Showing posts with label my sweetheart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my sweetheart. Show all posts

Walking in January: Of Gloves and Poetry

 "Honey, look! It's your glove!"

Photo of a black glove with bright swirls of yarn in pink, blue, gray, green, and tan, hanging from a tree branch by a clothespin.
"What?!" I stared in delighted disbelief. The glove I'd lost on a walk weeks earlier hung from the branch of a tree along East Bay Road, clamped there with a wooden clothespin. I happily stuffed it into my backpack and we continued our walk, one of many we've taken along the water since moving to Olympia in fall of 2020.

The saga of the lost glove starts in Port Townsend, WA, over Veteran's Day Weekend. On a weekend getaway I found and purchased a delightful pair of soft gray gloves with swirls of colored yarn appliqued on the backs. Loved those gloves! So warm, so soft, and so fun to look at with their splashes of bright colors.

We came back home to Olympia from our mini-vacation. I wore my gloves everywhere—right up until I lost one of them on a walk. Most Saturdays we walk from our home into downtown, going by the farmers' market and then running small errands and getting coffee or lunch. Somewhere after a stop at Olympia Coffee on 4th, one of my gloves disappeared. I called around to the places we had been to no avail. The next time I was in downtown I walked the same route hoping for the glove to be lying there waiting for me to reclaim it. Still no avail, whatever that is. (Okay, yes, "avail" does have a definition.)

I mourned my return to my boring plain old gloves. But then—eureka!—Belleza Ropa in downtown Olympia carried the same style of gloves, although in black rather than grey. Turns out they're a sister store for the one in Port Townsend. Bought the black gloves and wore them happily—right up until I lost one on another Saturday downtown sojourn. 

As soon as I realized it was gone I jumped on my bike and retraced our path, searching in vain. Apparently losing a glove was becoming part of my routine too. I would have been willing to wear one black and one grey but had managed to lose the right-hand glove both times.

I went back to Belleza Ropa. They no longer had the exact colors I really wanted, although they did have another pair with a quieter color combo. I settled for Pair of Swirly Gloves #3. Just for fun on some occasions I wore Bright Swirly Lefthand Glove #2 with the new Tamer Swirly Righthand Glove #3.

Weeks passed until that January Saturday when Lost Righthand Glove #2 reappeared pinned to that branch.

Photo of a bay with trees framing left and right and a line of Canadian geese on the bank.
That alone would have made the walk a bit magical. We laughed about the idea of a "glove miracle", neither of us being much given to belief in miracles when simple kindness or coincidence offer sufficient explanation. That, and paying attention to what's around us.

Whenever we walk we're scanning for birds on the water, in the skies, or in the trees and shrubs along the way. We always see mallards, crows, and seagulls, sometimes Canadian geese (which we refer to as "our Canadian visitors") or the comedic black and white Harlequin-painted buffleheads. On really awesome days we see a great blue heron or two, and once we spotted a kingfisher. We watch the waters of Budd Bay for the sleek head of a seal, sometimes to avail. We note the plants growing alongside the sidewalk and whether they're showing the damp brown dormancy of winter or starting to poke out a bit of spring hope. My sweetheart keeps tabs on the various sailboats in the marina that catch his eye. We're noticers, we are.

Photo of light grey text painted on a sidewalk, starting to fade but still readable, with the words "i hope you see this."
On this particular journey, another touch of magic awaited on our path to reward our noticing. The light rain overnight had revealed phrases of poetry stenciled onto the sidewalk, something I had read about in an article on Olympia's poet laureate program discussing the use of a paint that doesn't show up until it gets wet. We made our usual circuit around the edge of the bay and went to the market. 

As we left the market I spotted yet another line of poetry on the sidewalk. I read poetry every morning and finding it serendipitously along our route on the same day my glove reappeared felt like an un-birthday present. Later search turned up the name of the poet, Zyna Bakari.

Photo of light blue text on a sidewalk with the words "poetry is a tour guide. -zfb"
We walk more now than we ever did before the pandemic. Starting to telework 100% of the time in early March almost three years ago created the need to go somewhere, anywhere we could go without breathing someone else's air. Back then we lived in an area of unincorporated King County that lacked sidewalks. We roamed the empty streets lined with parked cars going nowhere and I realized just how much I really wanted to live in a place with sidewalks or paths to walk on—a place that felt like it had a place for us to move safely and comfortably. When we moved to Olympia that was on my list of must-haves along with a bikeable location.

