Admission of Pet Peeve....

I have only a few true pet peeves. Family decals on the backs of cars are right at the top of the list. I'm not sure why they have always bothered me so much. I saw this rather extensive one today while leaving work. I actually spotted it from the other side of the parking lot and was so disturbed by how long it was, I had to drive over to inspect the "family members" closer. Yes, that last decal is a fish. Really? It is important to let everyone you pass on the road know that you have a pet fish at home? I just don't get it. Anyhow, over the next nine weeks, I'm going to try to release my anger towards family member decals. My negative reaction is as unnecessary as the decals themselves. Woops. Ok, I said I was going to try. This may be the hardest pre-30 challenge yet!

My Odd Moment of July 20, 2011

Couldn't figure out how to get this photo to show up bigger, so I'll have to explain what this is. The windshield has a sign that says "Cuts on Wheels $8-12." The side tag says "Barber Shop." I think the gun-looking thing on the hood is supposed to be a straight razor? I have to say, today was a first. I've never had a very large man offer to wax my eyebrows at a gas station. I have so much respect for entrepreneurs, but I will not let him touch my eyebrows. (Please excuse the bird poop on my windshield.)

No posts the past few days=Mom in town!

I haven't taken any photos the last few days, so I'm sorry for the lack of recent posts and the visual blah-ness of this post. My mom came to town on Sunday morning & I've been hanging out with her until this morning, which has been anything but blah. It was so great to get to spend time with her. The older I get, the more I really cherish and enjoy our moments together. We went to a movie each day to escape the heat, went out to eat, went for a hike, caught up on all of the things we hadn't had time to talk about in the last few months. I feel recharged and thankful that she took the time to come see me. Ok, now it is time to catch up on blog posts!

I've been FitBitten.....

....this thing is seriously awesome. I set everything up last night and tracked my sleep. All I have to do is walk near my computer and this little gadget updates my online profile! I woke up 8 times throughout the night....it even shows me the exact times I woke up. Most of them were between 4am and 5:30am. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that the rooster has insisted on sleeping on the front porch the last three nights? It only took me 1 min to fall asleep and I got exactly 7 hours and 37 minutes of actual sleep time. I had a 94% sleep efficiency last night! I also had a glass of wine before bed, which may have contributed a little to that efficiency.

I got up and logged the food I ate yesterday and my breakfast in the online profile. I'm realizing my protien/carb/fat ratios are out of whack....and that I don't consume very many calories each day. Odd, since I have kept gaining weight. I've never counted calories before, but I definitely don't feel like I'm denying myself food. Yesterday I had less than 1000 calories and the thing that counted as the most calories was the wine! I guess I'm not eating enough of the foods my body needs. I have heard that if you don't eat enough, your metabolism lowers and your body goes into survival mode and stores everything as fat. I just never realized I was doing that, because I just assumed I was eating a normal amount of calories. I really need to get more protein. I don't like to eat meat. Time to do some research!

Hiked the 3 mile loop this morning. So far today, I have taken exactly 7,570 steps. Above is my hiking photo of the day. Tiny mushrooms all over a mossy stump.

Mas Tacos y No Mas Codependency

Sold my scooter yesterday to a really nice guy who really needs it in the ways I really needed it when I bought it. I hadn't been on it in over a month, I think. I had forgotten how much fun that thing is to drive. We're going to meet this afternoon to exchange money and the scooter, so I got to ride it around all day yesterday. I rode downtown to my P.O. Box to pick up a book my mom mailed me, and then went to Mas Tacos for lunch. Teresa is one of my favorite small business owners in Nashville. I love love her taco truck, but I really love going to her brick & mortar spot, because it feels like a little slice of Tucson to me.

I ordered two quinoa tacos (they have red cabbage on them & are so dang tasty...and much healthier than regular tacos), and sat down to start reading. The book is called Codependent No More by Melody Beattie. Yes, I was riding around on my scooter, eating tacos and reading a self help book. Oy....maybe this is my mid-life crisis arriving a bit early? My mom heard about this book from her hairdresser. She told my mom that this book had changed her life, and I had to read it. I really like the epigraph for the book, so that was a good start....

"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."

-Agnes Repplier

I knew I probably needed to be reading this book when, only three pages into the introduction, I wanted to throw the thing across the taco shack and never pick it up again. It is written by a woman who is a recovering alcoholic, and she initially has some very harsh things to say about the partners/codependents. I thought, "What the hell does this lady know? This book is crap!" I made myself keep reading. Then she explains that after being sober for a long time, she somehow ended up in the codependent role and realized how unfair her previous judgements were. I finished reading the introduction and scootered myself over to a yoga class. I can already tell there are going to be parts of this book that really challenge me to acknowledge some things about myself that I don't like, but I'm okay with that. I'm open to that, because I am ready to heal and change and move forward with my life. I don't want to recreate a situation over again in the future, simply because it was too painful or I was afraid to look at the previous one and really understand it.

One of my sweetest and funniest friends is moving to London....

"You have to do the best with the limits of language. So, you have to teach the word to change its mind." -Ted Hazelton (written on a napkin mid-conversation at Cafe Nonna on 6/19/09)

This week has been full of young and old friends. I got a phone call out of the blue a few days ago from a woman I had never talked to. She explained her name was Cindy and that she was cleaning out Ted Hazelton's apartment. My heart sank. I thought she was going to tell me Ted had passed away. Then she went on and explained that she had found a letter I had written Ted & wanted to let me know that he was in a nursing home and about to move back to London.

