This summer I spent a couple of weeks with my family in Massachusetts. Though on most visits we pile into my mom’ car like a bunch of clowns, this year I decided to splurge on a rental. One morning, following a shopping trip to Barnes and Noble, I headed over to the car. After setting my iphone in the passenger seat of my rental car, locking the doors and organizing some bags in the trunk, I realized the keys to the rental were not in my hands, nor were they in my purse. Upon further investigation they were not on the ground, not visibly in the car and not back in the bookstore. Yes, that leaves one place only-securely shut in the trunk.
What’s a damsel in distress to do? Call her daddy, of course. So in I went to Barnes and Noble to borrow the phone, remember my own phone was locked tightly in the car. I asked my dad if he’d swing by Hertz and get me a spare key. Unfortunately, when I called Hertz they said they didn’t keep extra keys in the office, but I could use their roadside service. You know that service they offer you when you pick up your rental car, the one that will cost you more than you originally planned to spend, and the one that, if you are like me, you refuse, because you won’t need it anyway? Let’s cut to the chase, I didn’t get the driver road side assistance from Hertz, I don’t have AAA, and neither do my parents. I had an inkling that we had some sort of roadside service through our insurance company, but never cared much to jot that info down. So now I’ve called my dad, called Hertz, called their roadside assistance for a price check, but the words “up to $200 to break into your trunk if you didn't purchase our insurance,” gave me pause. My next call was to Mike who was 3,000 miles away (if Barnes and Noble is the next to file for bankruptcy it’s probably due to my long distance calls). I knew he would have the insurance info, but guess who wasn’t answering his phone.
I wandered out to the parking lot and saw a familiar white car approaching. It was my mom and my aunt in the front; and in the back seat, with an amused little smirk on her face was one of the most organized people I know-my daughter (the smile read this would never have happened if you invited me along). No offense to this trio, but I couldn’t help but wonder why my dad sent them and what help they were going to provide. Then I saw my mom’s phone glimmering in the sunlight. I borrowed it to call Mike again and this time he answered. He hung up to call the insurance company. Mom and Maddee frolicked into Starbucks without a care in the world, while Auntie Sue decided to stake out a car with a firefighter sticker in the back. “If he’s on the fire department, he’ll have a Slim Jim,” she declared knowingly through puffs on her Marlboros. As for me, I just leaned on the rental and waited.
I wasn’t standing there long when in rolled my dad with a wire snake in hand. He got out of his car, waved to my aunt (who was still on her mission to find the off duty firefighter) and got down to business. He proceeded to feed the wire through the driver side window trying to somehow grab the latch, unlock the door and then, of course, pop the trunk. If I thought it was a weak plan, my dad thought it genius. I kept my mouth shut. In no time a nicely dressed man with slicked back hair, too much cologne and a huge gold watch was by my dad’s side. “I think I can help you,” he assured my dad and put his hand out for my dad to hand over the snake. The two of them took turns working the wire. Though cooperating, they were more like adversaries than friends, each trying to prove to the other their skills in, well, in breaking locks I guess. My self-appointed job was to chime in every now and again about how this was actually a rental car and the fact that they were scratching the paint off the driver side door was not really all that helpful. They responded to my nagging by ignoring me entirely. After several minutes and a bloody knuckle, our new friend tossed the snake back to my dad, shrugged his shoulders and moved on.
As my dad continued to work the lock on his own, Maddee and mom came to report that Mike called on my mom’s phone. He wanted to let me know that someone was dispatched to help us, but they didn’t know how long it would take for help to arrive. Mike, wasn’t thinking and gave them my number-yes on my phone I had no access to-and they were going to call that phone when they were on their way. As I took in Mike’s message, I noticed an older gentleman approach my dad. This guy was all Townie with his white hair, blue eyes and thick, thick, Boston accent.* “Oh let me help yous,” he offered. I could envision him in the days of his youth, breaking locks and hotwiring cars to take on joyrides through the neighborhood. “Listen, let me run home and I’ll get a wire hangah. I helped some lady about a year back unlock her cah.” “Don’t bother,” answers my dad and just as I think he’s going to brush this guy off, he continues, “I brought a hanger, too, it’s in my Explorer.” My dad hands the guy the drain snake and heads to his Explorer. This guy works twice as well as the first guy in scraping paint off the door, but his accuracy at grabbing the latch is just as poor. It doesn’t take long before he bails, too.
Around this time my aunt leaves her post at the firefighter’s car and heads into Starbucks. She comes back to report that Mike has straightened out the phone number situation and that help should be here in about twenty minutes. I tried to call my dad off, but it’s as if the twenty minute window made him work twice as hard. And just as he hits his groove, another man approaches. I couldn’t help but wonder if Barnes and Noble parking lot was a secret meeting spot for recovering car thieves. This guy, in his early twenties, has a slim jim in his hand. My dad says something about “Never trust a guy who carries his own slim jim,” but steps aside, nonetheless. Like I said, each man that approaches is a genuine car thief in my active imagination, but this guy makes me think I’m not imagining a thing. “Okay, first thing we gutta do is find out if she [meaning the car] has side airbags.” I shrug my shoulders, “I don’t know it’s a rental.” He peers in the window for a moment and then looks at me, “Sorry, can’t do it. She’s got side airbags. If I hit the airbag release instead of the lock while I’m leaning over, the airbags are going to come up at me, break my neck and kill me.” I must have had a strange look on my face. “It happened to my buddy,” he casually stated as he put the slim jim in his back pocket, scoped out the parking lot and walked away.
Having had his share of excitement for the day, my dad packed in the wire snakes and hangers and went home for a nap. My mother and Madison went into Staples to do some shopping and my aunt sat on the curb outside of Barnes and Noble, keeping a vigil for that elusive firefighter. Soon a vehicle with the words Search and Rescue printed on the side pulled up. The driver with clipboard in hand approached me. With his icy green eyes and his tight shirt, this guy looked more like the lead singer of the next best boy band, than he did a locksmith. However, I am not joking when I say he had the car unlocked in under a minute. “Wow, that was fast,” I noted. “Well,” he replied with what I am sure was a wink, “I have had a lot of practice jimmying locks; after all, I’m a professional.”
*If you are not from the Greater Boston area, Please, I beg of you, do not attempt to read this passage aloud with a fake Boston accent. Thank you.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Twenty Things I Learned from my Twentieth High School Reunion (or already knew but needed a reminder):
1. I know all the words to Bon Jovi’s Living On a Prayer—can’t decide if I’m ashamed or impressed.
2. Staying up until 5:30 in the morning should be illegal for anyone over the age of 30.
3. I’m not as good with names as I thought.
4. People remember things you wish they forgot, and forget things you wish they remembered.
5. I’m not totally into vanity, but a cute dress, good make-up and a great hairdresser go a long way.
6. There’s something truly heartwarming about people who married their high school sweethearts.
7. Boston sports fans will ALWAYS choose Red Sox tickets over money.
8. Don’t waste time talking about your job, your location or how cute your kids are—everyone knows these things from Facebook already.
