I've Got the Keys!

Have you ever had one of those days when you are nannying and the toddler is up in his crib taking a nap and you lock yourself out of the house?  Yeah...me neither...

Ok, so that's not true.  Had you asked me that question two days ago, I could have safely rolled my eyes and said, "Of course not!  Who would do that?", buuuuut <enter yesterday> and now I have to recant that statement.

Lil' Man was finally asleep upstairs, tucked under a pile of Clifford, Winnie the Pooh, and Yellow Duck, so that was my cue to take Rocko out for his midday walk.  Coat: check.  Boots: check.  Rocko on his leash: check.  Keys: check.  No, really, I had the keys in my pocket.  

We trudged down the three flights of stairs, out the front door, and through the gate.  Our walk commenced as usual--Rocko stopping to sniff everything, me dragging him down the sidewalk; Rocko freezing in place to menacingly stare down another dog that is at least two blocks away, me dragging him across the street; Rocko chewing on a fallen branch, me dragging him through the gate--ya know, nothing out of the ordinary.  I unlocked the entry door, walked to the top of the stairs with Rocko bringing up the rear, and unlocked the front door.  Remembering that I hadn't put my "Please Do Not Buzz" sign on the bell downstairs (a necessity during Lil' Man's naptime), I removed Rocko's leash, tossed it--along with the keys--onto the white bench by the front door, and grabbed my little sign.  Keeping the door cracked, I quickly ran down the steps to the entry door and taped the sign on the buzzer.  In that time expanse of about 10 seconds, I actually thought to myself, "Wouldn't that be horrible if the door shut somehow, and I was locked out?"  Yeah, ya know what?  That would, in fact, be horrible.  You know how I know that?  Because I got back to the top of the stairs and was absolutely mortified when I pushed on the door...and it refused to move!

I.  Was.  Locked.  Out.

"Rocko!  Rocko!  Jump up on the door!  Turn the handle!"  I pleaded with the Boxer who wouldn't know the difference between a door handle and a dog bone.  As if he was really going to magically jump up and figure out how to turn the handle.  I could hear him whining on the other side of door and imagined him giving that dumb look where he cocks his head to the side and his ears perk up at the words "Outside" or "Dinner".  What on earth was I supposed to do?  I tried to look up a locksmith on my phone...but nooo, since I was trapped in the stairwell, the internet wasn't connecting very well.  I texted Hubs.  Poor, sick, sinus-infected Hubs who was sitting at the doctor's office at that very moment.  There was a mix of texts and calls between us.  I ran down to the first floor neighbor.  I'm sure she wondered who in creation was the crazy, panicked girl at her door.  Did she have a spare key?  Of course not.  Silly me.  She called the second floor neighbor who went up with a credit card to try to pop the lock.  Did they have a different handle and lock than he did on his door?  Of course they did.  At some point, Hubs found a locksmith for me who was "on the way".  Yeah, I've heard that one before, Locksmith People and Cable Company Guys.  In the meantime, I ran across the street to the only other neighbor I knew of who might possibly have a spare key.  My last vestiges of hope faded as I discovered she wasn't home.  (Sidenote: She might have in fact been home.  I would have known that had I been banging on her door and not her neighbors'.  Anyway...)

I sauntered forlornly back across the street and sat dejectedly on the steps, waiting for Mr. Locksmith.  He finally arrived, jauntily making his way across the street.  "So what happened here?" he said with a smile and a thick accent.  Really?  Oh, nothing, Mr. Overly Happy Locksmith, just thought today would be a great day to lock myself out of the house.  I led him and his little bag of door unlocking goodies up the stairs.  He stared at the door for a few seconds and said, "This is an expensive lock.  If you don't want me to break the lock, I need to use certain tools.  It will be...eh...120."  Good gracious, he better mean it will be 120 seconds to open it.  

