reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: laughter


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it’s a mad-lib life. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

yes, yes, two heads are better than one, for sure. particularly now. between us, we can have a complete grocery list, a complete song, a complete conversation. it’s like mad-libs, but real life. 

how is it that these words – practical words…not multiple-syllabic barely-used thesaurus type words or foreign expressions or highly technical jargon…just words like avocado or ravioli or well, i can’t remember any more examples…how is that these words disappear into thin air? they are seemingly irretrievable, escaping all the umms and uhhs buying time to try and unearth them. 

it is fortunate that we most often choose partners who are in our approximate age bracket. for there is grace when you are both punting for a word, jaunting into the vast recesses of your brain with a flashlight and bucket – sieve-ready – like you are panning for gold in an old gem mine deep underground. only not. 

instead, you are just trying to remember the round green things that go on top of chili. 

i’m going to try and remember my grocery list from now on. standing there in the middle of the market – gawking at each other – blank looks on our faces – going through the alphabet, certain that the word we are seeking starts with some letter (one that turns out isn’t even in the word) – can be embarrassing. people are staring. they are wheeling their carts around us – two statues in the fresh veggie section, frozen by the broccoli and brussels sprouts. we are causing a rubberneck situation in the aisle. we are certain to remember what we need – as soon as we get home.

in the meanwhile, we know that our people are here too. they are the ones who glance over with sympathetic and understanding eye contact. they calmly – without disdain – walk around us. they smile. because they, too, have a few wrinkles and – every now and then – they stand still in some aisle, a lost look on their face, gazing around in search of some elusive item. and then – you can see it – their face lights up and you know. avocado. that’s it. 

and we all skip to the check-out, hoping it is 5%-off senior day. because by now, we deserve it.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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wireless! [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

on the cusp.

tomorrow it is likely i will throw out every underwire, save one or two. i have had it. i will no longer participate in whatever torturous intention with which underwire bras were invented. done. i am convinced they are caveman mentality – with agonizing pain at its center. not one to be a prima donna about such things, i have endured – for years…no! for decades – the excruciating pain that is an underwire brassiere. i have not sought a solution until recently, when i decided i could no longer engage in the absurd wire-them-up behavior. 

some chick named marie tucek invented the precursor to the underwire bra – a breast supporter that was an upgrade from a corset – good heavens! – so that we could all have “defined shape and additional support”. it’s a device. i am pondering as i write this why such a sensitive area of our bodies needs a metal device poking at it. as a woman who does not need “additional support” i am not sure that anything could provide me the “defined shape” of the idyllic american breast. for heaven’s sake, this is all insane! and so, i have finally jumped on the wirelesswagon, having asked for informant help from my sister, my nieces, my dear friend. 

we shopped the other day. the older women trolling the bra department eyed david at my elbow, leering at him as if he were some sort of bra ogre, lingerie department lingerer, foundations fiend. he was stalwart, though, and stayed by my side as i sorted through hangers and sought out correct sizing. he was patient as i planted myself in the fitting room, ready for bra-war. trying on bras is trying on bathing suits to the exponential power. you out there know what i mean. 

so there are wireless bras pretty much for everything…the lightly lined comfort, the no side-effects, the t-shirt, the super soft, the lift, side-smoothing, back-smoothing, non-banding, cloud-like… it is the TGI friday’s menu of bras. wayyy too many to choose from and slightly confusing. not to mention slightly terrifying. because – once you have purchased and worn this $42 miraclebreastholder, it is yours-yours-yours. and there are no take-backs, regardless of whatever bra-mistake you might have made. so this is a big decision, particularly if you are thrifty. and freedom isn’t free, as they say.

i guess my point here though, is that my new year will have at least one amazing and positive new difference. wire-free, i will walk in the world, smiling more and knowing that i will not have little black and blue marks on my body from my feminine undergarment. 