9. Just because you like two people does not mean they will like each other and that’s actually okay.
10. Aimee speaking to a crowd over a microphone gives the Squeaky Voice a whole new meaning-ugh.
11. Everyone still looks so young-until you put in the video and slideshow. :)
12. The song More Than Words is both the most catchy and most annoying song on the planet, even after twenty years.
13. The people you enjoyed talking to in high school are still pretty cool.
14. The people you didn’t really talk to in high school are pretty cool, too.
15. I am now older than most of my teachers were when I was in high school.
16. Drinking champagne out of a bottle at 4:00 am is never a good idea.
17. No matter how much you try you can’t look normal when you are on a crowded elevator with half a mannequin pressed up against you and a headless lion costume slung over your shoulder.
18. Even if you aren’t a good dancer you should dance. It might be ugly, but it’s so much fun.
19. Everyone has a funny story and a great high school memory to share, spend some time listening to them.
20. We are all grown-ups and should behave as such, but there is something to be said for acting like you're seventeen again just for one night…
2. Staying up until 5:30 in the morning should be illegal for anyone over the age of 30.
3. I’m not as good with names as I thought.
4. People remember things you wish they forgot, and forget things you wish they remembered.
5. I’m not totally into vanity, but a cute dress, good make-up and a great hairdresser go a long way.
6. There’s something truly heartwarming about people who married their high school sweethearts.
7. Boston sports fans will ALWAYS choose Red Sox tickets over money.
8. Don’t waste time talking about your job, your location or how cute your kids are—everyone knows these things from Facebook already.
9. Just because you like two people does not mean they will like each other and that’s actually okay.
10. Aimee speaking to a crowd over a microphone gives the Squeaky Voice a whole new meaning-ugh.
11. Everyone still looks so young-until you put in the video and slideshow. :)
12. The song More Than Words is both the most catchy and most annoying song on the planet, even after twenty years.
13. The people you enjoyed talking to in high school are still pretty cool.
14. The people you didn’t really talk to in high school are pretty cool, too.
15. I am now older than most of my teachers were when I was in high school.
16. Drinking champagne out of a bottle at 4:00 am is never a good idea.
17. No matter how much you try you can’t look normal when you are on a crowded elevator with half a mannequin pressed up against you and a headless lion costume slung over your shoulder.
18. Even if you aren’t a good dancer you should dance. It might be ugly, but it’s so much fun.
19. Everyone has a funny story and a great high school memory to share, spend some time listening to them.
20. We are all grown-ups and should behave as such, but there is something to be said for acting like you're seventeen again just for one night…
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Warrior Tough
This weekend thousands, and I mean thousands, of Washingtonians gathered in North Bend for the Warrior Dash. They came in all shapes, sizes and umm, costumes. Alice in Wonderland and the White Rabbit were there, Wonder Woman and Batman were in attendance, too. A man dressed in a full business suit clambered up walls while holding a brief case. There were people clad in warrior garb, ninja costumes, or barely clad at all. There was even a finish line wedding for one couple. The groom wearing a tuxedo T-shirt held the hand of his bride, who was dressed in a white tutu, as they leapt over fire and swam through the mud.
The Warrior Dash is a 3.5 mile event, with several obstacles including scaling vertical walls, crawling through trenches, climbing on junkyard cars, walking planks and so on. Oh and in between each obstacle competitors run through mud-lots of it.
How do I know all of this? Well, I was there. Yes, somehow this take-a-deep-breath-and-look-both-ways-three-times-before-crossing-street girl got talked into competing in an obstacle course like no other. Okay, let me be honest. No one talked me into it. I was the one who approached them. I have no idea what possessed me to gather a group of friends and willingly put myself in one uncomfortable situation after the next, but I have a feeling it would cost me many dollars and many hours on the therapy couch to find out.
There are certain things I knew about myself before the dash and certain things I found out while out on the obstacles. For example, it was only when I was twenty feet in the air, trying to figure out how to turn my body around so I could climb down the other side of the wall I just scaled, that I realized I was afraid of heights. I was also afraid of falling backward, landing on my back and dying, but I already knew I had that fear. As I sat atop the wall wondering whether they would take me down by fire truck or crane and how much the bill for that would be, several women I didn’t know started cheering for me from the ground. Apparently in my scared stupor I didn’t notice almost all of my friends had completed the climb and were willing me on from the other side. They soon had a chorus of people joining them in a supportive and genuine “You can do it Aimee!” I looked at my husband who was still waiting to take his turn. He was enthusiastically cheering me on, too. Before I knew it I was safely over the wall.
Later, I crawled on hands and knees across a series of slippery wooden planks, called the Teetering Traverse. I was impressed not by my strength or agility, but my ability to recall all 206 bones in the human body. The recollection went something like, if I fall to the left I’ll break my femur, but if I fall to the right I might just get a few phalanges, if I fall at a 25 degree angle I will spare my legs, but likely break a rib. By the time I had reached the clavicle in brace scenario I was dismounting the traverse holding the hand of an encouraging friend.
There were some obstacles I found fun, like jumping on old cars and crawling through dark trenches. I loved watching my more confident friends scale walls and jump hurdles like they were superheroes. Some of my favorite moments involved slinging mud, watching friends fall in the mud and slinging mud at said friends while they were falling in the mud.
After climbing yet another huge wall, this one made of cargo ropes, and jumping over two rows of fire we approached the finish. All we had to do was crawl through mud about two feet deep while ducking under some barbed wire. As I slid under the first row of barbed wire, nearly an hour and ten minutes after I had begun, I caught a glimpse of the finish line. That’s when I felt something. No, I wasn’t caught on the barbed wire, and no, my knee hadn’t hit a rock under the mud. What I felt was good old-fashioned pride. I had done it. I was a Warrior.
The Warrior Dash is a 3.5 mile event, with several obstacles including scaling vertical walls, crawling through trenches, climbing on junkyard cars, walking planks and so on. Oh and in between each obstacle competitors run through mud-lots of it.
How do I know all of this? Well, I was there. Yes, somehow this take-a-deep-breath-and-look-both-ways-three-times-before-crossing-street girl got talked into competing in an obstacle course like no other. Okay, let me be honest. No one talked me into it. I was the one who approached them. I have no idea what possessed me to gather a group of friends and willingly put myself in one uncomfortable situation after the next, but I have a feeling it would cost me many dollars and many hours on the therapy couch to find out.