He did not mean that.  As I croaked out "120?" and managed to catch myself from toppling backwards down the stairs, he already had his little gadgets in the door and with a *bang* it popped open.  A wave of relief washed over me. Yes!  I was back in the house!  But said wave was quickly pulled out to sea again when I had to pay Mr. Overly Happy Locksmith his $120.  Pretty sure he scammed me right outta that money.  But in that moment, I really had little other choice.  I was just so happy to have that ordeal over.  I think I even hugged Rocko...

Moral of the story, kids: Always take your keys with you.  Always.  

Oh, and don't charge people $120 if you are a locksmith.  

The Over/Under Debate

Chicago winter is here in full swing...however, it's deceptively beautiful outside today.  The sky is blue, the sun is shining...but the wind is whipping its icy fingers down the quaint street on which I work.  Until recently, my only job was to take care of Lil' Man for a few hours a day.  Now that Lil' Man's female parental unit works long days, I have a new task added to my list: take Rocko (aka: Stupidface, as his owners have so lovingly dubbed him) out for a midday walk.  The boxer and I walked out the front door this afternoon and were greeted by a chilly blast of air in our faces.  As we walked, my nose started running, my leg hairs began growing back (ladies, you understand!), and my fingers became red and stiff.  And of course, Rocko decided that today was the perfect day to take his sweet ol' time outside.  Stupidface, indeed.

By the time we made our rounds, stopped at his favorite spots, and disposed of his steamy baggie of excrement (TMI?) in the alley dumpster, I was chilled to the bone and more than ready to heat up my organic creamy low sodium tomato soup that awaited me in the fridge.  We finally made it back upstairs, and in no time my de-thawed fingers and I had whipped up a piping hot bowl of thick, delicious tomato soup with fresh cracked pepper and parmesan cheese. *cue choir of angels singing*  All was well...until the inevitable unthinkable happened:    

Noooo!

Some anti-happiness, invisible force swooped down, unannounced, and rattled the bowl right out of my hand!  Alright, fine, in my eagerness to partake of the hot, orange deliciousness, I clumsily tipped the bowl as I was pulling it off the counter.  But I still like the "invisible force" story... 

*Sigh* So not only is tomato soup dripping down the bowl, the counter, and pooling in inedible puddles on the floor, it's also menacingly sitting on the inside of my shirt cuff, threatening to pour down my sleeve, all the way up to my elbow, if I so much as made one wrong move.  Tend to the shirt sleeve, then take care of the rest of the mess.  But as frustrated as I was at the current happenings, I was pleasantly surprised when I turned around to see that Stupidface had redeemed himself for dilly dallying on our frigid walk...

  

Thanks, Rockstar!

He is good for something!  Well, needless to say, after clean-up was complete, I (and my sopping wet shirt sleeve) was only able to enjoy a few bites of barely warm tomato soup.  At least Rocko was able to get his hot. 

Thinking about my unfortunate mishap reminded me about another small household blunder that occurred at my apartment the other day.  Now, I know that for years, people have argued about the proper way to position a toilet paper roll on its holder.  The Over/Under Debate as I like to call it.  Should the toilet paper hang over the front of the roll or under (behind) the roll?  I realize this debate is probably a dying argument and most people don't really have a feeling one way or another about it.  Call me old school for even caring, but I have always been (and always will be) an "over" girl.  But, I like to be reasonable, especially about a pointless argument, so I have never brought this topic up with Hubs.  I figure there's a good chance he's never even heard of such a debate and would probably think I'm insane for insisting he put the toilet paper on in the "over" fashion.  If he puts a new roll on--and it's most always "under"--I simply switch it to the "over" position the next time I'm in the bathroom.  This has worked out just fine for the past 8 months, so no point in ruffling feathers.  But for those of you who no doubt think I'm ridiculous for caring about such a trivial matter, let me share with you a most excellent reason why the "over" position is truly the proper way to go.