We ended up in a fabulous neighborhood where we have sidewalks on most streets we'd want to use to go anywhere, with bike lanes and trails connecting us to destinations too. The trip to downtown and back comes to 5 or 6 miles or thereabouts, depending on how many places we stop. Sometimes we decide we'll bail out on the return and let Intercity Transit give us a nice warm lift back uphill to our neighborhood. Sometimes we choose a slightly different route to mix it up coming or going. Each walk gives us time together, movement, fresh air, and the chance to see our town at a human pace and get to know it better than if we only saw it under glass.

Photo of a white envelope hung from a tree branch with a clothespin
When we got back from this particular day's outing, I wrote a thank-you note and biked down to clothespin it onto the tree where some kind person had hung my lost glove. So glad we went for a walk that day!

And yes, I now keep very close tabs on my gloves.




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2019 Blogging in Review

January: I got the year rolling with a post listing various bike challenges, not all of which I intended to try to complete. Speaking of challenges, compiling a list of everything I read in 2018 was a self-imposed challenge in an effort to give a shout-out to authors who enrich my life with their talents.

 February: I decided to make it a lot easier to spotlight authors by compiling my list of books read in smaller chunks, hence the list of books I read in January.

March: I wrote quite a bit more in March. What I read in February, some musings on how differently we would interact on our streets and roads if we all moved the way we do in grocery stores, a round-up of some of my transportation reading (meaning articles, not books), a piece on why someone who owns a bike would use bikeshare, an introduction to my new e-bike Zelda!, and on the last day of the month the list of what I read in March.

April: My blogging energy continued into the cruelest month, sparked by the biking energy that goes with tackling the #30DaysOfBiking challenge. For a while there I thought I might actually do another run of 30 Days of Blogging to go with the biking, so I pushed out a lot of posts:


I even dropped in another round-up of transportation articles along the way.

May: Then life returned to normal and my blogging pace dropped. I posted the list of my April reading.

June: Another quiet month with only my list of May books.

July: You guessed it -- June reading list. 

August: I should have blogged every single day of my wonderful trip to Copenhagen and London. I didn't. Too busy living the actual life to record it, and that's not an apology.

September: Caught up on the reading list with a July-August round-up, then posted on the innumerable thankless chores of digital housework.

October: Another "too busy to write" month.


December: Something about the end of the year gets me writing again. I had a really wonderful experience with a great version of #BikeSchool, a Twitter chat I lead every so often, this time with guest hosts and the added tags #MoveEquity #WheelsMoveMe to invite in new participants. I belatedly reported on successful completion of the 2019 #coffeeneuring challenge as a series of bike dates with my sweetheart, discussed how my approach to holidays has evolved (and gotten much simpler and easier), and reviewed my year of bike challenge participation. I wrapped it up with a confession about nonfiction books I've started and haven't yet finished to create a bit of public accountability.

And that brings us to 2020. Such a nice, symmetrical number, that. Here's hoping that I round out this new year with enough reading, riding and writing to make me happy. I need high doses of each of these.

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2018 Blogging in Review

January: I started 2018 off with a post on a topic I often return to: Kindness Matters. I was then perhaps less than kind in taking apart some sloppy reporting and misunderstandings of crash data in A Bit of a Rant on Data + Data Rant Continued: What a Tangled Web + Slice and Dice Data Rant: Who's Really Number One?

 One of the highlights in January: Attending the TRB Annual Meeting for the first time after years of conference envy created by the #TRBAM content I saw via Twitter. A second highlight: Discovering that my social media work had become data points in a research project.

February: As "The Grey" continued (what passes for winter in Seattle) I chose to think back to bike rides I've enjoyed and look forward to more with Washington Counties Challenge: A Statewide Bikespedition To-do List, then updated my musings on modal advantages with Bike, Transit, Car: Three Transportation Perspectives from Seattle.

March: Bike challenges get rolling in March thanks to errandonnee and I spent some time pondering the nature of public commitments, which really worked for me this month:
Oh So Challenging: 'Tis the Season to Track Your Riding
Keep that Streak Going: #30DaysOf Something that Matters to You
Errandonnee 2018: The Initial Plan
Keeping Another Streak Going: #30DaysOfYoga
Errands by Bike Are a Breeze (and Sometimes Breezy): Errandonnee 2018

April: Why 30 Days of Biking? (Or More) -- because Surgeon General Warning: Bicycling Can Be Habit-Forming and because Beating the Bus, and Other Bicycling Benefits. A couple of posts on the WSDOT blog about getting ready for National Bike Month: Bikeways Aren't Just for Bicyclists and Clean Sweep: Trail maintenance on the list to prepare for National Bike Month, major events.


