Tooth Fairy Part V

Mars lost another tooth and received another letter from his tooth fairy!

Dearest Mars the Magic,

I am so pleased to collect your second front tooth. You seem strong and tan and well with summer and friendship in your smiles. This brings me joy and I have been in need of such joy.

I mentioned in my last letter that the other fairies had failed to waken. Well, it’s true. You see, fairies wake and must play the rhythm of the day. Normally fairies all wake and set the rhythm of our day together by our instruments. Without our instruments, fairie’s hearts cannot beat. I woke one morning to find mine was the only one. There can be only one reason for this: Mordvor—the curse.

I never played as long alone as I have during mordvor. It’s been a nightmare to be so lonely without my fellow fairies. I look on them and they lay still, neither sleeping nor dead but simply still. Without others, it’s difficult to find my purpose each day. And yet, the obvious purpose has been to find a countercurse to stop Mordvor. 

I think I’ve got a plan that will work. I intend to craft new instruments for each fairy and use them to awaken them. It won’t stop the curse but it should buy us time.

I’ve helped the latest batch of dart frog eggs to hatch and mature into tadpoles and now must merely wait for the wood where they were eggs to finish seasoning. For only the wood where dart frogs have lain their eggs possesses the magic necessary to make the instruments to wake a fairy’s heart. I am waiting now for a month or so more to see if the instruments I construct will work to wake the fairies. 

I have you to thank, really. When you reminded me of your mother’s fairy, it shook loose this plan. She had once explained to me the means for crafting fairy instruments. Now I must hope and trust that it shall work. 

Until the next tooth, Mars, be well.

With Love,

Tobias Hawthorne Gigglefoot VonRassmusson, III

Watch The Women's World Cup

The WOMEN'S WORLD CUP FINALS
Watch because...
These women have stood up for #blacklivesmatter (or knelt) and gay rights. They play well and win. A lot.  And even though they've found they're way through to playing at this level, their concern is on paving the way to make the sport better for the future. So much so that they've put their own livelihoods and futures in the games on the line and filed a lawsuit for equal pay.

We get farther as women when we support other women. And these women are supporting us. This is the largest and most public means to get at equal pay I've seen in my lifetime. Watch them.

They're a national treasure.

*On a selfish note, I began playing soccer as an adult. I learned more by playing with women on women's teams than any other time. I enjoy it more. I realized why. It's our place. We are there to run the ball. We're not tokens on a men's team. We take up the space. Us. I feel pride in soccer because I feel part of soccer. It's one of my arenas where I still get to grow and get better. So I feel pride in watching women who've grown to the height of the possibility of greatness in this day at this time. I for damn sure yield the arena to these giants. (Also my women's game was cancelled so I could watch today:)

The Experience of a Kumquat

“No thanks. I’ve had a kumquat,” my student says.

“Yes. But you haven’t had a kumquat today. You have to have one today if you’re going to write about it today.”

“Do I have to eat the whole thing?”

I nod and he shakes his head and does it.

Embracing the shitty first draft I bite into the kumquat. The burst of the dull, bitter rind; and the tart and then the sweet that follows. But I cheat and spit out the seeds.

“Do you like kumquats?” he asks me.

“Not exactly.”

I enjoy the experience of kumquats. I enjoy sharing with others something they’ve never tried. I love to see someone’s face the first time a thought strikes them. I like to be the one to deliver a new idea like showing him the Metamorphosis and how “we’re all bugs.” And I rewatch Baraka and remember all the things that move me. I sweat on the treadmill and remember who I am in the sloughing off of what’s toxic to me. I can taste what’s good in me when I let go of what’s bad. It’s not exactly that Baraka is good. It’s that it makes me feel, it makes me think.

Do I believe life has no meaning? Do I like kumquats?

Not exactly. Because it’s not that I like kumquats. They’re an experience though. There’s something about the burst of flavor, the way it pinches the side of your jaw and how minutes later, your saliva is still sweet, an after effect of something so sour.

Not exactly, It’s the kind of answer I give my boys. And then I let them taste the world in all its nuances. “Do I have to eat the whole thing?” Yes, you do. Taste it all. I let them bite into the rind and then they tell me they hate it. They fight to not taste. But I play them punk rock music and they feel too alive to say no. They eat and drink and listen to music and we talk about racism and art and symbols and they tell me they love it and talk so much my brain shuts off.