There are certain things I knew about myself before the dash and certain things I found out while out on the obstacles. For example, it was only when I was twenty feet in the air, trying to figure out how to turn my body around so I could climb down the other side of the wall I just scaled, that I realized I was afraid of heights. I was also afraid of falling backward, landing on my back and dying, but I already knew I had that fear. As I sat atop the wall wondering whether they would take me down by fire truck or crane and how much the bill for that would be, several women I didn’t know started cheering for me from the ground. Apparently in my scared stupor I didn’t notice almost all of my friends had completed the climb and were willing me on from the other side. They soon had a chorus of people joining them in a supportive and genuine “You can do it Aimee!” I looked at my husband who was still waiting to take his turn. He was enthusiastically cheering me on, too. Before I knew it I was safely over the wall.
Later, I crawled on hands and knees across a series of slippery wooden planks, called the Teetering Traverse. I was impressed not by my strength or agility, but my ability to recall all 206 bones in the human body. The recollection went something like, if I fall to the left I’ll break my femur, but if I fall to the right I might just get a few phalanges, if I fall at a 25 degree angle I will spare my legs, but likely break a rib. By the time I had reached the clavicle in brace scenario I was dismounting the traverse holding the hand of an encouraging friend.
There were some obstacles I found fun, like jumping on old cars and crawling through dark trenches. I loved watching my more confident friends scale walls and jump hurdles like they were superheroes. Some of my favorite moments involved slinging mud, watching friends fall in the mud and slinging mud at said friends while they were falling in the mud.
After climbing yet another huge wall, this one made of cargo ropes, and jumping over two rows of fire we approached the finish. All we had to do was crawl through mud about two feet deep while ducking under some barbed wire. As I slid under the first row of barbed wire, nearly an hour and ten minutes after I had begun, I caught a glimpse of the finish line. That’s when I felt something. No, I wasn’t caught on the barbed wire, and no, my knee hadn’t hit a rock under the mud. What I felt was good old-fashioned pride. I had done it. I was a Warrior.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Being a Big Girl
Woo-hoo! I am happy to actually have a few moments for the Squeaky Voice. Things have been so busy lately and it’s been really hard to get to some of my favorite things. However, the summer has been and should always be, about doing things that you love. Right now, I am happy to report, I am doing several such things. Currently, I am sitting on the ferry waiting to set sail to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. Love that! I’m surrounded by three of my favorite people. Love that! The sun is glistening on the water. Love that, too! We are heading out for a five day camping vacation and have some friends joining us tomorrow. So much to love and enjoy and having time to blog is the icing on the cake.
I took a little break there, we are now on the great San Juan Island. Yippee. We’ve had a laid back day just hanging out. Right now Max is climbing trees, Madison is reading a book, I’m writing and Mike is getting the grill set for dinner. Our friends are in route and I think there are s’mores in our near future. It doesn’t get better than this.
I do love camping and family time, but I also love alone time. It’s funny because when I was younger I hated to be by myself. But as I’ve grown older I have come to value “me time.” Earlier this week, I was teaching a class in Bothell which is about an hour and a half away. Because I was teaching two days in a row I decided to stay overnight in a hotel. The hotel is just across the street from the school where I was working. I had never stayed in a hotel by myself before and I was pretty excited to give it a go. It just seemed like such a grown-up thing to do-Going on a business trip, as I came to see it. I looked the hotel up on the internet and it had an outdoor pool. I can’t remember the last time I just went and sat around a pool for hours. I decided that after my class I would treat myself to pool time. Even if some of pool time was spent going over my plans for the next day.
I didn’t book my hotel on the internet website, because they gave a discount to teachers at MEIPN where I was teaching. So I got up got my phone, looked the phone number up, called and made my reservations. Would they give me the discount? Well, sure, they hesitated, why not. After my class, I headed over to the Country Inn, which despite its name and outward appearance, was very modern indoors. It’s funny because I’d never heard of the Country Inn before this, I had only heard of the Comfort Inn another chain. The inside was really beautiful lots of windows and I knew, as I stood at the check-in counter, that just a few minutes separated me from the outdoor pool. Thank goodness because it was an amazingly beautiful day and we don’t always get those, even in the summer. I could picture myself by the pool, laptop on the table next to a fuzzy, yummy grown up drink. I would look like a magazine ad for a sophisticated urban woman. A real live grown-up.
The girl at the counter was young and friendly. She was very gentle with me when she broke it to me that I did not have reservations for the night. “Oh no! Did I accidentally book for tomorrow night?” No not the next night either. At this point most people would think it was the hotel’s mistake, but that never crossed my mind. Something had been nagging me since the moment I pulled into the parking lot. It was the name –The Country Inn. I leaned over the counter and, in a whisper, asked “Is there aaaa Comfort Inn around?” She told me there was one about three miles away. One exit north. She offered to call them for me and assured me that this happened all the time. She offered to save me some embarrassment by not telling them she was calling from the main desk at the Country Inn.
“Hi this is Aimee Allen and I was just calling to confirm my reservation,” she began. I held my breath half-hoping for the reservation and half-hoping they would just take me in at the Country Inn. She hung up the phone, nodded, printed out some directions and off I went to the Comfort Inn.
Even on my way to the Comfort Inn (which I couldn’t find for thirty minutes)I tried to convince myself that maybe the website I was originally on, was the Comfort Inn and maybe that great outdoor pool would be waiting for me, if of course I could ever found the place. After several U-turns and a few words not worth repeating here, I pulled into the Comfort Inn and knew immediately that these accommodations that shared a parking lot with The Holiday Inn Express, QFC and Papa Murphy’s was not where I was hoping.I guess I initially was on the Country Inn site, but in the time it took to get the phone in hand, I had switched Country Inn to Comfort Inn in my mind.
Don’t get me wrong, the Comfort Inn was fine. I have certainly stayed in worse, and remember I am the girl who is choosing to sleep in a nylon tent for the next four nights. The Comfort Inn was clean. Everyone was friendly. The woman at the front desk assured me that my room was “Very nice” the continental breakfast was “Very delicious” and the location was “very convenient”. I already agreed with her on the convenient part seeing as the “hotel” was at the back of a grocery store parking lot, of course it would be more convenient if the hotel was across the street from the school, like the Country Inn. There was a pool, but it was indoors, which defeated my purpose. And the rooms were fine, but there wasn’t a balcony or deck to sit on. My visions of sophisticated big-girl time were beginning to unravel.
I was hungry, I was lonely, and I sure didn’t have pool time and a fuzzy drink in my future. I headed out to get something to eat, bypassed the QFC, got into my car and found a hole in the wall pizza place. While waiting for the pizza I witnessed a very heated argument between a teenager and his father. The kind that makes you very slowly and very steadily get out of their line of vision, while still watching to make sure they don’t hurt each other. I hurriedly took my pizza and vanilla shake back to my hotel room where I proceeded to watch three back to back episodes of Law & Order.