The other day, I sauntered into the bathroom to grab a couple squares of TP to blow my nose.  I leaned over the top of the roll and gave it a little tap to start the unrolling process.  It spun around, but the available end wasn't dangling in the front.  So I just gave it another spin.  And another.  And another.  I spun to no avail!  The free end refused to make its presence known!  Finally using both hands, I slowly rolled it around and around, trying to spy the end like finding a stuck piece of packing tape on its roll.  Still nothing!  What was going on?!  What was this toilet paper trickery?  Maddeningly puzzled, I finally stepped back.  And this is what I saw:

   

Well, no wonder I couldn't find the end.  It was lying at the bottom of a messy toilet paper heap that I had unknowingly rolled out onto the tiled floor.  I had failed to spot one of Hubs' "under" placed rolls!  *Sigh*  Won't be making that oversight again.

So you see, faithful readers, there certainly is an advantage to an "over"-positioned roll.  Trust me, you will think about this the next time you are about to do your business.  But don't worry, if you fail to see the beauty of an "over" placed roll, you can rest assured that I will gladly fix it for you if I'm ever at your humble abode. ;)  

A Fatherless Child's Tale

Gentle flakes of snow swirled and danced around the drab building on that chilly January morning.  Cars rumbled down Harrington Boulevard, nothing amiss; it was just another typical Saturday.  But not for the small, close-knit family huddled together in that dimly lit room on the fifth floor of the hospital.  Life continued on outside those walls...but a life was slowly fading on the inside...

It couldn't have been real.  And so soon.  Just a few short hours before, she had taken a shaky hand and signed that hospice paper.  Every second, before her pen touched that dotted line, she willed that her other brother would walk back in the room to sign it in her place.  She was literally signing her father's life away.  And now, just a few aching minutes after eleven in the morning, she watched as his frail chest rose ever-so-slightly under that loose hospital gown...listened as each of his shallow breaths grew farther and farther apart...and felt time stand still while her mind still blurred and reeled with a thousand unending thoughts.

She saw herself, 4 years old again, standing in the middle of the living room, baby doll in one hand, a plastic tea cup in the other.  Before her stood a child-size, plastic ironing board, which she thought made a better table.  Two tiny plastic plates sat on the ironing board, and her dad walked in with two steamy sausage patties, which he placed on each plate.  They each pulled up a make-shift chair, and together, father and daughter embarked on one of their favorite pastimes.  A Sausage Patty Party.  For the two of them, regular ol' tea parties were highly overrated...

Now she was 7.  Wrench in hand, she climbed the crisp, white stairs up to the pool deck.  For her, summer truly began when it was time to help put the ladder into the swimming pool.  She gently placed the wrench on the nut and washer that held the ladder in place.  Calling down below to him to assure him she was ready for his instruction, she waited patiently for the sound of the rachet and the feel of her wrench being pushed against metal as the ladder tightened into place.  Nothing feels greater than helping your daddy with a "very important" project...

She was 10...Christmas morning.  Bounding down the hallway toward the living room, she proudly announced, "I'm double digits now!"  Oh, how her dad laughed.  Laughed and laughed.  She could barely remember a time that she had made her dad laugh by something she said.  In this moment, how clever he thought she was.  How happy that made her to know that her childish wit had brought such a joy to her father...

A 15-year-old nervous wreck--hands at 10&2 on the steering wheel--sat in the driver's seat of that old Ford Tempo.  She slowly pulled up to a stoplight, her ear's trying to block out the sound of her mother's fretful breathing and frantic foot-stomping on the imaginary break in the backseat.  As the turn was made and the stoplight left in the background, her father, quiet and wise, merely said, "Do you know what you did wrong?"  With her eyes suddenly wide, she said frantically, "No!  What?!"  With an almost unnoticeable smirk, he said, "You ran that red light."  Had he not been so nonchalant, she (and probably her frenzied mother in the backseat) would probably have passed out.  He had a way of being on even keel like that...