May: I rolled into Bike Month with a game -- Play Bike Bingo! Great Excuse for a Bikespedition and a report on 30 Days of Biking 2018: Rolled All April. And then it was vacation time on a bicycle tour with my sweetheart, with a side of Reclaiming Yoga.
On the Road Again: Getting Ready for a Washington State Bike + Ferry + Train Vacation
Day Two: Mukilteo to Port Townsend
Day Three: Port Townsend to Port Angeles
Day Four: Port Angeles to Lake Crescent
Days Five and Six: Lake Crescent to Victoria, BC


July: I looked back on the bicycle tour with Bike Tour Planning: (Relationship) Lessons Learned So Far and examined one aspect of what crash statistics tell us in The First Question Is Always WHY? on the WSDOT blog.

August: Too many instances to count led me to write Event Planning 101: It’s Transportation + Accessibility Information, Not Parking Information. In a gentler mood I looked at how my reading habits have evolved with technology in How I've Been Reading.

September: This month was packed with travel to conferences so if you want to know what I was thinking and learning, search Twitter on @barbchamberlain and any of these hashtags: #bikeshareconference #walkbikeplaces #aashtoAM (and check out my November post below). Meanwhile I did squeeze in a call to update our usage in Hey (We’re Not All) Guys! Why I Don’t Use “You Guys”.


October: Social media takes so many hits that I decided to provide a different take with A Little Love Note to Twitter. Just in time for the State Trails Conference I published another goals list, Trails in Washington State: A Bikespedition Goal. Toward the end of the month I couldn't resist updating 13+ Reasons Bicycles Are Perfect for the Zombie Apocalypse (and Other Disasters).

November: Thanks to Better Bike Share Partnership and the North American Bike Share Association, video from the national bikeshare conference enabled me to create a transcript of my closing plenary speech in Give Your Power to Truth: What Story Are You Writing for Your Life?. As we rolled into the Season Of Overeating an evening hosting #bikeschool on Twitter inspired Happy Holiday + Awesome Alliteration.

December: We're back into The Grey, although it's strangely sunny in Seattle today with blue skies. Given the usual winter wetness this month I offered up how-to winter bicycling tips in Wheeling through Winter, Riding in the Rain: Bicycling Gear ABCs to Keep You Rolling. My Bike Style Gift Ideas: Three Products I Love and Why I Love Them post is good any time of year -- tuck it away for inspiration around birthdays, Mother's Day, Valentine's, "Just Because Day" gift-giving.... And like many others I put together some of those Big Thoughts for the end of the year in #BikeIt: What’s On Your List? and More or Less.

Looking back on the year reminds me of posts I meant to write (like a list of books I loved this year) and ones I started but didn't finalize, like some thoughts on bicycling in New Orleans from my trip to Walk Bike Places. That's a good one to run some grey day to cheer me up with memories of bopping along on a bikeshare bike through the French Quarter, eating beignets with Naomi, listening to live jazz, and other great experiences. For now I'll leave you with this moment of Zen from a bike ride on the north bank of the Spokane River.







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Tab Set: What I'm Reading

When I'm online I make heavy use of the CTRL-Click feature. If you hold the CTRL key when you click on a link, that link opens in its own tab rather than taking you away from the page you're on. This inevitably means that in any given day I spawn a lot of open tabs of articles I mean to get around to reading.

Given my varied interests and the kinds of things my friends and other contacts share in social media, that leaves me with quite the eclectic mix. I share today's tabs in hopes that you'll find something to amuse, stimulate, or inspire in some way.

  • How to Make Your Own Laundry Detergent: I've been meaning to do this for years. In fact, I bought the ingredients in Spokane before we moved--18 months ago. So it's high time and the fact that we're almost out of laundry detergent prompted me to go look this up. Did you know that gallon for gallon, liquid detergent costs more than gasoline? I'm on it.
  • Everyday Rider: Riding Out Your Period: On the Bicycling Magazine blog by my friend Elly Blue.
  • You're Not as Visible On a Bike at Night as You Think, New Study Shows: From BikePortland, a piece I looked up to share with Elly (although she lives there so I imagine she's seen it) for a discussion on Facebook about things she could write about in her column for Bicycling.
  • The Anthropology of Walking: Has me thinking about how my bike-riding patterns might fit into the findings of a study of foragers and reflecting on my reading of Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.
  • This Is Love: A very sweet cartoon strip on overcoming hurts to your heart and loving again, which someone shared on Facebook and I reshared. This illustrates what my Sweet Hubs did for me.
  • Which Musical Should You Star In? I don't take every quiz that crosses my path, but with Second Daughter now a sophomore majoring in musical theater I had to take this one. ("Rent," for the record. Also, if I were a Star Wars character I'd be Yoda, and I scored 87 out of 100 on "Are You a Millennial?")
  • Tsunami House by Designs Northwest Architects Stands Strong in the Face of Tidal Waves: I'd move into this gorgeous Camano Island house in a heartbeat--never mind the tsunamis. Sweet Hubs and I have agreed that we like a bit of the industrial (despite the fact that I've picked older/historic houses for the last two purchased) and want a certain Zen minimalism when we finally settle somewhere other than a rental. Since moving to Seattle we've lived in downtown and in Northeast Seattle and I'd like to check out more neighborhoods before deciding.
  • The Nonprofit Weekly Roundup: Secrets, Emals, and Tips for Better Donor Retention in 2014: I work at a nonprofit. 'Nuff said.
  • The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector: Since we changed our name November 2013 to Washington Bikes (formerly Bicycle Alliance of Washington) I think about this a lot. This piece from the Stanford Social Innovation Review popped up in social media somewhere.
  • Demystifying Scaling, Part I: Another piece from the Stanford Social Innovation Review I'm reading because as a statewide organization with a small staff, Washington Bikes has to be smart in how we scale our work for maximum impact and effectiveness. We'll be adding a new staff position in Spokane soon (geographical scaling) and are exploring some technology innovations that could help us reach more people.
That should represent sufficient randomness. And now, off to ride my bike. The sun is shining and the birds at the feeders look pretty happy.
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Becoming a bike commuter: It’s pretty easy, one mile at a time