and that, my friends, is something to celebrate.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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mighty regrettable breath. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

yes, yes…we are privy to (read: subjected to) the veryvery best of our partners. in every moment of every day. up close and personal. yup.

there’s not much to be said here. ya know how they say diet plays into everything, into every arena of your life, how it protects you against disease, how garlic and onions are heart-protective superfoods, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?

well, some things – in relationship and diet and everynowandthen-halitosis – must be taken with a grain of salt, i guess – or maybe a little distance – or maybe a face mask.

most definitely with a nod to tactful….here’s some advice i just read off a dental site: “don’t be too harsh. the most important thing to remember about this conversation is that it’s coming from a place of love, and that the bad breath isn’t a malicious act.“

uh-huh.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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a village. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

laughter.

if you asked me what word best describes our up-north trips, it would be laughter. pontoon boatrides and utv drives, hikes in the woods and lots and lots of food and drink and snacks, and it is still laughter.

there is nothing – truly, absolutely nothing – like being with other people who are in the same – ummm – age bracket you are in.

i remember my sweet momma and poppo gathered around their pool in florida with multiple other couples. yadayadayada they’d go on and on about their trials and travails. i was stunned back then by the ordinariness of their conversations, by the chapter of life.

but i tell ya, they had nothing on the up-north gang. we will literally talk about ANYthing. any sordid detail, any grimy description, any mighty middle-age challenge, any blahblah that floats into our brains. we share life, we tell stories, we compare notes, we make suggestions, we google and sort and — yes, laugh.

the other day we took a walk in our neighborhood and met up with a couple friends walking the other way. after the initial hellos and whatchabeendoins, we took the fast track to a fascinating conversation about – drumroll, please – medicare. never would i have ever thought we would have stood on the sidewalk chit-chatting about medicare plans, but there we were – for a long time – the waves crashing on the shore next to us – comparing and contrasting information about supplemental plans and advantage plans. thrilling, eh?

it actually was. thrilling, that is.

because everyone needs to be surrounded by people who “get it”, who “get” where you are in life, “get” the tribulations, “get” the worries and the stuff you have to figure out, “get” the aches and pains and physical morphing that seems to be happening to us. together we can do this.

it takes a village to grow old, i say.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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the chicken-line. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

we don’t always get a rotisserie chicken. we are eating waaay less meat and waaay more vegetables, often choosing a meatless dinner or a plant-based alternative. costco, however, does make serious down-to-the-wire-budgeting a little less painful with a $4.99 rotisserie chicken that we can literally turn into three evenings of dinners.

the other day, we pulled up to the chicken-line, jostling our way past other shoppers who were vacillating “chicken-no chicken-chicken-no chicken”. there was a young woman with half-a-cartful eyeing the chicken-line, not in and not out.

i asked her, “are you in the chicken-line?” she responded, tentatively, “i think so.” she had a little bit of a lost look on her face so i asked her, “is this your first time in the chicken-line?” to which she responded with an emphatic “yes!”. i told her that it really is quite the experience, almost cult-like – to which she looked uncomfortable. i hastened to add that there are many chicken-line things to ponder – ie: the way the clocks on the ovens work – giving you false hope that it’s almost T-I-M-E and then realizing it has numerous cycles and countdowns. i didn’t tell her how much i think about the chickens. i didn’t mention the guilt. i welcomed her to the chicken-line, parallel parking our cart behind hers. then we waited. quietly.

the costco chicken-people extracted the roasts from the oven and – incredibly deftly – containerized them for the chicken-warming-station-counter. we moved forward.

the young woman was waiting by the packaged quinoa salads, straight ahead, about ten feet further down. as we passed, she looked at us, catching our eye, smiled and said, “thank you for sharing that experience with me.”

we were touched.