Come to think of it, three episodes of Law & Order, more slices of pizza than I will ever admit, and a large vanilla shake might just qualify as grown-up time after all. And on that note I have been invited to climb a Madrona tree with Max. Sometimes being a big girl isn’t all it’s cut out to be anyway.
I took a little break there, we are now on the great San Juan Island. Yippee. We’ve had a laid back day just hanging out. Right now Max is climbing trees, Madison is reading a book, I’m writing and Mike is getting the grill set for dinner. Our friends are in route and I think there are s’mores in our near future. It doesn’t get better than this.
I do love camping and family time, but I also love alone time. It’s funny because when I was younger I hated to be by myself. But as I’ve grown older I have come to value “me time.” Earlier this week, I was teaching a class in Bothell which is about an hour and a half away. Because I was teaching two days in a row I decided to stay overnight in a hotel. The hotel is just across the street from the school where I was working. I had never stayed in a hotel by myself before and I was pretty excited to give it a go. It just seemed like such a grown-up thing to do-Going on a business trip, as I came to see it. I looked the hotel up on the internet and it had an outdoor pool. I can’t remember the last time I just went and sat around a pool for hours. I decided that after my class I would treat myself to pool time. Even if some of pool time was spent going over my plans for the next day.
I didn’t book my hotel on the internet website, because they gave a discount to teachers at MEIPN where I was teaching. So I got up got my phone, looked the phone number up, called and made my reservations. Would they give me the discount? Well, sure, they hesitated, why not. After my class, I headed over to the Country Inn, which despite its name and outward appearance, was very modern indoors. It’s funny because I’d never heard of the Country Inn before this, I had only heard of the Comfort Inn another chain. The inside was really beautiful lots of windows and I knew, as I stood at the check-in counter, that just a few minutes separated me from the outdoor pool. Thank goodness because it was an amazingly beautiful day and we don’t always get those, even in the summer. I could picture myself by the pool, laptop on the table next to a fuzzy, yummy grown up drink. I would look like a magazine ad for a sophisticated urban woman. A real live grown-up.
The girl at the counter was young and friendly. She was very gentle with me when she broke it to me that I did not have reservations for the night. “Oh no! Did I accidentally book for tomorrow night?” No not the next night either. At this point most people would think it was the hotel’s mistake, but that never crossed my mind. Something had been nagging me since the moment I pulled into the parking lot. It was the name –The Country Inn. I leaned over the counter and, in a whisper, asked “Is there aaaa Comfort Inn around?” She told me there was one about three miles away. One exit north. She offered to call them for me and assured me that this happened all the time. She offered to save me some embarrassment by not telling them she was calling from the main desk at the Country Inn.
“Hi this is Aimee Allen and I was just calling to confirm my reservation,” she began. I held my breath half-hoping for the reservation and half-hoping they would just take me in at the Country Inn. She hung up the phone, nodded, printed out some directions and off I went to the Comfort Inn.
Even on my way to the Comfort Inn (which I couldn’t find for thirty minutes)I tried to convince myself that maybe the website I was originally on, was the Comfort Inn and maybe that great outdoor pool would be waiting for me, if of course I could ever found the place. After several U-turns and a few words not worth repeating here, I pulled into the Comfort Inn and knew immediately that these accommodations that shared a parking lot with The Holiday Inn Express, QFC and Papa Murphy’s was not where I was hoping.I guess I initially was on the Country Inn site, but in the time it took to get the phone in hand, I had switched Country Inn to Comfort Inn in my mind.
Don’t get me wrong, the Comfort Inn was fine. I have certainly stayed in worse, and remember I am the girl who is choosing to sleep in a nylon tent for the next four nights. The Comfort Inn was clean. Everyone was friendly. The woman at the front desk assured me that my room was “Very nice” the continental breakfast was “Very delicious” and the location was “very convenient”. I already agreed with her on the convenient part seeing as the “hotel” was at the back of a grocery store parking lot, of course it would be more convenient if the hotel was across the street from the school, like the Country Inn. There was a pool, but it was indoors, which defeated my purpose. And the rooms were fine, but there wasn’t a balcony or deck to sit on. My visions of sophisticated big-girl time were beginning to unravel.
I was hungry, I was lonely, and I sure didn’t have pool time and a fuzzy drink in my future. I headed out to get something to eat, bypassed the QFC, got into my car and found a hole in the wall pizza place. While waiting for the pizza I witnessed a very heated argument between a teenager and his father. The kind that makes you very slowly and very steadily get out of their line of vision, while still watching to make sure they don’t hurt each other. I hurriedly took my pizza and vanilla shake back to my hotel room where I proceeded to watch three back to back episodes of Law & Order.
Come to think of it, three episodes of Law & Order, more slices of pizza than I will ever admit, and a large vanilla shake might just qualify as grown-up time after all. And on that note I have been invited to climb a Madrona tree with Max. Sometimes being a big girl isn’t all it’s cut out to be anyway.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Now That's Handy!
Greetings! I write to you this evening from my dining room where my precious laptop is housed. Now my laptop, well, it’s not in top-notch shape. It functions just fine, but it’s no beauty. If it were a car you’d say it was reliable, if it were a house you’d call it a fixer-upper, if it were a high school girl, you’d say it had a nice personality. Over a year ago Mike had it in the airplane in his backpack and a water bottle leaked on it. It filled the screen up and a project was born. In a time when maybe your husband or wife would have thrown in the towel and bought a new laptop, my husband purchased a fix-it kit and spent hours taking layer upon layer of screen off of it,(there are several layers in your laptop my friends) repaired it, and it was as good as new. Like a good plastic surgeon Mike managed to keep it looking good and working well. But what this plastic surgeon failed to mention to his graceless wife was that the laptop was a bit more fragile than it used to be.
I may be small, but you can hear me coming a mile away. The pounding of my feet, the accidental crashing of the door, the muffled cry as I once again stub my toe, catch my fingernail, step on a lego, trip on a shoelace, kick myself in the shin, you get the picture. Anyway, precision and grace aren’t my strongest suits, and when I am done with my computer for the night, the top gets slammed down and I’m off. Long story short, the top of this already fragile entity, was slammed one time too many and now I am the only girl on the planet who has a laptop held together on one side with two sets of nuts and bolts. Sometimes, even with the bolts in place, part of the screen will still pop out and I will push it in and go on with my day.
