Prison Food

Once in a while my dad and I like to hit up this little hole in the wall breakfast spot. We met there this morning and each ordered the Big Breakfast: 3 over-easy eggs, sourdough toast, 4 slices of bacon and a pile of hashbrowns. We proceeded to murder our food, leaving barely a trace of our crime, nearly wiping out our digestive systems with animal fat. My heartrate is still a bit elevated and it's nearly 12 hours later.

Are hashbrowns Canadian? Do people from other countries refer to them as fried potatoes? Jason used to call them hashBROWNS, putting the emphasis on the last syllable which drove me insane because I've always known them to be HASHbrowns. I could never let it go, either. He'd ask about hashBROWNS and I'd reply, "you mean, HASHbrowns?" I'm pretty sure it's not the final reason we pulled the plug but it may have been pretty darn close.

It's like that with everything, though. Right? Each person experiences life differently. Jake begged me to have a boy/girl sleepover tonight, lamenting that "all the other parents let their kids go." Now, obviously over my dead body is Jake going to any sort of co-ed sleepover within the next 40 years and naturally Jake began to lament his current condition, claiming that compared to most kids his age, he has way less freedom.

Thus began our discussion of perspective. What might feel like prison to him is in fact keeping him safe. Just because he feels the cold bars pressed against his face doesn't mean that he's locked up. That one day when he looks back at this moment, he will see himself standing on the freedom side of the bars, rather than the prison side. It's the danger that's locked up, not him.

I think he got it, as much as a 13 year-old boy can get it, for now.

It might taste like freedom. We can gobble up the hashbrowns, but who knows? One day we can look back and see that all we've really been eating is a bunch of fried potatoes.

Cat Fight

Kylah had a soccer game in Abbotsford this morning right before Freddy's game at the same field which worked out quite nicely. Ethan, Freddy and I dropped Andrew and Kylah off at her game for her warm-up, and the three of us headed off to Tim Hortons for some breakfast.

I have had the worst pregnant-mama heartburn this side of the Mexican border and so therefore I go to bed hungry in hopes of warding off the horizontal food-burble. I am usually off-my-face starving in the morning but we were in a rush and I hadn't had the chance to eat anything and so by the time we pulled into the Tim Hortons parking lot I was ready to pick off and eat the dried bits of food stuck to the van seats.

Pulling into the parking lot, we noticed that the drive-through lineup was uncharacteristically long so we decided to go inside to get our food. They were out of sausage, so I ordered two bacon and egg sandwiches, some bagels and coffee. We waited through three Christmases for our food to be ready at which point they informed us that they have also run out of bacon. I decided to get my money back and get the hell out of there, but while I was doing the transaction, a lady in the back of the lineup yelled at the top of her lungs (red-faced, protruding forehead vein, balancing on a pair of crutches), "GET TO THE BACK OF THE LINE, BITCH!!!!!!" The whole place went silent. I spun on my heels and took two steps toward her and informed her that I was not budging, but that I was getting my money back for the food I ordered that they didn't have. Keeping her eyes fixed on me, she repeated again, "BITCH." I swear that the only reason she didn't come over and put her fist through my face was because a) she couldn't walk and b) she really wanted her doughnut. 

The boys were behind me and knowing that they needed both their food and an intact human being to drive them back to the game, I decided to keep quiet. And where were all the cops, anyway? They're always there when we don't need them but as soon as I lose my bacon and get screamed at, they're nowhere to be found.

You never know who the bad guys are, you know? Like walking through the mall or sitting in a coffee shop. And in fact, we're usually totally wrong when we think we know who people really are. The guy in the trench coat could have just had a laundry day, and the lady living with 148 cats in the feline rescue house probably waxes her bikini line and insists on leather interior.

The other day I mistook a raccoon for a cat scurrying across the road, and this morning at Tim Hortons I mistook a doughnut-crazed woman for a sane person. Despite each animal's similarities, one will leave the other for dead in an instant. And probably all over a fight for some food scraps.

Our Voices Carry

The greatest human need is the need to be heard. Take away our voice and our story becomes disabled, stunting our ability for healing and forward movement.

And yet in the other direction comes things like blogs and Facebook and Twitter: turbo-charged vehicles that carry our voice straight from heart to Universe. At least a biography takes time and editing and patience and approval--all this social media horse shit (and I'm excreting it on my keyboard right this second) if, manned by a driver under the influence of wrong motive, can cause a major wreck.

And yet we do it anyway. Because for the ten people who will squelch our voice and ridicule our story, there will always be the one who is encouraged and helped.

