Getting Flinty Around Here

“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

- William Butler Yeats

The budgets are getting settled out here in Lansing.  The next Flint, Michigan, perhaps. The legislature is all up in everyone’s business. Times are tight. Michigan just happens to be at the bottom of the barrel. Rounds of layoffs are hitting state departments. At first I felt panicked, then sad, and finally just worn out. Looks like I’m safe for now but will possibly get slammed at home sweet library home in June of 2010.

Maybe my generation will be the next Great Generation. The next Great Generation on Facebook. I’ve seen status updates from people thrilled their spouse qualified for unemployment.

Facebook status: Holiday cards gonna be real brief this year fellas.

Charleston Vacation

My vacation in Charleston was indeed wonderful. My journal didn’t quite capture it, though. If you’re interested in Charleston I would send you to the following Flickr group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/charleston_sc/

I have but one regret about this trip: that I didn’t buy more stuff.

Secrets of the Night

I’m still walking to Quality Dairy for my morning coffee,  a round trip of about 40 minutes. As noted, QD opens at 6 a.m.

I started this exercise in late May, when it was already light out at 5:45, my usual time for leaving the house lest I walk too fast and arrive before 6:00. (Some day in July the cranky employee that I ticked off on one of my earliest visits complimented my French braid and we’re all chummy now.)  First shift turnover is terrible, though, and every time I use my sparkliness to win over a new cashier, she leaves.

Now, though, there’s barely a streak of light in the East when I leave the house. This has led to a quiet, secret new activity: jogging.

I don’t jog worth a damn. I’m heavy, ungraceful, I can’t jog far in any case, I get winded quickly, my body bounces in unflattering ways, and there are few places one can go to jog where sleek, buff, built joggers of both sexes don’t fly by you, making me, anyway, feel very self-conscious.

But. But in the middle of the dark, where no one can see you have to stop after a short way, where there is no competition (even if that competition is only  in my mind), I can indulge in short, “Yaaaay Snakelady” spurts of activity down quiet, sleeping, neighborhood streets.

Be ye of calm mind, about your neighborhood as well, quiet victories are won by strangers who like your choice of siding.

White Coat Syndrome

Y’know how some people fear doctors? OK, Snakelady fears dentists.

I had no problems with my teeth until my early 30s. Then I saw a dentist who said I should have my wisdom teeth removed. I had no pain. He said I had cysts, it could become a problem. After consulting several people, including my primary care physician who said the experience was so dreadful he’d had half his mouth done and didn’t plan to go back and do the others, I decided everyone else in the world was a big wuss. I had all four done at once. I got dry sockets. I’d never had tooth pain before. I was out of work, dizzy, and sweating from pain for days. I recommend wisdom tooth extraction highly for all self-respecting masochists.

I recently went a year and a half between dental visits. Note that I had no pain and no reason to see a dentist except for a cleaning. Hubby has regular cleanings. He flosses daily. He thinks my lack of dental concern is irresponsible. I think he’s cute.

So, I go to the dentist and they tell me three fillings, maybe a crown. I am flabbergasted. I agree to all and sundry procedures in the interests of pro-active health care. Note again that I had no pain.

They do the two fillings and then a month ago while drilling for the third find a crack goes too far for a filling. I tell a co-worker I’m a princess, I have to take an afternoon off for my crown.

I had my seventh visit over this crown today.

The first several visits were semi-normal. They made an error and had to have the crown sent back to the lab so that required an extra visit. The last few have been my fault. I try to be conciliatory. I agree hastily to the question: Does that feel right? and bolt. And find myself back in his office three days later. Because it still hurts. After two weeks of round the clock anti-inflammatories I finally just gave them up. I still can’t chew on the one side of my mouth but as he’s said the last six visits, that should be better in a couple of days.

Today I had a Snakelady pep talk on my way to the dentist.

“I need to talk about something with you,” I tell the empty passenger seat.

“OK. What’s the issue?”

“I can’t get things sorted out with this crown and I can’t figure out if the problem is all me, part me, part them, or what, but I’m tired of going back and I want this resolved.”

“That sounds very frustrating. What can I do to help?”

“Well,” I say, “I’d like to role playing talking to the dentist.”

“I can help you with that. You want to start?”

“Sure. OK, let me think. For one thing it’s not working for me to be laying back in the chair when I’m trying to talk to him. I feel intimidated. I’m going to stand up.”

“That’s a good thing to identify.”

“OK, so starting from there, I’m going to be sitting up when I see him and I’m going to say: ‘Dr. M, I’m concerned about this taking so long. Is this normal? I’d like to get this resolved.’”

“You’ve had trouble saying this up til now?”