Being married to someone handy is amazing. If something breaks I guarantee you my husband can fix it. I always say if you can’t marry for money then for goodness sake, marry handy. Oh yes, and marrying for love might help, too. Lucky for me, I love my handyman. Whenever we see something cool at a store, Mike says, “Let’s not spend the money, I can make that.” And the truth is he can, now does he, well that's a blog for another time. To make matters even better for a scatterbrain like myself, my husband is also very, umm, frugal. This is great for a girl who is a little more lax with the spending…Mike keeps me from making dumb purchases and shady investments. He might say things like Do you really need those shoes or do you really want to invest all our money on a beach resort in Antarctica? So if marrying frugal is good and marrying handy is good, and marrying for love is the ultimate, then for goodness sake marrying someone handy and frugal who you love must be like winning a gold medal in life, right? Well, for the most part yes, but, you might want to re-read paragraph two here, and realize that I have a laptop that is BOLTED together! Rather than give up and dig up the funds to get a new computer my husband bolted the thing together and called it a day.
When our dog chewed through her leash for the 50th time, instead of spending $25 on a heavy duty chain Mike bought a bunch of rope and a clasp from Home Depot for a few bucks and made his own version of a chew-proof leash. When Madison complained that she was getting grease on her pant leg from the chain of her bike, Mike cut a piece of Velcro, fastened it to her sweat pants and they held tight, never to flap into the path of her chain again. Car sliding on ice? Mike will throw an engine block in the back for some added weight and you’re good to go. Pets eating from each others' bowls? Mike can rig something to fix that. Cables out? Car’s broken? Phone’s fallen into Lake Union? Fixed, fixed, fixed.
Don’t misunderstand it’s not all duct tape and Jeff Foxworthy here at the Allen house. Mike can be quite a craftsman, too. We have a beautiful fireplace in our bedroom, an awesome fire pit in our backyard, a huge hand-built shed on the back of our house and a beautiful dining room table that he refinished, and that’s just to name a few.
Even though it’s just a hobby and I will likely never be a real author; my blog gives me a little boost of adrenaline and the chance to be a writer. Mike knows this and supports me 100%. I like to have something posted at least every two weeks. When two weeks have gone by and I haven’t posted something, I start to worry about this self-imposed deadline. I sit down to write, whether I have a subject matter or not. I can really get caught up in wanting to make my blog just right and Mike knows that as well. This evening I was working on a blog about my less than savvy technological skills, but I just couldn’t make it work. Mike came into the kitchen and suggested I go for a kayak ride alone and just think for a bit. While I was out there, I realized I’d have to table the tech blog for another time. It just wasn’t in me.
Discouraged, I paddled to shore, tied the kayak up to a rusty crowbar that Mike has inserted into the ground as a temporary mooring and came into the house, being careful not to be hit by the wooden doorstop Mike invented to keep the dog from pawing open our sliding glass door. I sat down and started typing this blog. It might not be what I set out to achieve, and it might not be pretty, flowery and full of beautiful language, but it works. Looks like Mr. Fix It has done it again.
I may be small, but you can hear me coming a mile away. The pounding of my feet, the accidental crashing of the door, the muffled cry as I once again stub my toe, catch my fingernail, step on a lego, trip on a shoelace, kick myself in the shin, you get the picture. Anyway, precision and grace aren’t my strongest suits, and when I am done with my computer for the night, the top gets slammed down and I’m off. Long story short, the top of this already fragile entity, was slammed one time too many and now I am the only girl on the planet who has a laptop held together on one side with two sets of nuts and bolts. Sometimes, even with the bolts in place, part of the screen will still pop out and I will push it in and go on with my day.
Being married to someone handy is amazing. If something breaks I guarantee you my husband can fix it. I always say if you can’t marry for money then for goodness sake, marry handy. Oh yes, and marrying for love might help, too. Lucky for me, I love my handyman. Whenever we see something cool at a store, Mike says, “Let’s not spend the money, I can make that.” And the truth is he can, now does he, well that's a blog for another time. To make matters even better for a scatterbrain like myself, my husband is also very, umm, frugal. This is great for a girl who is a little more lax with the spending…Mike keeps me from making dumb purchases and shady investments. He might say things like Do you really need those shoes or do you really want to invest all our money on a beach resort in Antarctica? So if marrying frugal is good and marrying handy is good, and marrying for love is the ultimate, then for goodness sake marrying someone handy and frugal who you love must be like winning a gold medal in life, right? Well, for the most part yes, but, you might want to re-read paragraph two here, and realize that I have a laptop that is BOLTED together! Rather than give up and dig up the funds to get a new computer my husband bolted the thing together and called it a day.
When our dog chewed through her leash for the 50th time, instead of spending $25 on a heavy duty chain Mike bought a bunch of rope and a clasp from Home Depot for a few bucks and made his own version of a chew-proof leash. When Madison complained that she was getting grease on her pant leg from the chain of her bike, Mike cut a piece of Velcro, fastened it to her sweat pants and they held tight, never to flap into the path of her chain again. Car sliding on ice? Mike will throw an engine block in the back for some added weight and you’re good to go. Pets eating from each others' bowls? Mike can rig something to fix that. Cables out? Car’s broken? Phone’s fallen into Lake Union? Fixed, fixed, fixed.
Don’t misunderstand it’s not all duct tape and Jeff Foxworthy here at the Allen house. Mike can be quite a craftsman, too. We have a beautiful fireplace in our bedroom, an awesome fire pit in our backyard, a huge hand-built shed on the back of our house and a beautiful dining room table that he refinished, and that’s just to name a few.
Even though it’s just a hobby and I will likely never be a real author; my blog gives me a little boost of adrenaline and the chance to be a writer. Mike knows this and supports me 100%. I like to have something posted at least every two weeks. When two weeks have gone by and I haven’t posted something, I start to worry about this self-imposed deadline. I sit down to write, whether I have a subject matter or not. I can really get caught up in wanting to make my blog just right and Mike knows that as well. This evening I was working on a blog about my less than savvy technological skills, but I just couldn’t make it work. Mike came into the kitchen and suggested I go for a kayak ride alone and just think for a bit. While I was out there, I realized I’d have to table the tech blog for another time. It just wasn’t in me.
Discouraged, I paddled to shore, tied the kayak up to a rusty crowbar that Mike has inserted into the ground as a temporary mooring and came into the house, being careful not to be hit by the wooden doorstop Mike invented to keep the dog from pawing open our sliding glass door. I sat down and started typing this blog. It might not be what I set out to achieve, and it might not be pretty, flowery and full of beautiful language, but it works. Looks like Mr. Fix It has done it again.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Bored? Read this...
Hi Friends,
This is an article I did for my school newsletter. It's not the typical Squeaky Voice material, but I thought you parents out there might like it. ;)
Bored To Tears
Understanding & Appreciating Boredom
By Aimee Allen
It was yet another rainy Saturday in the Pacific Northwest. One mild-mannered ten year old had hit her threshold for inactivity. She was tired of drawing, couldn’t bear to watch any more TV, had read every book on her bookshelf and had done and redone her dolls’ hair more times than even Vidal Sassoon himself could possibly fathom. With tears in her eyes she surveyed her living room; her mother was curled up on the couch with a glass of ginger ale nursing the stomach flu, her brother was lounged in the corner reading a Geronimo Stilton book and her dad, now a full-time student, was across the hall in the office studying for finals. It was at this moment that the sweet ten year old uttered the words that drive most parents crazy. “I’m sooooo bored.”