Since we’re gearing up (ha ha, bike pun!) for Bike to Work Week, and the name of this blog implies that writing about biking will occasionally appear here, I figured it was time to tell the story of how I began bike commuting.

True story: I’m a bicycle commuter because in around 2003, the City of Spokane put a bike path on Cedar, right in front of the house I lived in at the time. After complaining a bit about the lost on-street parking, I realized how convenient it looked.
(Irony alert) I used my car’s odometer to figure out how far it was to work, and started riding my big-box cheapo special, the “Iron Maiden,” a little bit, then a little bit more.
At first my bike commuting took place within strict parameters: very nice weather but not too hot, no meetings outside my office scheduled that day, no after-work events.
Before bike commuting on a given day, I'd drive the 3.5 miles (downhill, then flat) to work with a couple of outfits and leave them there, and just take my shoes with me in the pannier bag.

Of course, I'd have a little wardrobe agony of the soul figuring out what to leave at work. After all, I wouldn't be able to change my mind about what I felt like wearing, nor would those outfits be available to me at home on days I planned to drive.

I also underwent the back and forth of moving items such as my wallet with identification, notebook, and other things into and out of the panniers and whatever purse I wanted to carry.

I moved from this "once in a while" commuting to biking "pretty often," including some slightly longer recreational outings on weekends, when I would amaze myself by going 8 miles or more.

Mind you, this was all on a Costco special: a heavy-duty quasi-mountain bike thing with shocks. It probably weighed 50 pounds before I put on the rack and panniers. So I actually was pushing a fair amount of metal.

And, as I like to point out, it was very definitely uphill on the way home. The first time I tried bike commuting Spokane was experiencing unusually hot weather, 105 degrees or so, in mid-July. Great time to start.

At the time I lived at 13th and Cedar. I hit the steep spot on Maple between 6th and 8th—locals will know exactly what spot I mean—and I had to get off and start pushing the bike uphill. Some wit (at least, I think I’m half right) said, “Aren’t you supposed to be riding that thing?” I panted, “I have nothing to prove!” and kept pushing.

It became a point of pride to make it just a little farther up that hill each time I rode, until at long last came the day when I actually rode all the way home. Woohoo! Feel the burn, and the sense of accomplishment.

At some point, I became a bike commuter. An every day, rain or shine, clip-in-shoe-wearing road-bike-riding commuter. No more swapping stuff in and out of panniers—it’s always in the pannier if it’s riding season (which is about 10 months of the year here, if you dress for the weather). Hassle factor gone.

The road bike and shoes are thanks to my sweet road-riding husband. When we started dating it was January, so my Costco special wasn’t much of an issue. When it got nice and we started riding some weekend distances, he was kind and patient. (I later learned that our pace is referred to as a recovery ride….) Then he found my Specialized Dolce and brought it home. Once I rode the 18-pound sweetie, I was hooked.

I can easily put in 10-20 miles a day riding from work at the Riverpoint Campus to meetings and errands everywhere from downtown to the Spokane Valley to the north side, or just my little 2.5 miles each way to and from work. (We moved and I'm a mile closer. Right after we moved, the city put in a bike lane a block from the house. Coincidence? I think not.)