She was 17 that summer, just back from a mission trip to a tropical island.  She patiently awaited the arrival of her parents to collect her and drive her 9 hours back to their home.  They pulled up in the parking lot, and she ran out to greet them, anxious to tell them all about her experiences.  The first one out of the car was her father, his salt-and-pepper hair waving in the warm Nashville breeze.  He wiped away tears from his eyes as he embraced her.  She was pretty certain she had absolutely never seen her dad cry.  Wow...he must have really missed her a whole lot... She didn't always think of herself as "daddy's little girl".  But in that moment, she realized she was...had always been...and would always be...

Now here she stood in this hospital room; 26 year's old, but feeling very much like a tiny, lost child.  For the past few days, although surrounded by family and a wonderful, dear friend, she had felt very lost and quite helpless.  Three nights ago, she had sat, sobbing, in the walk-in closet of another sweet friend's apartment, more than 500 miles away from this wretched hospital room.  Her hands had shook as she tried to grip her cell phone that night, while her chestnut-haired friend draped a loving arm around her shoulder.  "My dad isn't doing well at all.  My brother said if he were me, he would come home tonight.  They are gonna buy me a plane ticket," she gasped between sobs.  Taking charge, her friend jumped up, offering a ride to the airport and a pick of any articles of clothing from the closet for the the trip ahead.  Numb, but grateful, she rummaged through the clothes and grabbed a few items.  Coincidentally that morning before heading into work, she'd grabbed her backpack with a change of clothes and her cell phone charger to spend the evening with her friend.  No, not coincidentally.  God had orchestrated that.  He knew she wouldn't be returning to her own apartment that night.                    

The almost empty plane that late evening was ridden with mixed emotions.  She was glad it was taking her to see her family.  But angry at the reason.  This only happened to other people.  Only other people lost their fathers to cancer.  Sometimes she was hopeful...her father wasn't really going to die.  He was in the hospital, but just for another routine IV or port cleaning or something like that.  By Sunday, she'd be in a plane again heading back to Nashville while her father went home to their house.  But then she would realize that perhaps that hope was just denial.  Her brother wouldn't have been so adamant that she come home if he hadn't believed it would be the last time they would see their daddy.  She pulled out the only other *random* (but perhaps not so random) item she had packed in her backpack that morning...her blue-bound Bible.  For whatever reason, she turned to Romans chapter 5 and read.  A verse jumped off the delicate page at her like a hand off a hot stove, and after she read it, in a shaky hand she underlined it as tears began to fall again.  "...and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us."  She gently wrote the date, 1/6/2010 next to the verse and in parenthesis wrote the sweet name "Pop-o".  She was probably one of the only girls around who didn't call her father "dad" or "daddy"...and that suited both of them just fine.  

Relief set in that night after she arrived at the hospital and saw his weakly smiling face.  He's ok for the moment she thought to herself.  But he didn't really *look* ok.  He looked tired, worn, weak.  Sick.  But at least she saw his face, heard his raspy, quiet voice.  At least she hugged him and felt a feeble arm attempt to hug her back.  A fitful night of sleep overtook her as she tried to rest on the blue vinyl chair in his hospital room.  At some point the next day, she drove her mom's car home by herself so she could shower and change into borrowed clothes.  She stepped into the empty house and made her way down the hallway to her parents' bedroom.  Her father's unmade side of the bed--where he had slept and grown sicker and weaker over the past couple of months--called to her.  Like an infant, she curled into the fetal position in his spot...and wept.