Do I like kumquats? Maybe I do. The experience of them, the life to them, the punch of laughter and sour and bitter and then the writer sits typing, tasting the sweet after-effects of her thoughts.

Hot Water

Our hot water heater went out on Friday. This sucks, obviously. I'm not psyched about spending money on a hot water heater and installation. Unexpected expenses make me feel a level of out of control that always makes me cry. And I don't enjoy the extra time it takes to boil water so I can take a bath in one inch of water. Neither do I enjoy heating up water on the stove to wash dishes. But, as things that interrupt our routines tend to do, it causes me to think.

I ponder a full tub of hot water, a full sink, water as it had poured before over dishes to rinse them. How much water is it? How much water do we use? How much do we need? I mean, really need?

I think about this video I watched about people having water delivered by a bus driver who volunteers her extra time to bring the water. I think about the shortage, about the damage to water. I think about getting by with 7 gallons of cold water for a week. I think about the connection between women and water. We are the water bearers. I think about our society's treatment of women lately...is drought really any wonder?

I think about waste and water and how good it feels to be clean. How powerful and able I feel when I'm clean. How organized and calm my mind feels when the house is clean and organized. And how I don't work to make this happen, not really. I do the cleaning, sure. But I'm not the one out protecting our water.

I think how the timing of this is bad because I just left my job and so our family income is down. But then the timing is good because it's not winter when the water comes from the tap just barely above freezing. It's good timing because we'd just washed all the laundry. I'd just washed the floors. It's good timing because it's easy enough to walk to the rec center, swim and shower afterwards.

I think about the value of spending time boiling water and the considerations I gave to how full to fill the pot. I think how carefully I have to walk with a full pot of water in my hands, lest a drop sloshes out and burns my foot or worse, my kid's. But neither do I wish to waste the energy heating a half full pot. I fill it and take careful steps, tighten my core and take tiny penguin steps, making sure the kids are out of my path. I rinse dishes in one pot's worth, carefully planning which to rinse and wash first to keep the water cleanest the longest.

I consider whether this inconvenience need truly impact my happiness. What truly matters in making a happy life? What level of convenience do I need? It's nice to have big, clean spaces but is it what builds my life into a happy whole? I suspect not. I suspect what makes life grand is more than hot water that's boiled or not, more than clean floors. It must have something to do with wind in my hair and sun on my legs. Or time listening and touching. It must have to do with time spent on a rocker and friendship and conversation. It must have something to do with deliberation, even if it's over something like boiling water and taking penguin steps to the bath.

I feel calmer sometimes after doing these tasks, taking this time, thinking about small things and big things and how they are sometimes the same. I feel like it's valuable to think about the things we use daily. Our lives are a wonder compared to most other points in human history. Hot water can just pour and pour. Until it can't. I think.

Stop Licking That Author Reading in Denver on June 10!

Stop Licking That Author Reading in Denver on June 10!

Who: Parents, grandparents, readers, kids

There will be a separate simultaneous story time for kids so adults can enjoy the interactive reading

When: Saturday, June 10, 2017 at 10:30 AM.

What: Listen to excerpts from my new novel, Stop Licking that in a gorgeous, hip bookstore in Denver. I'll share tips like ways to use duct tape on your toddler's winter wear, and why to teach your kids to blow snot rockets. We'll play a game of telephone and maybe, just maybe, play SuperVALLEY Girl Says!

Signed copies available at the event.

Where: Second Star to the Right

• 1 (303) 455-1527
• 4353 Tennyson St.
  Denver, CO 80212
• info@secondstartotherightbooks.com
  

The Blue that shows through

You have to spray away the muck when you can. This morning I washed the car on my way into the office. I pulled under the white and blue painted concrete and lifted the nozzle to spray away all the grime of the past weeks. Mountain cars get a special level of dirty and return quickly to that state.
And yet.

As I sprayed away the grime, I saw the flaws it filled in for. The dirt was over the nicks and marks of rocks that have chipped away at the burgundy paint. A scrape here or there from where the kids dragged a stick along the side body, suddenly glares in the sun, freshly exposed. One of the fog light covers, a perfect sphere, without the mud, its cracks scatter the promise of clarity.