I find it to be like eating and drinking, and any other verb in this world that we tend to soak dry to fill unmet needs. Eating and drinking can bring people together if done well (when I use the term "well" I refer to an action filled with things like integrity and good health) but if abused can lead to sickness and death. This is why I keep quitting and re-joining Facebook--because I am aware of its explosive nature and I want to tread lightly through its minefield.

I have a friend on Facebook who, like me, is pregnant and due around the same time. And yet she found out that her baby probably won't live until her delivery day and if he does live, he won't live much longer out of the womb. Would it be easier for her to let her voice be disabled along with her baby? Much easier. But this woman stepped out in vulnerability and courage and shared her story with the Universe. I have no doubt that for every ten people who ridicule her and her family for the decisions they have been forced to make, there are a hundred people who are healed by her voice. Who hear her story and from the guts of our humanity, hold her up, breathe in and out beside her and let her speak.

More often than not, that is all we need.

It's Not Pretty

My iPhone 4 has been acting up. Every few days it will kick me out of an app and when I re-start my phone, all of my contacts are erased, and when they get iClouded back over, for some reason the contact info is matched up with the wrong profile picture and ring-tone. For instance, whenever the kids' elementary school phones me, my friend Lora wearing a cowboy hat pops up on my screen and my phone plays "Bad to the Bone."

I figured since my phone is on its way out, that it's about time I did another edition of iPhone Notes. Here goes:

Vitamin K (for blood clotting, to help heal the blood clot in my uterus)

Parsley
Kale
Brussels Sprouts
Broccoli 
Asparagus
Cabbage
Prunes   

Can you say, "diarrhea?!?!?" But I have to admit that my steady diet of Vitamin K foods must have done something for me because that nasty blood clot is all gone!!!

And another one:

www.squatpoop.com

I don't even know what to say about that. I don't remember why I wrote it down but I do remember forwarding the link to my father. He always appreciates these types of things.

Then, thankfully something completely unrelated to bowel movements, I jotted down the name of the girl at the Water Shed who always knows my name and I forget hers (it's Satori), and an author I'd like to check out, "Isabel Allende." Followed by the license plate number of a car parked too close to my van at the Rec Centre (just in case I came back and saw a dent... aren't I a SPAZ?!?)

I jotted down "Shawshank Redemption" (I must have wanted to re-watch it again one day soon) and then the title of a future blog post, "Noodles in My Scarf" which originally held profound meaning I am sure, but now for the life of me, I've no clue what that might have been.  I do, however, remember dropping chow mein down onto the front of me while I piggishly wolfed down dinner while driving somewhere, and feeling frustrated at the difficulty I had of removing the sticky noodles from my woolen scarf. In my head, there's always a possibility for a story and a metaphor. As soon as I am allowed to resume drinking,  I'll be sure to come up with something grand.

And lastly, I jotted down some thoughts on the subject of love:

Feelings are yo-yos. Sometimes we feel like loving and sometimes we don't. The ability to love well is revealed in the secret dark corners, not just when the world is watching. Love is a choice, not just a feeling.

There's so much I would love to write about in regards to those thoughts but maybe I'll save it for another post when I can weave it into some chow mein noodles and wool. For now, I'll stick to the kale and prunes.

Lola Lied

I'm not a cook. I know my strengths and weaknesses and I have no problem admitting that cooking falls into the latter category. Smoke and oven fires are commonplace, as are the shrill sound of the smoke alarm and the carcinogenic char stuck to the side of the meat dish.

Lying has never been my specialty, either. I've gone through phases, dabbled in a huge ass lie or two but I quite suck at it. If my extremely guilty body language doesn't immediately give it away then I will surely pay my penance at night when I lay my head down to try and sleep through my guilt. It just doesn't happen. And quite honestly, (he he) in my experience I have found that a) the pain caused by the lie almost always exceeds the pain found in the truth and, b) truth always comes out anyway. It just does. Maybe not the way we imagine it to surface but it does ooze out in some capacity or another and I know that we all know this. So why do we keep doing it?

Because we're human. We have pride, we have excuses, we have perfectly self-validated reasons for lying and now we're so good at it that it would be a shame to stop. It's addicting. It fulfills our need to be something other than who we are. But then it hides who we really are, and all our pride and excuses and reasons and addictions grow larger than life and all of a sudden we've disappeared altogether. And we're alone. We have nobody left around us to lie to. 