How could it be that just two short days later, she stood, weeping again, in his hospital room, watching him take his final breaths?  How could it be that just a few short hours ago her family had placed him in hospice care? Why was he dying so soon?   At that moment, she hated hospice.  She hated cancer.  She hated the ugly pneumonia in her father's exhausted lungs.  She had hated the breathing machine in his nose.  Now she hated that it wasn't there anymore, helping him breath.  She hated that in the last day or so he hadn't been awake enough to talk or even make eye contact.  She hated that one of her brothers had been in the room the night before and got to see their father wake up for a moment and acknowledge what was going on.  And now she hated to see her mother, weeping, crawling into the tiny hospital bed, trying to curl up next to the man she had loved and been married to for the past 47 years.  It was all too much.  And just as her heart was about to burst out of her chest, she agonizingly watched as one last shallow gasp of air escaped his lips.   Her knees gave away, a "No!' flew out of her mouth with a barrage of sobs, and she crumpled into a heap on the cold tiled floor.  In a flash, her two older brothers were on each side of her, holding her, crying with her.  She didn't care then--she only cared that she was now fatherless--but looking back, oh how grateful she was that they had been there...

*****

Have three years really gone by since that day?  It doesn't seem possible.  But it's true.  Sometimes she still cries for him.  And she misses him.  Dearly.  But she remembers that night on the plane...the verse in Romans that sprang off the page at her.  And she has hope.  Hope that she will see her father again someday.  Why?  Because a day before he took his last breath, she learned that he had made the only decision that would usher him into the gates of heaven when he moved on from this life.  A decision that she (and many) had prayed her whole lifetime that he would make.  She also has hope that life here continues on.  That it is good.  And beautiful.  She has experienced the pain of a lost loved one, but she also knows the joy of new lives born, new families made, new adventures to experience.  She knows the love of family and friends.  The mercy and grace of her heavenly Father.  As well as the memories of her earthly father.  Sweet, lovely memories that she will cherish forever.  How she wished her father had been there to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day, that he had been there to dance with her on the wooden dance floor.  But how thankful she was that her amazing brothers, whom her father lives on through, were there that day to do what he was unable to do.  She looks at her mother, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews and knows that her father lives on through all 10 of them...no, all 11 of them, including herself.  She looks in the mirror and sees her dad's nose and the dark circles under his eyes.  And yes, she misses him...oh how she misses him...but she knows she will see him again.

In loving memory of Joseph Charles Klug II

aka "Pop-o"

March 29, 1944-January 9, 2010

Love always,

Your Booga Booga

Chicago Five

Who would have thought it would have taken me (yes, me who loves to write) this long to finally have my own blog?  It's a good thing my loving husband (who shall henceforth be known as "Hubs") saw my potential and bugged encouraged me until I took action.  Thus, you have "...think the dancer mad".

With a brand new year ahead of us, it seems only fitting that I start off on this brand new venture of blogging.  Speaking of new things, the most novel *big* thing in my life to date is my marriage to Hubs just 7 (almost 8!) short months ago.  Not that I'm biased, but our wedding was probably the best wedding ever.  Just sayin'.

Anyway, with our newly tied knot, we started our life together in Chicago, the "windy city".  I had visited Chicago several times, but never in my life did I envision myself actually living there.  I'm a kind of a city girl, but not a "big city" girl, more like a "just-outside-of-Detroit-but-with-a-small-section-of-my-heart-in-the-middle-of-nowhere" city girl and Hubs is a self-proclaimed good ol' country boy from Florida...so life in a place the size of Chicago is an adjustment for both of us (although Hubs has about 2 years on me of living here).  Within my first couple months of living in our happy lil' corner of the north Loop, I quickly learned some very valuable things about Windy City living.  A small handful of those have stood in the forefront as being the most important I have learned thus far.  I shall affectionately call those "The Chicago Five".  And so, in no particular order, I present them:

1. Do not wear flip flops in the rain.      

The very day after we made the trip back from Michigan in the moving truck and began to unload at our apartment, the rain fell in torrential sheets.  It was June and warm(ish), and being that wet socks and tennis shoes (or any closed toed shoe for that matter) are something I loathe, flip flops seemed the only logical choice.  Alas, this is incorrect.  Walking in the pouring rain down Chicago sidewalks, through puddles, and across streets laden with who-knows-what manner of drips, drops, and piles proved less-than-desirable.  As my rubber soles suctioned-cupped themselves to the sidewalks, sending my bare feet ahead of them onto the grungy sidewalks, I vowed to dig my favorite pair of rain boots out of the trunk of my packed car.  Lesson learned.