When the snow gets too heavy (we’ve had two crazy winters in a row), I ride the bus. (My road bike can't take studded tires, and I worry about drivers sliding into me.) I just don't drive if I can help it.
Along the way I became a bike activist. I chair Bike to Work Spokane, serve on the City of Spokane Bicycle Advisory Board, and on the leadership team of SmartRoutes Spokane (our participation in the Rails to Trails Conservancy 2010 Campaign). I joined the Bicycle Alliance of Washington and the League of American Bicyclists.
I remind people that I don’t “use alternative transportation” when I bike or bus—I make a transportation choice. Each of us makes a choice every single day when we go out the door.
Choice #1: Carry car keys. Park oversized keister behind the steering wheel of a single occupancy something that uses a nonrenewable fuel. Drive (40% of all trips are within two miles of the home). At end of trip, circle the block looking for a parking spot as close as possible to the destination door, to minimize walking
.
Choice #2: Hop on bike. Burn calories per mile instead of miles per gallon. Breathe fresh air. Greet neighbors. Smell flowers, green growing things, running water, roasting coffee, wonderful aromas from local restaurants. See--actually see--the architecture of local buildings. Arrive at work energized. When a midday meeting beckons, ride, lock bike to convenient parking meter, walk in, sit down; you're ready to go while the drivers circle the block.

Ringstraße, Vienna, Austria, 2005Image via Wikipedia

Remember that feeling when you learned to ride a bike as a kid? Riding a bike meant freedom, independence, the ability to get somewhere under your own power instead of relying on others to supply the resources.

It still does. Wheeee!

Addendum 2/24/09: Just ran across a profile of me as a bike commuter from the Down to Earth insert in the Spokesman from October, 2008: http://twurl.cc/idc
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Shameless Application of Feminine Wiles in the Name of Hash Browns

hash browns! yay!Image by Hjem via Flickr


Sunday morning. House full of kids. Sleeping in not an option.

I’m standing at the counter getting the coffee going. At our house this means fill the hot water pot and get it started—but not if someone’s running the microwave because that will trip the breaker.

Grind two batches of coffee beans. Put them in our very cool stainless steel French press purchased online after the glass one broke, as they always, always do. (Why did someone invent an item made of glass into which you were expected to pour boiling water and then apply force?) Wait four minutes. Enjoy.

Eldest Daughter examines refrigerator contents and issues a report. “Waffles, a couple of pancakes, soup, and soup.”

Sweet Husband says, “Why don’t you get out the waffles and pancakes?”

I mutter under my breath, “None of those sound like hash browns.”

For the record, Sweet Husband makes the most amazing hash browns. Freshly grated by hand, fried with plenty of oil so they don’t stick, a few chopped onions on top.

Consumed with ketchup and an egg on the side, they are my favorite, favorite breakfast. So favorite that we had to cut back the number of mornings he prepares this treat because the numbers on the scale seemed to be responding in an odd fashion.

Eldest Daughter shares my fondness for Sweet Husband’s cooking skills. In her case she wants something they nicknamed a ninja: hash browns with some cheddar on top, cooked so the cheese is melted and crispy-licious.

She chuckles at my remark. Sweet Husband asks what I said.

“She said, ‘None of those sound like hash browns,’” Eldest Daughter reports. “I agree.”

“Ah,” he says, working away at his computer.

Also for the record, Sweet Husband is the breakfast cook at our house. Every morning I arise and shower. He brings me a cup of coffee while I’m putting on my make-up, and returns to the kitchen where he is whipping up oatmeal, eggs and toast, or The Famous Sweet Husband Hash Browns (about twice a week, and definitely at least once on weekends).

I sometimes make muffins, coffee cake (rarely), and once in a while I might do a big pan of eggs with a bunch of stuff in them--mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, etc. Occasionally I take a stab at the hash browns but mine are definitely not as good as his.

Sweet Husband has been working on a survey for his business and he’s currently looking at the results.

“Honey, survey results indicate that hash browns would be a very popular item,” I announce.

Eldest Daughter and I stand close to him, grinning ear to ear.

“These results are skewed!” he exclaims. “I don’t remember being asked.”

“You’re a non-respondent,” I answer. “This is science. Two out of every three people surveyed say hash browns!”

“Use your kisses!” Eldest Daughter urges.

Sweet Husband chuckles and stands up. I wrap my arms around him—I’m wearing the incredibly soft, cuddly robe he gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago, and I’m very huggable. I smother him in kisses.

“This is unfair. This is oppressive,” he fake-protests.

“I’m a-pressing up against you!” I respond.

“Oh, that’s cute!” Eldest Daughter says (fortunately—the other response might have been a gagging noise).

More kisses, a few cuddly hugs.

I can smell hash browns now.

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25 Random Things About Me, in Random Order


{{deJodie Foster bei der deutschen Filmpremie...Image via Wikipedia

Yes, I got tagged with this in Facebook originally. As long as I was free-associating, I thought I'd put it up here, in my ongoing quest to be myself.