This of course roused her otherwise infirmed mother, who set her ginger ale down rather loudly on the window sill. This exasperated mother loudly asked “How on Earth in the year 2011, with all the toys, games, books, etc., can anyone claim to be bored?” Knowing as she said it that it wasn’t just the daughter’s declaration that bothered her, it was the whole connotation of boredom.
As parents we try to balance our children’s lives without making them too full or too dull. When our children say they are bored, we tend to take this personally. The whole idea of boredom makes us feel uneasy. No one sets out to host a boring dinner party, tell a boring story, go on a boring vacation, have a boring home or be a boring parent. In fact we most likely dread the idea. So when you are accused, and it does feel like an accusation, of any of these things, it hurts the ego. Still, if we take a step back, we might find that boredom isn’t always a detriment.
One of my professors from graduate school felt strongly that boredom in the right doses was a good thing for people. He noted that in such a fast-paced society with people almost always on the go, boredom forces us to sit with ourselves for a bit. Boredom allows us to quiet our minds, to introspect and to problem solve. For many people boredom can be the gateway to creativity. Many artists, inventors, musicians and writers have credited sheer boredom for their best works. The world-renowned artist and sculptor Anish Kapoor said, “It's precisely in those moments when I don't know what to do, boredom drives one to try a host of possibilities...”
Leonardo da Vinci was said to often be bored. I read somewhere that he was even bored in his sleep. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, “Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.” Certainly da Vinci was open to transforming his moments of boredom to moments of fascination. How lackluster the world would be if people like Kapoor and da Vinci were not able to embrace and then overcome boredom time and time again.
You don’t have to be a famous artist to embrace boredom. I grew up in an apartment complex where there were a lot of other children around to play with. On the rare occasion that I found myself outdoors alone, I would complain that I was bored. At those times I would often plop down in the courtyard and watch the ants. I found their lives quite fascinating. I could, and did, watch them march back and forth for hours. Other times I would start to pull the grass out of the ground and see how small I could shred each blade before going to the next. Shredding blades of grass can be pretty tedious work, but I had some of the best daydreams and fantasies as I worked those blades.
Daydreaming, a common companion to boredom, can really be a good thing, not just for creativity, but for brain activity as well. As I was researching for this article, I found some science to back this. In his blog “The Frontal Cortex”, writer/scientist Jonah Lehrer, explains “At first glance, these boring moments might seem like a great time for the brain to go quiet, to reduce metabolic activity and save some glucose for later. But that isn't what happens. The bored brain is actually incredibly active, as it generates daydreams and engages in mental time travel. In particular, there seems to be an elaborate electrical conversation between the front and rear parts of the mind, as the medial prefrontal cortex fires in sync with areas like the posterior cingulate and precuneus.” As anyone in the business world will tell you, it is a very good thing when all departments are communicating and working together. While we are lamenting over the tedium of our day the parts of our brain are working as a team, which they cannot to do when we are challenged, focused, or otherwise engaged.
I need to be careful about over-romanticizing boredom. We have all experienced boredom and we know it is an uncomfortable and frustrating feeling. Often when bored, children will occupy themselves with TV and video games. This certainly isn’t a brain-stimulating outlet. Even worse, boredom in large doses can be linked to a variety of negative things such as obesity, drug use, depression, dropping out of school, etc. In fact I just read that the number one reason high school drop-outs give for leaving school is boredom. They don’t have interest in the school subjects and have not made a connection with any of the adults in the school.
So no, we don’t want our children to be bored for long periods of time. The idea of moving from boredom to fascination means that there has to be some acknowledgment of our mental state, some time spent in this state and then a desire to move past the discomfort. Just like any other uncomfortable emotion, we need tools to get ourselves through. In the Montessori classroom we pride ourselves on having many materials that actively engage students’ brains. Children rarely come to us with the claim that they are bored, because there are so many appropriate choices to stimulate their minds. The beauty of the Montessori model is that we have been focusing on independence and problem solving since the children were toddlers. If children do find themselves in a situation where they feel bored, they can usually get through it without much interference on the part of the adult.
Taking this cue from the Montessori classroom, we as parents can encourage our children to utilize their problem solving and independent thinking skills. Conceivably the child will at some level say to him/herself I recognize this feeling, I’ve had it before. What can I do next? What interests me? What activities do I enjoy? What do I want to find out? What have I done in the past to get beyond this feeling? If I can’t come up with solutions on my own, who can I talk to who can help me? Just as it is with adults, for some children this is a natural process, other children might need some guidance. Perhaps this can be a topic at your next family meeting. By saying something as simple as “What do you do when you’re bored?” or “How do you get past feelings of boredom?” you can help your children develop strategies they can use for a lifetime.
On yet another rainy Saturday, I found that mild-mannered ten year old and her younger brother zipping around the house collecting items for a project. It started by putting stickers on a cardboard box. In no time the cardboard box evolved into a setting. Soon they were creating puppets from socks, complete with yarn hair, googly eyes, clothing and personalities. There was sewing involved, script writing and a lot of laughter, too. This provided hours and hours of engagement for both children. When asked where they got the idea for this elaborate project they simply answered, “Well we were just bored.”
References
Lehrer, J. (March 24, 2009). Boredom [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/03/boredom.php
Brainy quotes http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/arthur_schopenhauer.html
Brainy quotes http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/anishkapoo324857.html#ixzz1J9SuNYxq
This is an article I did for my school newsletter. It's not the typical Squeaky Voice material, but I thought you parents out there might like it. ;)
Bored To Tears
Understanding & Appreciating Boredom
By Aimee Allen
It was yet another rainy Saturday in the Pacific Northwest. One mild-mannered ten year old had hit her threshold for inactivity. She was tired of drawing, couldn’t bear to watch any more TV, had read every book on her bookshelf and had done and redone her dolls’ hair more times than even Vidal Sassoon himself could possibly fathom. With tears in her eyes she surveyed her living room; her mother was curled up on the couch with a glass of ginger ale nursing the stomach flu, her brother was lounged in the corner reading a Geronimo Stilton book and her dad, now a full-time student, was across the hall in the office studying for finals. It was at this moment that the sweet ten year old uttered the words that drive most parents crazy. “I’m sooooo bored.”
This of course roused her otherwise infirmed mother, who set her ginger ale down rather loudly on the window sill. This exasperated mother loudly asked “How on Earth in the year 2011, with all the toys, games, books, etc., can anyone claim to be bored?” Knowing as she said it that it wasn’t just the daughter’s declaration that bothered her, it was the whole connotation of boredom.