I rest the muscles of my hand for a moment, releasing the grip on the hose, considering whether I could repaint the car myself this summer. Nevermind the many more pressing chores on my list of things I won't get done, I wonder about this one. I could paint the car. A vision of papered over windows and carefully taped pieces flits and I imagine spraying paint, renewing the car's exterior. I imagine us as those people who can keep things nice. The ones who take on projects and keep their yards free of clutter, the ones who refinish furniture and keep annotated baby books. At times I regret how we can't be those people who meticulously care for things, keeping organized stacks and shelves, de-cluttered counters and clean shower stalls. We have a light bulb that's covered by a sarong for one of our light fixtures. We just aren't that.

I think of a woman who lived next door to us when I was a kid. She rented the house with her 3 kids who were often dirty. I don't remember her name. I don't know why I remember her wearing jean shorts. I remember her Gremlin changing colors though. One day it was blue and then she came outside in her jean-shorts and taped paper over the windshield and passenger windows, followed by the rear and driver's sides. She taped the wheels and then had a small handheld sprayer she used to paint the car white.

I think of white trash when I think of her, even though her kids were among my favorite in history to play with. We had a staple gun fight in the basement, followed by throwing matches we struck against the box at one another. Her daughter taught me about makeup and hairstyles and we watched MTV for hours. Her name was Cassandra and she knew dangerous things like how to throw a shawl of hair over your shoulder and disregard being called sharp words like "slut."

I watched their mom repaint that car and invented a boyfriend she was hiding out from. They'd run away from him and he'd never know it was them because she'd made the car white instead of blue. I always watched that car when she'd pull in at the end of the day and wondered if I really saw, or only remembered the blue showing through that white Gremlin's exterior.

I think of this as squeeze the handle and go back to spraying away the grime of our lives half-assedly. I won't paint the car. But maybe I'll get a new windshield. Maybe I'll look out through an unpitted, new windshield, and lie to myself about the cleanliness of our view.

Gomez's kidneys

When Gomez was 4 months old, he spiked a very fever in the middle of the night with no other cause. I called my mom to come over so we didn't have to wake Mars & take him to the ER with us. She came right over and off we went.

Gomez had no other symptoms. Just a high fever. So they sent us home and we followed up in the next day and week with trips to see his doctor and then specialists to find out what was going on.

It would turn out he had a kidney malformation of the ureters that caused a reflux that meant he would have chronic bladder and kidney infections. They put him on daily prophylactic antibiotics and waited to see if it would get better.

It didn't. So at 11 months, he had major kidney surgery.

Now I know many people who have kids with really serious illnesses and this is not that. All along we were fortunate and knew that this was a highly fixable and routine abnormality. I knew he'd be okay in time and with help.

Still, it's a lot to see your baby have his entire abdomen cut open. It's painful to watch your baby try to stand up and walk with 9 tubes coming out of him including an epidural. I'd never even had an epidural. It was terrifying to watch him not eat or drink because of the pain.

For the last 4 years, we've had ultrasounds for Gomez, first at four months to see how bad the reflux was, and again later at 10 months, then surgery, then more ultrasounds since to make sure the surgery was successful and to monitor the amount of scar tissue in his belly.

Every follow up ultrasound has come back with the doctor asking us to follow up in 6 months or a year. He's wanted to keep an eye on it. He's had concerns about the scar tissue.

This was the first one that Rob took Gomez in for. They got up and left the house at 7 this morning to take him to Denver to see how the scar tissue is doing, to be sure the ureters aren't leaking, to be sure he's okay. Meanwhile, Magnus and I had a special breakfast together at our favorite local spot. Then I dropped him at school, and went to work.

20 minutes ago, I got a text from Rob saying that Gomez is cleared. It's finally over. Gomez is fine.
I had no idea how much that little bit of worry existed. I didn't realize how much I worried that he could need to have additional surgery. I knew it was there but didn't think much of it, back there gnawing away at my stability until I read the text.

I literally can't stop crying from gratitude and relief. I think I might be worse at handling good news than bad news because I literally bawled at this news.

I wrote about his surgery in my book but the story wasn't really over until today. It's over. It's over. It's over.

What freakin' awesome news.

Amid my crying and celebrations, I received 2 additional texts from Rob.
#1 was a picture of the upcoming shows at a theater in Denver. We've been having an ongoing disagreement about whether you can refer to "Bone: Thugs in Harmony" as "Bone Thugs" which I argue is not okay and he says is. And they're coming to DENVER! So there was that picture.
and
#2 Gomez says his birthday is on the Fourth Bewakens.

So let's all celebrate by listening to bad 90s rap and eating cake. THE FOURTH BEWAKENS & I miss my uncle Charles, ya'll...