2. To get your "'L' Legs", ride a packed train car at rush hour on the way to Wrigley Field
Watching Chicagoans effortlessly stand on an 'L' (the elevated train that whisks people around Chicago) while texting, eating, or drinking coffee amazes me.  They never hold on and still manage to barely sway as the train whips and glides above (and sometimes underneath) the city.  I was bound and determined to become one of those people.  I began to perfect the art form on a Red Line ride from our apartment to a Cubs baseball game one summer evening.  On such a ride, you are so packed in as tight as a can of sardines, that frankly, you aren't going anywhere anyway.  I was able to practice my firm-footed stance while slightly and occasionally bouncing off Hubs behind me, the curly brown hair of the nurse in front of me, the sweaty arm of the rotund man to the left of me, and the back of the fellow Cubs' game attender to the right of me.  In no time at all, I was sure that had each of those people not been there, I would still be standing tall.  And able to sip a cup of hot coffee.  I'm still working on it, but that particular ride sure did help my efforts.

3. To effectively parallel park, you will have to--more often than not-- "Chicago Bump"    

I hate parallel parking.  As a matter of fact, when I took my driving test at 16, I failed the parallel parking part, but my instructor passed me anyway, 'cause she said I'll never have to use it.  She was wrong.  Parallel parking is pretty much the only kind of parking here in the city.  I thought I could scrimp by and never have to do it...but I do.  But I've learned a very valuable tidbit of help: you can gently "bump" a car in front of or behind you, and no ones thinks twice about it.  Everyone does it.  Or so I've been told.  I'm just gonna go with it.

4. Rats in the city are, quite possibly, bionic.       

I don't really know how important this point is.  But it's a fact.  Or at least in my own imagination it's a fact.  The first time I saw a city rat, I thought a small dog had crossed my path.  They are huge.  And gross.  And everywhere.  Ok, ok, maybe they aren't that huge.  And honestly, they aren't everywhere.  But I'm pretty sure they are larger than average rats.  And they do show up more frequently than in mere back alleys.  But I'm still not convinced that they aren't bionic...

5. Always...always...double bag your groceries.    
Everyone walks in the city (unless you are parallel parking, of course).  You walk to the bank, a restaurant, work, the grocery store.  And unless you have reusable shopping bags, you double bag your groceries.  Cashiers know this, baggers know this, even the homeless man at the corner knows this.  I, however, thought I was exempt from such a rule.  One dreary, drizzly afternoon, I needed to run to the store to grab a few items.  I parked my car at Hubs' school and ran not even half a block to the store.  I paid for the things I needed at the self-pay machine and speedily threw everything into two separate bags.  I thought, "I'm not going that far.  I don't need to double bag this."  Famous last words.  I was just a few yards from the store when the inevitable "Kevin McCallister in Home Alone" moment happened.  The bottom of my bag gave way, and I watched in horror (and drizzly rain) as my yogurt, butter, and cans of beans happily frolicked toward Chicago Avenue.  I frantically tried to grab my items and shove what I could into the other bag and my purse, while still attempting to maintain my umbrella.  It was sheer disaster.  And probably movie scene material.  Thankfully, a generous soul appeared (I think out of nowhere...maybe...) and covered me with his striped umbrella while I continued to stuff my wares into any available open space on my person.  I still salute you, Man with the Striped Umbrella, wherever you are.  Oh, and I also asked my mom for reusable shopping bags for Christmas...

So, there you have my "Chicago Five".  I'm sure I will learn many other gems of useful information during my time here...I will wholeheartedly embrace each one.  And share them with you as they come to me. ;)

Well, my faithful (hopefully) readers, that's all for today.  Until we meet again!