Ted and I became friends at the Murphy Road Green Wagon location. He lived around the corner (his US residence) and would stop by almost every single day to say hello on his way to the corner store to buy bananas and milk. We would talk about poetry, philosophy, and Ted would tell me jokes constantly. Some of them made sense, some didn't. I laughed at all of them, because his laughter is contagious. Several times he invited me over to watch a British comedy that came on the TV late at night. Ted had more of a social life than most people I know. Every time I saw him, he was on his way to a basketball game at Vandy, to the gym, to a conference in California, etc etc. Jonathan and I invited Ted to our wedding reception, and Ted danced more than any person at the party that night. He never stopped moving. He always had bad sight, but always somehow also had the most beautiful women helping him cross the street! Ha.

Ted also has a flat right on the edge of Regent's Park in London, and would go there for about three to four months out of the year. I kept stopping by his apartment in Nashville to see if he was back, but felt something was off. I assumed he hadn't made it back to Nashville, and feared he had possibly passed away...until the phone rang the other day and Cindy explained that Ted had fallen down the steps outside of his apartment in February (he lived on the 3rd floor of a walkup with only metal exterior steps), and had a serious head injury and had been in the hospital since. She also explained that Ted had recently been moved to a nursing home and his nephew was coming to pick him up and take him back to London (permanently) on Saturday morning. She gave me the address, if I wanted to visit him.

Today I went to see Ted. It had been about a year since I had seen him (before he left for London the last time). I was nervous that his two serious accidents had caused too much damage for him to remember me. I walked through the nursing home and asked a nurse if she knew where Dr. Hazelton was. She pointed to a man sitting only a few feet away, facing the other direction. I tapped on his shoulder and knelt down next to his wheelchair. It was clear his vision was gone. He always had terrible hearing, so I started to slowly explain who I was. He kept telling me I was talking too fast and was really confused. A part of me knew this was a possibility, but I was still about to cry. I kept repeating my name and who I was and how I knew him. I didn't know what to do. It wasn't working. A nurse walked over and asked if she could help. It still didn't work. He kept asking who I was and why I was there, and I kept repeating, "Ted, my name is Jennifer. I am here to visit you." Several times he asked, "Why?" I said, "Because you are my friend." Nothing.

All of a sudden something clicked for him, and he remembered who I was. I'm sure it was hard...I was completely out of context and he couldn't see me or hear me very well. Anyhow, once it registered, his face lit up. It was time for lunch, so I wheeled him over to his table. He sat alone in the dining room. The nurses said he liked sitting alone by the window. There was a single placemat at the table. This made me sad to think that he had been lonely all this time, and I hadn't been there to listen to his jokes. It was clear that while he had lost his sight, his hearing, and the use of his legs, he still had his British sense of humor. He said he had been thinking about my wedding reception and his visit to my house a lot the last few days and hoping he would get to see me or Jonathan again before he moved.....like he somehow knew I might be coming. I was so overwhelmed with emotion. Just the feeling of being remembered was a huge gift.

We spent an hour catching up and talking. He kept saying, "Thank you so much for allowing me to see you again before I move. I'd so hoped you would find me."

Ted poked fun at the way the nursing home made his hot tea. He told jokes. Again, some made sense to me, some didn't, but they all made me laugh. I laughed until my face hurt from smiling.

Ted will be 88 on September 3rd. He is one of my favorite people on the planet. He is brilliant, kind and doesn't take himself seriously...at all. I'm grateful for his friendship and his wisdom.

Lessons Learned

Hung out with Miss M & Mister J last night. Mister J was having a rough day. Miss M had apparently had a delicious popsicle while Mister J was at climbing camp, eating what he described as, "the worst granola bar on earth." He had also thought he might get to ride bikes with his dad, but that didn't work out before I got there.

I had decided that we should go on a picnic. While we were going to get food for the picnic, Mister J was visibly upset. He kept snapping at Miss M, so I said, "Why are you being mean to Miss M? Are you really feeling sad instead?" He started crying and said yes, that he was just really disappointed and felt like no matter what he did, everything kept going wrong. I almost started crying right along with him. Instead, I told him I had been having the same feelings the past few years, and that I had started trying to not have expectations of how I think things should happen. He stopped crying and looked out the window for a bit, seriously considering what I had just said. He said, "But I don't know how to do that, Miss Jennifer." I almost started crying again and wanted to say, "I don't either, buddy." Instead, I just said, "Well, it takes practice."

While waiting for our pizza to be made for the picnic, I mentioned patience. Miss M's face lit up and she said, "That reminds me of the song temmmmmmmmptations" and broke into some song I've never heard. I explained to her that patience and temptation weren't the same word and gave her definitions and examples of both. She said (in a very sincere voice), "Oh, Miss Jennifer, tell me more stories like that!" I grinned.

After I carried Miss M to bed and was tucking Mister J in bed, I asked if his day had gotten better. He smiled and said yes. Then he asked what I would do if he caught a great white shark in the lake near my house. I'm realizing kids are the absolute best teachers. (Photo above of Mister J & Miss M eating Backyard Mint & Lemon Blueberry Ice Cream from Hot & Cold.)