Freddy reminded me tonight of the time we lost "Lola" our red corn snake. One moment she was throwing down mice in her tank and the next she was gonezo. We went on a snake-rampage, searching every little corner of the house, imagining where a little snakey might hide but we kept coming up with nothing. We eventually gave up. Days passed. Weeks passed.

And then one day I sat down on the floor in the computer room to go through my school binders to find an old assignment and when I flipped open the pages, Lola was found folded, chilling and peaceful along the spine of the binder. I fucking FREAKED. I screamed and jumped and threw the binder in the air. The kids ran over to laugh at me and to collect their beloved pet.

Truth comes out. Lies can hide in cool dark corners but nothing charms them to the surface better than a bit of light. And then once they surface we can let go of all that worry that weighs us down, of when it'll show up, and where, and how much will it hurt? Because once it's out, we're light and free and able to go on living.

Smooth Legs and Gasoline

My very first car was a blue 1987 Pontiac Firefly. It only had four gears and three cylinders; every time I climbed a hill I'd lean forward and hold my breath. Taking it over 80km/hour on the freeway satisfied my teenaged urge for an adrenalin rush.

We lived in a huge home in a prestigious area and I parked my Firefly on the side of the road in front of our house. Other drivers hated coming around the corner and near-missing my little blue wonder and so it was no shock to any of us that one balmy summer night, we were awakened by the sound of banging on our front door.

It was just the three of us in the house at that time. My parents were sleeping in the room across the hall from me while I slept soundly in my double bed beside my beloved orange cat, Harley. I was startled awake by the combination of banging on the front door and flashing lights assaulting me through my bedroom window. I jumped up and burst into my parents' room to wake them up.

My dad, leaving his false teeth soaking in the cup in the bathroom and wearing nothing but his tighty whities and a too-tight t-shirt, busted out of bed to see what was going on. He stormed down the stairs and whipped the front door open to greet the group of firemen who were asking if a "Susan Hutchins lives here."

Sitting on the stairs with zit cream on my face, I was too embarrassed to come to the door so my dad, toothless and half naked, exchanged some information with the firemen. Apparently someone had tipped my car over onto its side and my gas tank emptied into the middle of road. We got it all worked out and my dad retreated up the stairs to his bedroom only to realize his too-tight t-shirt was a souvenir from a Deana Carter concert which read, "Did I Shave My Legs For This?" We didn't laugh about it that night but we've made up for it many times since. It's a classic story that goes down in Hutchins' history.

Sometimes we come up with these grandiose plans of how we believe our lives will unfold, you know? And we prepare ourselves for the Good Life: money, success, beauty, prestige, smooth legs. But then sometimes life just happens and we're left standing there, vulnerable and unprotected, wondering who tipped us over when we weren't looking. And it's in those moments where true character shines through and differentiates between the people who stay tipped over and the ones who get right back up. I'm glad that I am surrounded by the people who get right back up. My dad didn't teach me fashion sense, but he taught me tenacity, and that type of thing can't be bought at a concert.

Blazing Battles

The morning after our wedding, I had to wake everyone up really early to get Freddy to his soccer game. I set my alarm on my phone, and when it went off I forced my eyes open just long enough to turn off the obnoxious ringing. Closing my eyes and burying my face back into my pillow, I noticed that I could still see my phone screen lit up behind my eyelids.

Maybe I don't get out much, but I find it fascinating how I could see the details of my screen with my eyes closed even after only looking at it for a split second! Glowing like a hot fire before me, I could read the writing on my iPhone wallpaper: "Worry is a misuse of imagination."

We've all heard how adversity builds character, right? Well Andrew thinks that adversity doesn't build character so much as it shows the world who has got it. Whatever we focus on in the daylight grows us and forms us and then when the lights go out, these things will be what give us the light we need to see through the darkness. If we don't toss a line to the people we love when the going is good, then chances are we won't have anything to hold onto when we're stumbling around through the fog.

I've heard more religious people pray for things they need than ones who thank their God for the things they already have. We walk around like we're entitled to a smooth ride, self-absorbed and stuck in our driver's seat but as soon as we hit a detour we throw our hands in the air and weep bitterly for our misfortune. We wonder why we don't see God in the darkness? Maybe because we don't first notice him in the light.

I completely suck at this--don't get me wrong. If my lights were to go out right this second, I guarantee that the only things left glowing in the dark would be things like Halloween candy and my Costco list. I want to be that person who, when stepping into adversity is guided by the resplendent glow of goodness. I'll get there one day, I hope. As long as I first warm my cold little heart by the heat lamps of gratitude, service, and love. Right after I finish this chocolate bar.