As parents we try to balance our children’s lives without making them too full or too dull. When our children say they are bored, we tend to take this personally. The whole idea of boredom makes us feel uneasy. No one sets out to host a boring dinner party, tell a boring story, go on a boring vacation, have a boring home or be a boring parent. In fact we most likely dread the idea. So when you are accused, and it does feel like an accusation, of any of these things, it hurts the ego. Still, if we take a step back, we might find that boredom isn’t always a detriment.
One of my professors from graduate school felt strongly that boredom in the right doses was a good thing for people. He noted that in such a fast-paced society with people almost always on the go, boredom forces us to sit with ourselves for a bit. Boredom allows us to quiet our minds, to introspect and to problem solve. For many people boredom can be the gateway to creativity. Many artists, inventors, musicians and writers have credited sheer boredom for their best works. The world-renowned artist and sculptor Anish Kapoor said, “It's precisely in those moments when I don't know what to do, boredom drives one to try a host of possibilities...”
Leonardo da Vinci was said to often be bored. I read somewhere that he was even bored in his sleep. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, “Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.” Certainly da Vinci was open to transforming his moments of boredom to moments of fascination. How lackluster the world would be if people like Kapoor and da Vinci were not able to embrace and then overcome boredom time and time again.
You don’t have to be a famous artist to embrace boredom. I grew up in an apartment complex where there were a lot of other children around to play with. On the rare occasion that I found myself outdoors alone, I would complain that I was bored. At those times I would often plop down in the courtyard and watch the ants. I found their lives quite fascinating. I could, and did, watch them march back and forth for hours. Other times I would start to pull the grass out of the ground and see how small I could shred each blade before going to the next. Shredding blades of grass can be pretty tedious work, but I had some of the best daydreams and fantasies as I worked those blades.
Daydreaming, a common companion to boredom, can really be a good thing, not just for creativity, but for brain activity as well. As I was researching for this article, I found some science to back this. In his blog “The Frontal Cortex”, writer/scientist Jonah Lehrer, explains “At first glance, these boring moments might seem like a great time for the brain to go quiet, to reduce metabolic activity and save some glucose for later. But that isn't what happens. The bored brain is actually incredibly active, as it generates daydreams and engages in mental time travel. In particular, there seems to be an elaborate electrical conversation between the front and rear parts of the mind, as the medial prefrontal cortex fires in sync with areas like the posterior cingulate and precuneus.” As anyone in the business world will tell you, it is a very good thing when all departments are communicating and working together. While we are lamenting over the tedium of our day the parts of our brain are working as a team, which they cannot to do when we are challenged, focused, or otherwise engaged.
I need to be careful about over-romanticizing boredom. We have all experienced boredom and we know it is an uncomfortable and frustrating feeling. Often when bored, children will occupy themselves with TV and video games. This certainly isn’t a brain-stimulating outlet. Even worse, boredom in large doses can be linked to a variety of negative things such as obesity, drug use, depression, dropping out of school, etc. In fact I just read that the number one reason high school drop-outs give for leaving school is boredom. They don’t have interest in the school subjects and have not made a connection with any of the adults in the school.
So no, we don’t want our children to be bored for long periods of time. The idea of moving from boredom to fascination means that there has to be some acknowledgment of our mental state, some time spent in this state and then a desire to move past the discomfort. Just like any other uncomfortable emotion, we need tools to get ourselves through. In the Montessori classroom we pride ourselves on having many materials that actively engage students’ brains. Children rarely come to us with the claim that they are bored, because there are so many appropriate choices to stimulate their minds. The beauty of the Montessori model is that we have been focusing on independence and problem solving since the children were toddlers. If children do find themselves in a situation where they feel bored, they can usually get through it without much interference on the part of the adult.
Taking this cue from the Montessori classroom, we as parents can encourage our children to utilize their problem solving and independent thinking skills. Conceivably the child will at some level say to him/herself I recognize this feeling, I’ve had it before. What can I do next? What interests me? What activities do I enjoy? What do I want to find out? What have I done in the past to get beyond this feeling? If I can’t come up with solutions on my own, who can I talk to who can help me? Just as it is with adults, for some children this is a natural process, other children might need some guidance. Perhaps this can be a topic at your next family meeting. By saying something as simple as “What do you do when you’re bored?” or “How do you get past feelings of boredom?” you can help your children develop strategies they can use for a lifetime.
On yet another rainy Saturday, I found that mild-mannered ten year old and her younger brother zipping around the house collecting items for a project. It started by putting stickers on a cardboard box. In no time the cardboard box evolved into a setting. Soon they were creating puppets from socks, complete with yarn hair, googly eyes, clothing and personalities. There was sewing involved, script writing and a lot of laughter, too. This provided hours and hours of engagement for both children. When asked where they got the idea for this elaborate project they simply answered, “Well we were just bored.”
References
Lehrer, J. (March 24, 2009). Boredom [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/03/boredom.php
Brainy quotes http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/arthur_schopenhauer.html
Brainy quotes http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/anishkapoo324857.html#ixzz1J9SuNYxq
Sunday, May 1, 2011
The Ghost of Five Owl Farm: How one nine year old single-handedly paid for the refurbishment of the Malden Public Library
Just yesterday I found myself cornered in the Queen Anne bookstore in Seattle by two eager, wide-eyed children. There was a small crowd looking on; two retired grandmas, one stay at home dad, one precocious two year old toddler and a middle aged woman who bore a strange resemblance to Dr. Teeth from the Muppets. I could feel the sentiment from the crowd, and they weren’t on my side. “Mom,” one of my children started bargaining, “If you let me buy this book, I will pay you three dollars toward it.” I broke into a sweat; I knew what the crowd was thinking, What’s wrong with this woman, why won’t she buy her children a couple of books? I retaliated rather loudly, “We just bought a bunch of books in Portland on Wednesday,” which happened to be 100% true. “But we already finished those books mom,” my other child chimed in, which also happened to be 100% true. Four or five chapter books purchased on Wednesday had been devoured in the course of a three hour train ride, a couple of hours of downtime and finally a forty minute ferry ride. Even with this new insight, the crowd, showed no mercy as they silently chided this low-class mom who refused to buy her children books. Still, I knew that by the time the weekend was over, my dear children would have read through the two books in hand and then what? If only there was a place that you could take a book, read it, and then bring it back when completed. But where on Earth would that be?
Oh come now, I know what you’re thinking. You are suggesting the library aren’t you? Well, believe me, I love the library, truly, I do. It’s just, well, things are complicated between us. There’s a long history between Aimee Decker Allen and the public libraries of the U.S.A. In hindsight it was a doomed relationship from the start, costly and filled with loss. Still we have had some fine moments, but let’s not play games; you aren’t interested in the good times. You are here to learn of the anguish. Here goes. The real heart ache began in 1982. The details are painful and you needn’t know everything, but let’s just say the incident consisted of, among other things, two unhappy parents, one extremely unkempt bedroom, one threatening yellow slip from the Malden Public Library, one bewildered nine year old and the callous judgment of Mr. Phil Collins transmitted via In The Air Of Night on the family record player.
