Mental gristle

Not a pretty picture, that subject line. Yet, that is what I feel I can offer to you today: Some thick, tough matters to chew on in your mind.

In a surprisingly helpful, public-minded move, Google's home page today is featuring a link to a voter registration URL. Are you currently registered? Are you certain? The deadline is coming up in the next week or two. If you've moved recently and have not yet updated your driver's license, then you are not registered in your new location—thus rendering you unable to cast a vote. Now, if you'd moved here illegally from across the border? That probably wouldn't be a problem...

On Saturday, I took my son to get his hair cut. He sat very still and looked so cute afterward that I treated him to a bagel at Panera. We sat at a table, inhaling the wonderful aromas, enjoying our buttery, bread-y delight, and we couldn't help noticing the older gentleman next to us. His posture was amazingly upright. When we we leaving, we stopped to tell him that we'd been admiring his posture. The fellow explained that he'd spent time in the military, and good posture had been ingrained in him then. The kind, obviously blind fellow then informed me that he admired my beauty. (No, I'm not kidding.) I burst out laughing, and reminded the poor guy that there were many more beautiful sights all around him; the restaurant was practically crawling with lovely young things. We walked out the door, and I experienced a revelation: Every charming old, white-haired man you see was potentially a girl-crazy, inappropriate pervert. I'll never know what those elegant elders were like when they were young, unrestrained upstarts.

It gives you pause, doesn't it?

We made yet another purchase from craigslist recently—a loft bed for my son's tiny bedroom. (I keep trying to make space in my life where there truly is none.) But my one-ness with craigslist and all things scrounged and secondhand often makes me think that my epitaph should read, "She knew how to make do." Perhaps it will. I could put that in my will.

Which, by the way, needs to be updated. One of the witnesses to our will died a few years ago, and although my lawyer friend says it will hold water anyway, I feel funny about it. Plus, it needs to be notarized to be really tight; we didn't do that because in Pennsylvania, technically the notarization isn't necessary. But.

Even if we don't touch the will, my husband and I both need to appoint each other as Power of Attorney. Did you know that isn't an automatic thing? This is important stuff, people. Do you have your affairs in order? I won't even go into the whole living will, although that's strongly recommended as well.

Better to address these things, right now, than to risk the fraught-with-disaster alternative—someone else addressing them when you're either gone from this earth or not able to do so for yourself.

See what I mean? Mental gristle. I wasn't kidding.

NOTE: I just noticed this is post #400. Wow! Hurray for me!

Of couches and husbands

I had a friend years ago, newly married, who took it personally and injuriously that her husband fell asleep on the couch every night instead of coming to their bed in an intentional and timely fashion. Perhaps she was right to be concerned, as their marriage dissolved years ago... But anyway, when she told me this, I can recall thinking that I might be annoyed, too. Not because I'd take it to heart or feel slighted, but because the latecomer would disrupt my own already-sought-and-achieved slumber. Thoughtless.

And I was right. Because guess what? My own dear husband suffers from this same disease. Not on a daily basis, mind you, but often enough that it does affect my own slumber sometimes. He knows that falling asleep prematurely, outside of bed, negatively impacts his restful sleep patterns and causes him to toss and turn (yep, more disruption for me). We both know that research supports our findings, with sleep studies that show over and over how sleep is adversely affected by such behaviors. And he is fully aware that the minute he reclines on that inviting piece of furniture, and allows his eyes to flutter, he is a goner for sure. He knows all this. Yet, some evenings, in spite of my dire warnings and predictions, he persists in lying prone on the dastardly sofa and even covering himself with an assortment of fuzzy blankets. What the heck?! I guess I am a bit militant about such things, but honestly, once a pattern is established, and once everyone involved agrees it is not a healthy pattern and needs to be changed and/or avoided, I cannot comprehend a person's willingness to continue the pattern!

Am I crazy? Is it just a handful of husbands, or are they all this weak-willed when it comes to a cushiony divan in the dim of twilight?

Easy like Saturday morning

A sunny Saturday did dawn
And, unlike every other morn,
There was no rush, no lunch to pack,
No bus to catch to school and back.

Instead, the sun, so cheery, leaked
Through curtain slivers, where it streaked
The bedroom walls with happy light
That beckoned so a person might
Be moved to climb from underneath
The cozy nest of downy sheath.

But no—instead, that person (me)
Lay warm and dreamy, drowsily
Devising what the day might bring:
Some pancakes, fresh air, songs to sing...

For now? The covers would stay snug.
But wait! My son's insistent tug!!!*

Ugh!

Okay! I'm up!

* Actually, he didn't tug on covers this morning; he was so absorbed in Legos that I was able to lounge in bed for several minutes and get up when I was good and ready. That doesn't happen often here. The above scenario is more common. Either that, or he climbs all over my bed and jabs with elbows and knees until it's downright uncomfortable to remain, and I end up removing myself gladly.

Happy weekend!