“Yes, I just smile and nod the whole time. I’m so anxious to get out of there I tell them it’s right before it is.”

“How has that worked out for you?”

“Not so well. Have I told you this is my seventh visit?”

“I think you’re going to do great.”

“Thanks, I’m kind of nervous.”

“You’re a great communicator, really able to ask for what you need. You must be great in relationships.”

“Thanks, I think so, too.”

Post appointment note: It’s still not cemented in. At this juncture I have decided to eat on just the one side of my mouth for the rest of my life.

Weight Watchers Anniversary

Memorial Day is (as close as needs be to being) my anniversary with WW. One year ago this week I heard about how to fill your plate half full with fruits and vegetables for this weekend’s holiday picnics. I thought that was brilliant. It had never occurred to me to do that. Weight Watchers rose in my novice estimation. I did not yet have a proper appreciation for the point count of mayonnaise (hence, potato or macaroni salad) or baked beans so I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be needing room for them anyway if I planned to eat anything fun for the rest of the week. When I quit smoking I was super-super-vigilant for the first year. I thought about not smoking every day. For the second year I was just super-vigilant. I was a little safer, a little more secure in my status as a non-smoker. I plan to lose the same in my second WW year that I lost in the first. My skill bag is much larger, my one point per serving recipes right up my sleeve, I can estimate a quarter cup quite satisfactorily but I measure most everything I eat anyway, and I know (intellectually) how to build a satisfying meal that will stay with me. I understand the concept of macronutrients. I can skitter away from the program for a few weeks and then come back. I can stay on target even when I’m having a “maintaining not losing” week. But food is funny. I was told that it’s harder to quit smoking than it is to quit heroin. I’m here to tell you that it’s harder to quit poor eating habits than it is to quit smoking. I quit smoking 9 years ago but I’ve been struggling with my weight since I was a child and I don’t feel the slight relief that came with my first anniversary as a non-smoker. I don’t feel like I can lighten up a little and some of this will take care of itself. This is my first serious attempt at having a healthy diet. I’m 37. Tomorrow I’m off to visit my great-great grandfather’s grave at Mount Hope Cemetery. More about that later. Posted in All About ME

Birthday Round-Up

A good time to reflect on the year I think…

I’m not ashamed or weird about my age. I turn 37 today.  A respectable age. All grown up but no grey in my hair yet. Except for my back all the health concerns they warn you set in after 40 have not set in for me. I don’t feel middle-aged.

At the beginning of 2009 I said I felt like I “got old” this year. That’s because of my back, which is still unpredictable. But I’m the young ‘un where I work, almost a generation younger than most of the women in my department.

My Weight Watchers anniversary is Memorial Day but at the 11 month mark I can say the program has been great for me and my body. I also read the American Dietetic Association guide to nutrition this year and learned so much. I have been exercising regularly and that has been great.

I spend most of my outside-of-work energy on my family and home. Even my big hobbies right now – family history and trying new recipes – are family-centered. I’ve taken a bit of a break from family history – meaning I only work on it 2-3 times a week rather than every day. Spring break. I “finished” my first chapter, that on my fifth great-grandfather Nicholas Schryer of the Revolutionary War era, and I feel good about it. I decided I would do a spring cleaning this year but so far I’ve done only 1 bookshelf. But man, that bookshelf is DONE.

No big revelations. Life is good. I feel most fortunate. I would say my life is very close to ideal and I am satisfied with my decisions, my lifestyle, my choices. Not everything is perfect, of  course, there’s a lot of stress right now in a few areas and I have some unhappy moments, but that doesn’t change how I feel about my life as a whole.

I’m off for a morning walk in my neighborhood.

Cheaper than a Movie

Hubby got a call from  a city council member about an upcoming agenda item they thought he’d be interested in and he decided to go to the next meeting and say his bit about the matter during the open comment section. This was last Monday.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I’d never been to a city council meeting before but I had been vaguely following the stories in the local news about our tough new city council president who was cleaning house at the council meetings – in particular during the public comments period. Before he got there, there was no time limit. Public comment time came and anyone and everyone could get up and just go. On and on. And apparently, they did. He initiated two firm policies. 1. There’s a three minute time limit. 2. There are guards to escort you out if you raise a ruckus.

I learned some things, thought about some things and observed some things at my first city council meeting. First, the matter we were there about. Currently, there is no method of redress if an individual or business doesn’t clear their walk of snow. The tenants of a big corner business go bankrupt, the bank repossesses the property, and nobody plows all winter through. Happens all over town because there is no penalty for not plowing. Same with foreclosed homes. Bus stops are not accessible, you’ve got people walking in the streets, and then people in wheelchairs and people like hubby, who use a cane, are just flat out of luck – or down in the street themselves if they can even get there.