  1. I would want Jodie Foster to play me in my bio-pic.

  2. I have never learned to do cartwheels. Probably won’t, at this rate.

  3. Once upon a time, I could name all of Henry VIII’s wives in order, and tell you how each marriage ended.

  4. I was born on Election Day.

  5. My mother voted absentee a few days before that, having given up on the belief that she would ever have me because I was born a month overdue.

  6. I’ve worn glasses since I was 5. I had radial keratotomy when I was 20, which corrected my vision for a while, but it didn’t last. I wear contacts most of the time because I'm vain.

  7. Back when I worked as a Kelly temp, I typed around 110 words per minute with almost zero errors.
  8. I used to be a member of Mensa. At the first meeting I attended, I met the man who would become my first husband (but not my last, nor my second-to-last). Draw your own conclusions about my intelligence.

  9. My dad’s birthday is Nov. 3. Mine is Nov. 6. My oldest daughter’s is Nov. 12. If she ever has children, she has to have one born Nov. 24 to continue the pattern.

  10. I think my daughters are really, really amazingly wonderful.

  11. My longest one-day bike mileage (so far) is 94, when we did Tour des Lacs in 2007. (This is a beautiful ride from Spokane into Idaho and back. If you're a cyclist, come check it out!)

  12. I used to read enormous amounts of science fiction and fantasy, and at one point subscribed to 3 science fiction magazines (Asimov's, Analog, and Aboriginal, which no longer exists).

  13. Every single time I have ever tried to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey all the way through, I have fallen asleep.

  14. When my second mother-in-law died of lung cancer I was there with the rest of the family. It was amazing and intense and exhausting, and after she died she was so beautiful, like marble.

  15. I was captain of our High School Bowl team. This was a quiz show hosted by a local TV station, kind of like Jeopardy.

  16. When I tore my hamstring a few years ago doing yoga, it sounded like a rifle shot. (Yes, I still do yoga.)

  17. When I bought my first PC in about 1986, I stayed up late many nights writing DOS *.BAT files for fun.

  18. I object to raisins in cookies. They are just masquerading as chocolate chips to deceive the nearsighted.

  19. I’m subject to vertigo attacks that make me feel as if I have the drunk whirlies, without benefit (or enjoyment) of alcohol.

  20. Sometimes when I sleep, my eyes are open—just a little. This is apparently very creepy. At a sleepover birthday party in my childhood, two of my friends thought I was dead.

  21. My college nickname was Greenie because there was a Barb Green going through sorority rush at the same time and I was Barb Greene-with-an-E.

  22. I went to a Seventh Day Adventist school for first grade because my birthday was after the cutoff date for Idaho public school. Once I was a bona fide first grade graduate, the public school could take me for second grade. Go figure.

  23. Unless I go back to before I started 4-H and Bluebirds in about second or third grade, I can’t remember a period in my life when I was not involved in some kind of group, committee, board, or other volunteer or civic activity.

  24. As far as I know, I’m not allergic to any foods or medications. I’ve had morphine once and it nauseated me but that’s about it.

  25. I once had a poem published in one of those books they try to get you to buy after accepting your work for publication. I may still have my copy somewhere around here….

  26. Bonus item: I am (finally) married to the love of my life, after learning a lot (I hope--and he hopes!) in my first two marriages. Third time IS the charm, for me at least.







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Thanksgiving is an act, not a menu

Like so many, I get a tad Grinchy about commercialization around this time of year. I won’t be shopping on Black Friday, going toe to toe with desperate women in appliqued sweatshirts over this year's version of Tickle Me Elmo.

If I do anything commercial at all, it will be a walk to the Rockwood Bakery with My Sweetheart for a caramel macchiato (latte style), and possibly one of the orange almond rolls or their outstanding quiche.

Now that’s something to be thankful for: good food, the ability to move freely under my own power, a quiet neighborhood that makes for an enjoyable walk, a sweetheart who will happily go for a walk with me, holding hands and striding in step. (We can’t help but do that: he was in the Marines, I was in marching band. Left-right-left. On our second date we walked and talked for hours, enjoying the crisp snap of our steps in unison when we realized our strides matched perfectly.)

Or we’ll take Eldest Daughter and Second Daughter with us and walk the other direction, to the Perry Street Café. We haven’t been there in a while, but when we walk in the waitresses will recognize us, they’ll ask where the little kids are (with their mother; we only have them every other weekend), and the bottomless cups of coffee will begin.

Second Daughter will get a Caesar salad (no olives—why do they put olives on the Caesar anyway?); they make an enormous salad and she’ll eat all of it (note that this is for breakfast).