forever chicken-line friends.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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and the handbells. [d.r. thursday]

before they moved, the neighbors around the corner had windchimes that were about three feet long. we’d stand on the sidewalk and listen to them, particularly when the wind was off the lake. gorgeous, deep resonant voices, each of the chimes. shortly after the house sold, we noticed that the spot where they hung in the old tree out the back side yard was empty.

these tiny bells hang off the garden fence in the back, attached to a metal heart that is also rusting. when my children were growing up, this heart with its bells hung next to the door into the kitchen. as i would walk into the kitchen holding my children when they were very little, in particular, they would reach up and jingle the bells. now the birds light on them and, though they don’t jingle, they seem to know.

i’m not sure the handbells are played anymore. we had three octaves and a dedicated choir of players. it was the last rehearsal of the night – after choir, after ukulele band. by the time we got to handbells everyone was a little bit giddy. many of the bell players were also in ukulele band, so these amazing volunteers spent quite a bit of time in the choir room.

playing handbells requires a bit of hand-eye coordination. you are reading music while you have this bell as an extension of your gloved hand…counting, counting and then…you thrust your wrist forward, allowing the clapper to strike the bell, hoping it’s at exactly the right moment. there are many evenings when laughter was the music we produced. as the director, i was always grateful for the generous collaboration of this group. and every time we played – from old hymns to gospel songs to contemporary pieces – it was beautiful. the bells would ring out into the high-ceilinged sanctuary and, i suspect, each player would marvel at their own contribution to such beauty, to such a particular lift of melody, of harmony.

if the handbells are silent now, i am sad. handbells harken back to the late 17th century and early 18th century and are considered percussion instruments. their sound is particularly unique, meditative in isolation, exuberant in chorus.

were i to have a bell to ring today – and perhaps we’ll use the metal singing bowl – it would be for jonathan. one ring without damping. his light will go on forever and we are eternally grateful to have known him, to have made music with him, to have broken bread with him and sipped wine with him. he was – and i suspect, continues to be – full of wisdom and love, and the world was a better place with him in it.

just like the sound of the bells on the metal heart on the kitchen wall and the large windchimes in the tree of our neighbor’s yard, handbells, too, are now a thing of my past. each, however, resonates on and on in the album of my memory. in times of quietude, i can hear them.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

BASS PLAYER acrylic 24″ x 48″

(in memory of jonathan, our bass player)

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burlap. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

middle-aging is tougher than you think. it’s a time of tinylittlechanges and some prettybigchanges. your body starts to betray you, despite your best efforts to keep it going. the messages all around us are dedicated to making us feel that Youthful is the only worthy look, that fit and slim and silky is the only worthy body. our body image begins to slowly sink, just as our blue jean waistline begins to rise. it’s all one big test – and it’s prettydamndifficult sometimes to stay centered and grounded.

lingerie is one of those testing devices. just at the time you may be leaning a little less two-by-four-pancake-flat and you suddenly have a tad bit of – whoa – cleavage, and those sweet and sexy b-cup (wow! b-cup? seriously?) brassieres might be an option, your upper arms begin doing the whinga-whinga thing. i mean, really? there is no justice there. and here – raised in these body-conscious-united-states – it all becomes a disappointment.

try starting a new relationship in middle age. there are many challenges – people become more and more engrossed and invested in their own “way” of doing things – so that is obvious. but then, there’s the thing…you pull out old photographs and say, “this is what i used to look like in hiphuggers, in a bathing suit, in silk. i just wanted you to know.”

we were watching something on television the other night. the skims commercial came on. kim kardashian was the model. suffice it to say this is most-definitely-not dedicated to the older-middle-age gal watching. their other iconic top fashion models are no less fetching. though, truth-be-told, this is no different than other sexualizing advertising campaigns – like kate hudson’s fabletics or victoria’s secret. sigh.

in the meanwhile, i’m grateful to have fallen for a guy who is steeped in reality-based bodies, whose approving glance i see time and again, and who, clearly, loves burlap.