So, hubby said his bit about accessibility for persons with disabilities. Another woman got up and talked about falling on a unplowed walk and having permanent knee damage and another woman got up and talked about walking in Saginaw Street with her 6-year-old this winter because the sidewalk was impassable. A man from a landlord’s association got up and said something that made good sense and then a laid-off UAW worker got up and asked the city to employ Lansing’s unemployed doing snow removal next winter. The city employee who initiated the whole thing got up and spoke  about how much it cost in staff time to track down absentee-landlords and what it would cost to recoop that. All good. I was heartily impressed.

Then. Then perfectly reasonable-looking people got up and said some of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. It’s not nice to make fun of people so I’m not going to go into what they said because I think some of them may have had cognitive difficulties but the city council meeting degenerated to the point that we had to flee the room before I started laughing hysterically. We met other people in the hallway in the same condition – mostly, though, they were irritated and angry. Democracy at it’s best, I think.  I mean, we were complaining beside the chocolate fondue fountain with cut fruit and whole grain bread with spinach dip that some good-hearted citizens had brought to liven up the environment of the meeting. Democracy at it’s best.

Also, two people got home-town hero awards because their neighbor’s baby’s father showed up and tried to take his child against the court custody order. While the baby’s father held two guns on the neighbors the neighbor just stood his ground and talked the guy down until the cops got there. Nobody got hurt. Hometown heros indeed.

And hey, one guy got up and said that Lansing was the home of Malcolm X and there is not one statue or street in this city to memorialize him. I totally agree. I’m on board the Malcolm X street bus. The man then degenerated into talking about something vaguely related to Frederick Douglas, which kind of hurt his Malcolm X case if you ask me, but I’m still on the Malcolm X street bus with him.

I don’t think I’m going back to the city council meeting unless I have something to say myself on a particular matter, but it was interesting. Perhaps sometime I’ll tune in on government TV.

Forgot My Passport

Ever go fantasy shopping? Y’know, you go window shopping for something you’d like but in all likelihood will  never have?

Hubby and I decided to go fantasy shopping last fall at a store that had 1 item we’ll never have, 1 item we might have some day, and 1 item we thought we’d buy that day. We thought it would be a fun trip, y’know, look around and dream, maybe come home with something. Unfortunately, I didn’t dress for the trip and our zip code ratted us out.

See, the store we went to is in O., the snooty town around here. I’m in Lansing, in mid-Michigan, so snooty is pretty relative. You put the center of a protractor on my town and draw a radius of almost any size around it and you’re going to get field, corn field, field. Lansing itself is a factory town. Omm, where the factories have shut down. The biggest employers are the state government and Michigan State University in East Lansing. It’s a very ordinary place. We’re not “cool,” we admit it. 20 miles away they have different aspirations. There’s a little joke about O. – that you have to have a passport to get in.

So there’s a store in O. that has all three items on our fantasy shopping list. I’m in sweat pants and a plain, mostly cotton shirt. Hair is in a ponytail (which is not a sexy look for me, I’ll give you that),  sneakers. Hubby is in weekend pants and a T-shirt.

The first thing we ask about is the thing we might have: a gas fireplace. We thought we’d like to convert the wood-burning fireplace in the family room to gas. We even went so far as to put a gas line in the little storage room behind the fireplace. We figured that would be the most expensive part so Hubby and Stud Boy #1 did it a year or so after we moved in. We budgeted $900 for the rest of the project – the part someone else would have to do and the materials to along with it – and figured we would save that and see if it was still a priority when that much had been put aside.

The sales pitch started out slow. The kind of sales pitch where they ask you what you’d like to drink. They double-teamed us from the start. They had a lovely display room. You start talking about models and no one is talking about prices. They break out a catalog and the catalog has no prices. I get the clue that $900 won’t exactly cover it. When they’ve finally seated us to discuss the type of “log” we’d like (because, after all, the warm glow of the look of the fake log is what makes the gas fireplace “homey”), the adding machine comes out. $4,500 to start. We smile politely and say this is out of our price range. They ask where we live. We say Lansing. The salespeople smile politely. They suggest someone in “our” town that does this type of work. I am not even kidding.

This place also sells outdoor furniture and that’s the item we thought we would buy that day (I didn’t intend to impose my ponytail on them with no remuneration). Hubby has a nice chair for outdoors but the one I use is of the $14.99 from K-mart 15 years ago variety. We thought, cool, we’ll get Snakelady a nice chair for whiling away the warm evenings.