Eldest Daughter will get a mushroom/cheese omelet with hashbrowns and mix the entire plate together in one unappetizing (to me) gloppy mess with ketchup.

I’ll get the veggie scramble and an English muffin with honey. My Sweetheart will get pancakes, possibly; scrambled eggs; some kind of sausage or bacon (his chance at meat, since the rest of us are vegetarians); and will eat everyone’s leftovers if we let him.

Again, something to be thankful for: Living in a good-sized city with urban amenities that still has a hometown feeling and good little neighborhood cafes, and teenage daughters who will happily hang out with their folks (as well they should—we’re buying) and carry on intelligent, well-informed conversations about things like world affairs, ethics, and the economy (also lame jokes, word play, and occasional applications of the phrase “that’s what she said”—we’re not all high-brow and intellectual all the time).

I note that my stories do revolve around food—just not a blow-out feast requiring me to get up in the dark and start mincing celery and onions and rolling out piecrust (hopefully not all in the same dish).

I’ve had those years, and I love to cook a major feast, but that’s no longer what Thanksgiving is about for us. An event that creates major stress for one or two of us (Sweetheart likes to cook too) while the rest overeat and then roll away groaning isn’t really all that fun, if you think about it.

It’s just the four of us this year. I asked everyone to tell me some favorite foods, and over the course of the four-day weekend I’ll cook my way through the list, which so far isn’t too daunting:
  • Laura Potatoes: Roasted in the oven with a liberal dose of a mustard vinaigrette dressing that’s good on everything from salad to pilaf to baguettes to, well, potatoes.
  • Spicy Fries: Based on a recipe originally found on the side of a bag of yam fries from Costco (modified to use chipotle for smokiness), these are basted with a mustard/chili sauce, the spicier the better.
  • Wild Rice: Sweetheart didn’t specify a preparation method, so I think it will be my recipe that involves caramelized walnuts or pecans, orange zest, and sautéed celery and onions (I guess I do end up doing some of that veggie prep—just not at o-dark-thirty in the morning).
  • Oven-roasted Cauliflower, Oven-roasted Broccoli: My personal favorites, from Cook’s Illustrated recipes that make these vegetables truly finger-licking good. Sometimes we eat them straight out of the pans at the stove. (I'd better become a member so I can actually log on and look up these recipes I've linked; fortunately, I have the print versions in the kitchen bookcase.)
  • Berry Pie: Second Daughter’s request.
  • Pecan Pie: Eldest Daughter’s request.

I enjoy cooking, especially for people I love. Doing it this way spreads out the labor as well as the enjoyment of the food. That makes me a lot more thankful than being exhausted when I finally sit down to eat.

If we happen to walk to a neighborhood spot for someone else’s cooking, we’ll get to connect with our neighbors and with those familiar faces we don’t actually know, but see often enough in the places where we’re regulars so that we’re “friendly strangers.”

As someone who particularly loves to feel a part of her community networks, I love this about Spokane: that willingness to strike up a conversation with a total stranger in line at the grocery store or coffee shop, make small talk, and in all likelihood find we like something or someone in common that creates a bond.

These are small things, perhaps, but they make life good. Plenty to be thankful for, even in hard times. Let us give thanks.

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Married name(s)

The name thing: I got to thinking about this because of a Twitter discussion about the effort women go through to change their names when they marry, which is actually a holdover from when we were chattel.

I’m married to my third husband, but use my first husband’s last name. A sorority sister I reunited with via Facebook refers to this as a “divorced name”, which I think is a good way to label it.

Second marriages are pretty common any more, so when I refer to my first as “the girls’ dad” in a way that makes it clear he's not My Wonderful Sweetheart, you assume MWS is #2, unless you actually met #2.

Almost no one did, as he was a bit of an agoraphobe and an introvert and absolutely hated the thought of the “Babbitts” he was sure he would meet at the thousand and one Chamber of Commerce-type events I attend (and enjoy) for my job.

The name? Well, my maiden name was Greene, spelled with an E. I was tired of spelling my last name all the time so as not to be confused with the color, thought Chamberlain was a nice distinguished name, wanted to share a last name with the children I knew we’d have. #1 was a feminist kind of guy and would have been willing to take my name, but it rhymed with his first name and that sounded really, really stupid.

I subsequently built up a lot of political and social capital (name ID, in political parlance). Brand equity, if you will, although there are lots of other Barb Chamberlains out there.

So when we divorced after nine years of marriage, I kept the name. This, even though by then I’d discovered the many ways people could misspell Chamberlain unless I helped them, so I was still spelling my last name all the time to avoid being –lin, -lane, -land, or -lun.

