Anxiety, musings, Nonsense, Parenting

The Tao of Red Velvet Cake

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What does one get for the guy who has everything? How about a dying star?

That’s not technically what this blog is about. It’s about box cake versus homemade and the existential thoughts on the state of things around here that question raises for me. All which were brought about by my getting it into my head that box cake wouldn’t be enough for Jack’s birthday. Just like it wasn’t for Mike’s birthday, when we grated carrots and whipped up cream cheese with butter and powdered sugar for frosting.

That was the day Colin said he was excited about having helped with the cake, and it made me so happy knowing he could be excited about anything, I dug out the bone China cake plate we’ve used maybe three times in the eons since it was a wedding gift.

When it comes to today’s cake, I again ask if Colin wants to help, and he again says yes. I buy new cake pans and decide on red velvet. Not only will this not be a box cake, it also won’t be just a regular cake with red dye. It will be traditional red velvet with ermine frosting.

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Anxiety, Nonsense, Parenting, Uncategorized

We might be getting a dog … or a turkey or something

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Emotional Support Animal - Midlife Sentence

Ladies and gentlemen, an announcement: we’re getting an emotional support dog.

I know. This is a big deal. We already have Penny the Wonder Dog. Why would we want another? I’ve been told she’ll be our last dog, and I’m pretty sure she thinks the same, or at least the only dog we’ll have while she’s around. So, like I said, a big deal.

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Anxiety, Depression, Parenting

This shouldn’t be so hard

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Midlife Sentence | This Shouldn't Be So Hard

Late last week, as we pulled up to an event center at the base of the Wasatch Mountains, I flashed back to the moment we arrived at a hospital more than seventeen years ago. I felt the same kind of excitement and fear now as I did back then, minus the Lamaze breathing.

“I have no idea what’s about to happen.” I told Mike.

We’d been looking forward to seeing our son, but for most of the past six weeks, knowing he was safe and also not under our roof, what I’d been feeling mostly was relief. After a difficult year and excruciating last three months, we’d needed the respite.

That’s a hard feeling to have about your child.

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Anxiety, Depression, Parenting

The view from another vantage point

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I was on a run one morning a little while ago and disturbed a family of geese, two adults and about half a dozen goslings. They darted out from their grassy spot on the canal bank and began crossing the road.

I passed and they settled again—right in the middle of the road actually, a few of the babies plunking themselves down on the dappled pavement. A car approached, slowly, and I kept running, figuring the geese would get out of the way eventually.

Except they didn’t. I turned to see two more goslings had settled onto the asphalt, the parents in no hurry to move them along. The woman in the stopped car shrugged at me.

I returned and tried shooing the geese off to the side. The mama closest to me hissed, so I squirted her with my bottle, and then aimed the water at her brood, who finally decided it was time to stand and continue crossing. Momma kept hissing as they all got to their feet and meandered off. The woman in the car rolled forward and thanked me as she passed.

Stupid goose mom, I thought. So focused on me, she can’t see her whole family’s about to be squashed.

Then I realized how appropriate that metaphor was for me, in light of the ass-kicking parenting has given us these past few weeks.

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