Up until this point, I loved the library and frequented it often. It was, and still is, arguably the most beautiful building in my home town. It was built in the 1800s and housed thousands of books, encyclopedias and even art work. The library also catered to kids with a huge children’s section taking up the entire bottom floor. I loved that place. As a general rule when checking out books I was allowed two or three. I believe this was a library rule, but it could have been a parental one, not sure. One visit, for some reason, I chose to get only one book and that was a book called The Ghost of Five Owl Farm, even though it was a little dark for my usual taste. I can still see the cover, a purple book with some menacing owls on it. I brought the book home, but it didn’t keep my interest. I set it down in my room one afternoon and that was that. Who knows where the book journeyed after that. Perhaps, the toy box, under the bed, my closet, another room? No matter, in the Decker household The Ghost of Five Owl Farm was forgotten, that is until months later, the library notice… Let me cut to the chase, even after my dad, who has a talent of finding absolutely anything, combed through my bedroom and then the entire house, The Ghost of Five Owl Farm was nowhere to be found. A true mystery.
Remember I was nine when this happened so some details are sketchy, but what I know for sure is my library card was suspended. Though my parents and every other adult on Earth have refuted this claim, I am pretty sure I paid a nickel a day, plus interest, for the next 14 years, paying all my fines off just in time for the Malden Public Library to open their multi-million dollar addition in 1996. Coincidence? I think not. I’m a Gen Xer and I know a conspiracy when I see one.
My story should stop here, lesson learned. But it doesn’t. I just can’t seem to break the pattern. More libraries, more overdue books, more yellow slips, more revoked library cards, more shame, more shame, more shame! Yet I still go back- a new town, a new library. I applied for cards in many libraries and to my surprise each time, I was approved. But part of me always feels an imposter. I alternate library entrances, sometimes I go with the head tuck/eyes averted approach. Other times, I try to bluff them, making eye contact. But they know, oh those wise librarians know. They can spot a girl like me a mile away. Right before I push open the library doors they are probably saying things like “Hey Trudy, bolt down the classics, here comes another riff-raff.” The smart librarians, though, I’m talking the really shrewd ones, they welcome girls like me, they say things like “Never mind on that bake sale Franny, this little hot shot’s going to be paying for story hour for the next three years!” (Feel free to insert a cackle here, I know Trudy and Franny would). They’ve got my number. Oh yes they do, filed away in that covert code they call the Dewey Decimal System.
Nowadays things have gotten simpler. When I have an overdue book, I get a gentle reminder from the library. One of the libraries I belong to even allows you to renew on-line and pay your fines that way, too. Sure, I still have to face the Trudies and the Frannies of the world when I do finally return those books. That’s why whenever possible I return my books to the outside slot in the cover of night. It’s so peaceful at those times, just the quiet whirr of my car engine, the chirping songs of the crickets and the slightly haunting chorus of hoots coming from Five Owl Farm.
Oh come now, I know what you’re thinking. You are suggesting the library aren’t you? Well, believe me, I love the library, truly, I do. It’s just, well, things are complicated between us. There’s a long history between Aimee Decker Allen and the public libraries of the U.S.A. In hindsight it was a doomed relationship from the start, costly and filled with loss. Still we have had some fine moments, but let’s not play games; you aren’t interested in the good times. You are here to learn of the anguish. Here goes. The real heart ache began in 1982. The details are painful and you needn’t know everything, but let’s just say the incident consisted of, among other things, two unhappy parents, one extremely unkempt bedroom, one threatening yellow slip from the Malden Public Library, one bewildered nine year old and the callous judgment of Mr. Phil Collins transmitted via In The Air Of Night on the family record player.
Up until this point, I loved the library and frequented it often. It was, and still is, arguably the most beautiful building in my home town. It was built in the 1800s and housed thousands of books, encyclopedias and even art work. The library also catered to kids with a huge children’s section taking up the entire bottom floor. I loved that place. As a general rule when checking out books I was allowed two or three. I believe this was a library rule, but it could have been a parental one, not sure. One visit, for some reason, I chose to get only one book and that was a book called The Ghost of Five Owl Farm, even though it was a little dark for my usual taste. I can still see the cover, a purple book with some menacing owls on it. I brought the book home, but it didn’t keep my interest. I set it down in my room one afternoon and that was that. Who knows where the book journeyed after that. Perhaps, the toy box, under the bed, my closet, another room? No matter, in the Decker household The Ghost of Five Owl Farm was forgotten, that is until months later, the library notice… Let me cut to the chase, even after my dad, who has a talent of finding absolutely anything, combed through my bedroom and then the entire house, The Ghost of Five Owl Farm was nowhere to be found. A true mystery.
Remember I was nine when this happened so some details are sketchy, but what I know for sure is my library card was suspended. Though my parents and every other adult on Earth have refuted this claim, I am pretty sure I paid a nickel a day, plus interest, for the next 14 years, paying all my fines off just in time for the Malden Public Library to open their multi-million dollar addition in 1996. Coincidence? I think not. I’m a Gen Xer and I know a conspiracy when I see one.
My story should stop here, lesson learned. But it doesn’t. I just can’t seem to break the pattern. More libraries, more overdue books, more yellow slips, more revoked library cards, more shame, more shame, more shame! Yet I still go back- a new town, a new library. I applied for cards in many libraries and to my surprise each time, I was approved. But part of me always feels an imposter. I alternate library entrances, sometimes I go with the head tuck/eyes averted approach. Other times, I try to bluff them, making eye contact. But they know, oh those wise librarians know. They can spot a girl like me a mile away. Right before I push open the library doors they are probably saying things like “Hey Trudy, bolt down the classics, here comes another riff-raff.” The smart librarians, though, I’m talking the really shrewd ones, they welcome girls like me, they say things like “Never mind on that bake sale Franny, this little hot shot’s going to be paying for story hour for the next three years!” (Feel free to insert a cackle here, I know Trudy and Franny would). They’ve got my number. Oh yes they do, filed away in that covert code they call the Dewey Decimal System.
Nowadays things have gotten simpler. When I have an overdue book, I get a gentle reminder from the library. One of the libraries I belong to even allows you to renew on-line and pay your fines that way, too. Sure, I still have to face the Trudies and the Frannies of the world when I do finally return those books. That’s why whenever possible I return my books to the outside slot in the cover of night. It’s so peaceful at those times, just the quiet whirr of my car engine, the chirping songs of the crickets and the slightly haunting chorus of hoots coming from Five Owl Farm.
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