It had become my name, independent of how I acquired it, and I kept it on the way into—and out of—my second marriage and into the marriage that now makes me seriously, deliriously happy every day.

We clearly believe in marriage: My family’s marriage history is entertaining, or discouraging, or typical, depending on what you think about the odds of finding the right person for your whole life the very first time you try.

  • My parents (ages 91 and 87) have been married for 63 years.
  • My oldest brother: married to #5. He believes in marriage more than any of us, and I’m not being flippant. He really worked at it every time.
  • Second brother: #2.
  • Third brother: #2.
  • Older sister: #2.
  • Me: #3.
  • Younger sister: Never married, still with her first boyfriend, passing 20+ years.

Moral of the story: While my parents apparently got the secret of a successful marriage the first time, the only one in our family to be matching their success to date is the one who never got married.

As Eldest Daughter reassures me, third time is the charm for me. She’s right.

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Being sick

When I was sick as a kid, my mom brought me toast with honey and Campbell’s chicken & stars soup. Whatever beverage she brought had ice cubes in it, which made it feel like a grown-up drink (my folks hosted a lot of bridge club nights and the occasional cocktail party).

If I had an upset stomach she gave me 7-Up—the only time I ever got to have pop as a kid, with the occasional rare exception of a Grape or Orange Crush purchased in a gas station on a family vacation (I think she limited us to those two because of their faint, faint resemblance to some sort of fruit juice).

I got to lie on the couch and feel sorry for myself, with a receptacle handy in case I threw up, or with a box of tissues at hand if it was a sinus-y thing. She wiped my forehead with a damp washcloth if I ran a fever. So I like to be taken care of when I’m sick.

I woke up yesterday with a scratchy throat that grew a lot worse last night. I kept waking up feeling as if I couldn’t swallow (and wondering if I’d been snoring).

This morning, my sweetheart made me a comforting bowl of hot oatmeal before taking off on a long bike ride with a couple of guys from his club, Spokane Rocket Velo. I drank coffee and read the paper, then settled on the sofa with some magazines awaiting Mom Taxi duties for a pick-up after an overnight at a birthday party.

Kate went along for the ride when the call came around 11. After we picked up Laura, I stopped at the grocery store for a few essentials, including the Western Family “compare to Chloraseptic” product and bags of honey –lemon cough drops for me, cherry for the rest of the family in case they catch whatever this is.

Now I’m on the sofa. Kate tucked me in with her special blanket for when she’s sick, explaining that a when-you’re-sick blanket can’t go with anything else. (This sucker is bright blue with starfish and tropical fish and white polka dots all over it.)

At my side I have cranberry-raspberry juice in a glass with ice cubes; water in another glass with ice cubes; my generic throat spray and cough drops; and a box of tissues, all laid out by Kate. She pushed the ottoman a little closer so I could reach everything easily, and told me to holler if I need anything. I asked if I could just croak feebly instead, and she said sure.

The generational torch has been passed.
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The chronology of your life

Just discovered Dipity (I wish I remembered how, so I could credit the source of the link I followed).

For years, I've been meaning to compile a chronology of my life--mostly for my kids, for when they wonder how old I was when something happened, and later for me, if I end up an old and forgetful woman. Since my mother has vascular dementia, and the woman she was packed up and departed a little bit at a time before we all realized completely what was happening, this possibility scares me.

Now I have to decide which things in my life belong on a timeline, and when they belong. There are so many unforgettable moments--but I've forgotten when, exactly, they happened....

How detailed a chronology should it be? I have written journals (in actual handwriting, on actual paper, with sporadic entries) going back roughly 13? years, my high school diaries, and nothing in between. I'm not planning to re-read those any time soon, if at all.

It's easy to remember some big, significant dates, like childbirth and marriage and election days. Looking up the actual effective date of a divorce doesn't make for a joyful trip down memory lane, although it closes the loop.

So much of what makes for a real and satisfying life doesn't attach to any one date:

Laughing until I cry at something my beloved Eric said, finishing an incredibly long bike ride because he encouraged me all the way, or sitting out on our back patio with a glass of good wine, listening to the evening frogs.

Fast & furious wordplay with oldest daughter Kate (who gets funnier with each passing year--very dry wit, adult insights, and great vocabulary and dramatic flair).

Watching daughter Laura blossom into a beautiful, sweet, funny, kind young woman who got along with every group of kids in her gifted/talented middle school program, and who started high school yesterday.

Learning what foods Eric's kids Connor and Cailey will eat and enjoy in our vegetarian household, and finding out much to my pleasure that they love tacos made with TVP and my stir-fry.

Working on something I believe in, and having a project or event come to fruition in a way that makes a difference.

Life isn't chronology.

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