The outdoor furniture also has no prices but I figure, hey, I’ve priced these things at Lowe’s, I have a pretty good idea of what this is going to be. They have some NICE outdoor chairs – rockers with mold-resistant fibers. I pick my favorite two and go get prices. Over $300 a piece. I say politely that is out of my price range. Out of my LANSING ZIP CODE price range.

The final fantasy item that this place sells are hot tubs. Hubby yearns for a hot tub. While I purused chairs he examines an 8-seater hot tub. By this point it is embarassingly obvious that we won’t be buying anything. They’re very, very, very polite. When we go to leave they walk us out. I’ve been walked out of stores before but I’ve never gotten the feeling that it was to make sure we’d actually leave.

Clean Water Action 2009

Now that we know Clean Water Action canvasses my neighborhood, perhaps I’ll have an annual post dedicated to  my interactions with them. Because this year? This year was even better than last year.

Ring-ring. I answer the door this time. “Hi, I’m from Clean Water Action and we’re…” It’s a guy this time.

“Come on in. Can I get you something to drink, a Coke?” I think for a second. A Coke? What was I thinking, “Actually, can I get you a beer?” This man is no fool and he does not hesitate.

“I’m in your neighborhood with a canvassing partner. Can I go get him?”

“Absolutely.”

We were eating dinner, but as the religious canvassers of my youth used to say, “Your dinner can wait, your soul cannot.”

I bring them to the table. These guys are much easier to be nice to then the young woman last year – they take me up on my offers! They consider their beer choices and I fetch two kinds. We’re eating 7-layer bean dip for dinner so we share out the chips and salsa.

They settle in. We get to talking. The partner guy is new to canvassing and he’s your typical college student who works as a canvassers. The first guy? He’s a CANVASSER. This guy is so earthy crunchy cool that canvassing is just a natural extension of his life. We get to talking.

He has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail.  It’s 2,175 miles long. He did it in a single season. This is a tremendous accomplishment. He thought it was fun, so next he did the Pacific Crest Trail. He says ruefully that the laws of such things seem to say you do one or three, so he’ll probably end up on the North Country trail or the Continental Divide next.  He says this casually, as if such hikes are just ordinary rather than profound physical, social and psychological achievements. He and Hubby get to talking about making stoves out of Coke cans. Hubby trekked in Nepal before we were married.

Next we move on to green architecture. He’s planning to build his own home on a commune-type place off the grid. I am so glad he knocked on my door so I could be nice to him.

So come on Clean Water, what will you have to offer me for 2010? It’s gonna have to be good to beat that.

Silver Bells

This is the part where I stop being so down on Lansing.

Every year Lansing hosts Silver Bells on the Friday before Thanksgiving. It’s a downtown parade that attracts about 90,000 people. That’s almost a third of the “urbanized area” surrounding and including the city. The parade features everything from a fire truck decked out in lights with Santa in the bucket to high school marching bands to a float of a fish made entirely of recycled laundry detergent bottles, individually lighted, with different colors making up different sections of the fish to remind us that everything we pour down the drain ends up swimming with the fishes.

I’ve been volunteering at Silver Bells since I started working in Lansing 9 1/2 years ago. Various buildings in the downtown area serve as warming stations, passing out cookies and cider and hosting children’s craft activities. The Library has served as one of these warming stations.

This year Hubby and I kicked it up a notch working with the Lions Club. Before he joined the Lions all of those community clubs and organizations were one big blur in my mind. Mysterious.  Boring. I’ve really learned a lot since he joined.

One thing I learned is that service organizations do volunteer activities in their communities. It’s pretty much that simple. And they do some cool stuff. One of the Lions in Hubby’s club was instrumental in getting Silver Bells started and has been instrumental in continuing it, and the club volunteers in various aspects of getting-the-parade-started like lining up the floats. My job this year was at the warming station for the floatees. It’s not actually warm, it’s just a tent, but we have coffee, hot chocolate and cookies. We also organized several boy scout troops to carry maybe 25 banners at intervals.

After the parade – this is where it gets weird for me – we were invited to the afterglow at the Lansing Center. The mayor came up to our table and thanked us for our work while we ate cute ors d’oeuvres. I don’t consider myself a meeting-the-mayor kind of woman.

In college I worked against the flow – imagining myself on the outside looking in, considering  myself a radical in the easy, lazy days of Clinton’s presidency, my ideas slightly to the left of Marx (that’s a song lyric, actually), working for my community in a non-establishment kind of way. And that was all good, I’m proud of what I did. But I’m starting to be proud of what I do now, too. I have a better appreciation for how my community works and the people here who work within it. And to feel some pride in my town.

I listen to country music, I get my news from The Daily Show, I write my own knitting patterns, and I live in Lansing. It’s nice to meet you.