*****

*for a great commentary on ad campaigns and “boobs”, click here

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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so wilty. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

somehow i’d like to think of myself as anything but wilty. only i’d know it wasn’t so. i am. wilty. so is he. we are both wilty. not quite the same as the wilty kale we put out next to the garage for the mama bunny and bunbun, but most definitely wilty.

and so, as we drove away, with our cut-in-half halos for the off-trail “ammals” (thank you, jaxon, for this most-adorable non-wilty pronunciation), d said – in his i’m-enlightened-now-and-want-to-share-it voice, “that’s it!! they’d hire us if we weren’t so wilty!!!”

we laughed and he guffawed at his wit and utter sidesplitting jocularity and then we looked at each other – we neeeed to write that down!! so i grabbed my iphone and summoned siri, the great goddess of handless note-taking.

“what would you like it to say?” she politely asked. i answered and she dutifully jotted our note.

and then we looked at it.

uh-huh.

“they’d hire us if we weren’t so wealthy,” she transcribed.

hiLARious.

goddess-schmoddess. siri has her own unique wilty sense of humor.

*****

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readers. [saturday morning smack-dab]

i wear one contact. in my left eye. though i can actually see distance, it helps me see cleeearly – you know, defines the lines a little bit more, makes all the signs crisp. my right eye – sans contact – sees up close. and somehow, for the most part, my brain figures this out.

so i can usually see. most stuff.

but there are times. and – even with the great squint – the greatest squinty squint – i can’t read. like the ingredients on the bbq sauce at the grocery store or the directions for use on the new cleaning product. or the dang menu. in the tiniest font ever is printed all the potential meals we could ever desire…if only we could read them.

there’s always a pair of readers – the cheap kind that came from the dollar-and-a-quarter-store-that-used-to-be-the-dollar-store (does ANYthing EVER stay the same???). but they could be 1.25s. or maybe 1.5s. and there are fonts out there in the world that require flippin’ 2.5s. i know you can relate.

we have this clay bowl in our sunroom. in it are about thirteen pairs of readers. a baker’s dozen. and we have readers tucked into the side doors of littlebabyscion and big red. and we have readers right outside the kitchen hanging on the same hook as the key basket. and we have readers upstairs on the drafting table in the office. and there are readers – yes, yes – next to the bed.

we went into a newly revamped shop in our town a few days ago. lovely. so many nice products. and the proverbial rounder – the one with all the fancypants readers. they are cute-cute-cute!! i was tempted to try some on. but instead, i passed by. $24.99 was pricier than readers-to-add-to-the-bowl can be for me.

besides, i kind of think menus should come with readers attached. or maybe a magnifying glass. a little less ego-bruising.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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focused. yep. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

with plates spinning, spinning, spinning – all up in the air at once – women carry on, living in many parallel planes, doing life. i had an email conversation with a young woman yesterday who has a 15 year old, a 5 year old and a 1 year old. she was taking them to school – high school, elementary school, daycare – meeting many distinctly different needs, not to mention her own getting-ready and go-to-work necessities. she wrote that by the time she gets them all where they are supposed to be – first thing in the morning – she is already exhausted. she also wrote that she requires little sleep.

i remember writing albums and talking to retail outlets and concert venues and packing boxes of cds and practicing and doing laundry and reading golden books on the rug and playing barbies or matchbox cars and making grilled cheese sandwiches and grocery shopping and planning birthday parties and holiday shopping and overseeing homework and whipping up paper mache and washing the floor and running children to lessons or soccer or baseball or cross country or ballet and….

d is singularly focused. he pokes fun at me being “circular”. uh-huh. it’s called multi-tasking, my dear.

it would not surprise me in the least to leave him drawing at his drafting table for several hours and to come back to find him still there with little to no awareness that i had left. it must be a guy thing.

“i won the lottery,” i tease him, this artist poised over his work. “the big one. zillions.”

“mmm-hmm,” he mutters without moving his lips.

yep.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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