Life in the Slow Lane

You know the saying "Spring is just around the corner"? Today I found the street that must have coined that phrase. I nearly stopped my car to try and convince the bare trees to start blooming like their sisters around the corner. I know that every being who ever is drawn to poetry tries their hand at paying tribute to Spring and then hides the poem in their sock drawer, but I think this spring might be worth getting a larger sock drawer.

I was told yesterday that what you look like from your neck up is how you feel about yourself and how you look from your neck down is how you feel about other people. I have many objections to this statement, but mostly I wonder where this idea came from. It seems like a very arbitrary line to draw. Doesn't it make equal sense to say that what you look like from your ankles up is how you feel about others and how you look from your ankles down is how you feel about yourself? But I don't like that either, because the truth is, it is frequently your nearest and dearest and delivery man that see you at your yuckiest.

Everyone is allowed a moment or two of paranoia every once in awhile, right? I'm not talking about more rational fears such as "Everyone is looking at the long eye-brow hair I didn't have time to pluck this morning" or "I forgot to check on the bunnies this morning and my co-worker is going to ask me whether I was compassionate and fed them or heartless and left them to starve in the rain." No, no, those fears make sense. I'm talking about scrawling my name on the bottom of a letter and then worrying what an analyzer of handwriting would be able to reveal about me. But as long as we all agree that everyone is allowed a moment or two of paranoia periodically, I'm okay. It only takes me a moment or two to sign my name.

In honor of Washington's birthday, I will share with you three helpful hints. 1. A very hungry bunny does not differentiate between food and the hand bringing the food. Neither does the other hungry bunny. 2. A Sharpie marker which gets uncapped in the dryer leaves interesting designs. 3. There is an easier way to put risers under a bed than the way which requires military-like tummy crawls, lifting with one foot while balancing with the other, and straining your back. I'm not sure what the easier way looks like, but I know it is out there.

One of the curses of where I work is that I come into contact with a lot of good reading (not classic good, but down-in-the-trenches good). Now you may ask how on earth that is a curse. Because again and again, I have to bite my tongue so that I don't glibly say "Oh, you are facing some of the toughest questions of your life? Here! Read this!" And then there are other days, where difficult question follows confusion too muddled to question which follows pure desperation and I look at my stack of books and wonder how many pillows it would take to make even reading one book possible. And so, Dear World, for those of you who are facing some of the toughest questions of your life, I wish you a pillow of comfort. And if, perhaps, reading a book might help, I have a couple of suggestions.

I am ever so grateful that my co-worker who usually gives tours of the building can be heard coming down the hall. Because of this, I had sufficient time to climb out from under my desk where I had been trying to detach and attach cords, straighten my suit jacket and skirt, and sit demurely with my fingers on the keyboard that gave no response, smiling serenely at the error message on my screen. Suffice it to say, I have had better ideas than to switch keyboards and mouses while four different programs were running. But I am thankful for the tour group. I had been about to admit defeat and call our IT department, but there was no way I was going to call them while there was a crowd of awed onlookers. And while I half-listened to the remarkable facts and statistics of what I do everyday, I was inspired with a true solution to my dilemma, and could gracefully rise to my feet and walk efficiently to the next room to bring it about. I have always wondered what people in office buildings...

I sometimes wonder if people hate me for the weather. Today a woman called to get our mailing address, and after I carefully repeated the zip code, she blurted out "Is it a beautiful day there?" I was rather startled, but I took the occasion to look out my window and report "Yes, yes. It is a beautiful day today." She then wanted to know what temperature it was and then accusingly informed me that it was 0 Degrees Fahrenheit at her house with a wind chill factor making it seem even colder. But this isn't an isolated case. Last week, after a man poured out his concern over some late breaking news, he said I should go swimming in the ocean. When I protested that it was too cold to go swimming, he compromised and said that I could swim in a heated pool instead. And then there was the call where I was asked to give a weather report and then was told about a blustery snow storm that cancelled school. I begin to wonder if maybe the purpose behind some of these calls...

When a movie producer asks you what you plan on doing with your life, it is nice to have an answer for him.

When I first started working at the office, I thought that it must be the place that all forwards go to die. And then I realized it was even worse than I feared. They didn't die. My co-workers were solely responsible for an additional nine lives. Once, an e-mail came in to our main address that had a picture of a bridge. It claimed that if you forwarded it on to 5 people, something cool would happen. Somehow, somehow , I got two copies of that e-mail. I don't understand how we could discuss the silly ridiculousness of forwards and yet it take two tries to admit that nothing cool happens. And then there are the kinds of forwards where the "something cool" is warm fuzzy thoughts but if, and only if, you forward it to six other people. So co-worker A sends it to B,C,D,E,F, and G. Co-worker C sends it to D, B, F,H, I, and J. Co-worker J sends it to A, D, E, etc., etc., etc. This phenomenon astounds me. What does passing along a forward communicate? I wish I coul...

Sometimes I wish that I could envelop the whole world in a giant feather pillow. Perhaps, like the mouse who couldn't make a wish at the wishing well because every time she threw in a penny it said "ouch", I know that a pillow is the secret missing ingredient. But then maybe I can't be learning all of my lessons from Mouse Tales ... my effort to improvise with chewing gum today didn't make any friends.

On my walk between home and work, I pass a childcare center. The building is set off from the road, with a large play area sloping down towards the street with a fence and formed shrubbery providing the only separation between the outside world and the pre-K world. Very infrequently do I pass by when the children are out in the yard playing. But even less frequently do I pass by when there are not toys scattered all over the shrubs, sidewalk, and even into the street. Sometimes it seems that the game of the hour (or rather the 30 seconds until the children got caught) was to throw every item within reach overboard. Rubber balls, giant puzzle pieces, Barbie's dishes. I half expect to walk by some day and find a younger child has been thrown over the fence. I nearly took the time to look for one when I discovered an empty shoe. But perhaps the empty shoe, the matchbox car, and the other escapees of the toy box are like Noah's dove or a Mars rover... sent out to gather informati...

On another morning, not unlike this one , where I was trying to take my seat quietly among a group already gathered, I made the innocent mistake of wearing my Mexican poncho. Just so you know, I have received better greetings than the spontaneous rendition of "La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha..." I always figured that as long as I didn't try showing up in my camel herder's hat or my bright yellow wooden clogs, I would be okay. At least I don't have a sari staring at me from my closet. I'd show up to work in it one day and they would stick a red dot on my forehead.

What strange things I find myself doing to use a coupon. Yes, I bought a TV dinner. Up until this point in my life I have managed to avoid this strange part of American dining. I've had the frozen burritos and pot pies and pizzas, but never a frozen dinner. I admit, I've almost been tempted to eat them as a babysitter's lunch , but boxes hanging out in the freezer were always for meatloaf or Salisbury steak, and I know better than to assume that my distaste for those particular foods when made fresh would be impressed by the frozen variety. So even though I have managed to avoid TV dinners my long, varied life, for some reason as I pulled the little tray of lasagna out of the box, I was reminded of some repressed memory. And then I knew: airplane meals. As I grabbed a bag of peanuts to tide me over until the lasagna was ready, I tried to guess as to why you hear so many complaints about airplane food, and yet ready-to-eat dinners are the salvation of many a household. I ...