah. This was the perfect solution. “Great! Where can I get one?”

For a second, I couldn’t speak. Perhaps I’d had an advantage, as the daughter of small business owners, but this seemed like common knowledge. Then I reminded myself that she probably thought I meant to say “an application”. I tried to decide how to phrase this tactfully, in case she truly had misspoken.

“Well, actually, I’m not sure where the applications are,” I told her slowly, thinking aloud, putting a bit more emphasis on applications. “But if you write up your resume, then you can come back with it.”

She wrinkled her brow in confusion. Okay, so apparently it was possible that someone in her mid-twenties might not know what a resume was. Maybe she’d never needed one before. But she must have had other jobs. I tried again. “You know. A resume? Where you list all the jobs you’ve had?”

“Oh. Okay.” Her eyes drifted toward her hands. The left moved vigorously, picking at the cuticle on her right thumb. Then she looked up. “By the way, what do you guys do here? I’ve done lots of cashiering. I have tons and tons of experience with it.”

I glanced around the room, which held plenty of evidence of our products. Itching to explain the finer points of job-hunting — including dressing professionally, researching the company, and preparing the appropriate paperwork — I summoned up a kindly smile and briefly outlined our tasks, none of which included working the ancient cash register hunched on the counter between us.

“That sounds fun!” she chirped, swinging her sagging pony tail in her enthusiasm. “I’d like that a lot.”

Moments later she skipped out the door, full of cheerful promises that she would return later that afternoon to pick up an application. I never saw her again. Perhaps getting a job the traditional way just turned out to be too much work.

It’s beautiful out — a clear, blue, bird-filled day.  A light breeze teases the undropped leaves still clinging to their branches, and sun has conquered snow in all but the most shadowed corners of every lawn.

It’s also cold enough to freeze the hind end off a penguin, which is why I’m lounging in our living room gazing out at the world rather than jogging or taking a hike or riding a bike through it. Although I should, just the thought makes me shudder and my veins ice over.

The indoor options are nearly as bleak. If I spend one more minute on my exercise machine I’m liable to find myself a good smelter and have it rendered into scrap metal, or whatever it is you do with annoying machinery. Short of jumping jacks, weight-lifting cans of ravioli, or doing laps around my kitchen, any other exercise choices require leaving my climate controlled house for the big, bad, wintry outdoors.

I’m a shivering, sniveling wimp when the thermometer dips below forty^[1], so this would normally be an easy choice. But eleven days ago we crested the hill and skidded over into 2009. After the food-fest that stretches from Halloween to Christmas, I’d been mumbling about losing my more Rubenesque qualities and getting back into shape and now, to my consternation, I had a convenient start date.

Despite the timing, I wouldn’t say I made a resolution, exactly. More like a vow^[2] recklessly proclaimed at the same time so many others were resolving the same thing: I would lose this winter weight or starve in the attempt. And with my kitchen skills, starvation was a very real possibility.

Since limiting calories goes hand-in-hand with exercise, I dragged my workout clothes to the front of my closet several days before the first of the year. Then I primed the exercise machine I’d forgotten I hated. I also made A Plan, which everyone knows is nearly as important as actually Carrying Out The Plan. Then I waited for the new year to begin. The waiting is the fun part, before the hope and excitement have been tempered by reality and, most importantly, before the actual sacrifice begins.

The first of January had its pleasures as well. Filled with promise, I bounded from bed — or would have if I’d had a proper night’s sleep — and sauntered into the kitchen to prepare a healthful breakfast, complete with vitamin pills big enough to choke a horse. When lunch and dinner came around, I prepared them as per The Plan, too, then dutifully entered all calories into my chart. I even exercised that afternoon.

Optimism carried me through three days, and pride through another four. Now I’m surviving on sheer, brute strength, and other than occasional lapses and, of course, the Great Exercise Dilemma of 2009, things are going pretty well. I’m only occasionally starving, and I’ve already lost an entire pound, enough to make…well, no difference whatsoever. But I’m nothing if not determined, even when cold and tired and hungry, which is exactly how I keep ending up.

**Update**
11:14 a.m. – 1:03 p.m.

1. As it generally does this time of year. After three years in the Rockies, you’d think I’d be used to it. [↩]
2. The difference is this: Resolutions are made to be broken, whereas vows are binding and, frankly, much more dramatic. They’re often louder, too. [↩]

Setting up a new toaster oven should not under any circumstances require the following ingredients:

1) A plastic spoon

2) Four paper towels

3) All ten fingernails

4) Frequent misting of household chemicals

5) 28 minutes

This goes double when above tools are necessary to forcibly remove a colorful, life-sized sticker whose only purpose is to tout the same product perks bragged about on the garishly-decorated box.

And yet…

6 minutes into the procedure

After a thorough de-stickering. Note the cat in the reflection. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he is sitting on my back. Never bend to take a picture in our household lest you become sat upon by random animals.