Group Healing

It turns out I have a fatal flaw. Could it be true you are asking yourself? I know, it caught me by surprise as well. In a startling turn of events, it seems I am basically a third grader.

I made this discovery today while I was communing with some llamas.  Oprah and Uma, is what I call them. They live just down the block from me and have quite the dramatic tuft of hair on their heads.

There used to be a Lucille, only now she is mysteriously gone. What happened to Lucille?

Before long those frizzy tufts of hair were inspiring some serious reflection. Llamas are such spiritual guides, I've always thought. The llamas and I believe that I may be suffering from emotional overexposure. Too often I walk around with my whole self completely exposed, right on my skin, like a layer of powdered sugar. My emotions just blow right off my arms in whatever direction the wind takes me, scattering myself all over everyone. Right into your face. Some people don't want powdered sugar in their faces, is the shocking truth.

I have a theory about this. I have a theory that possibly it is our greatest strengths that turn out to be our biggest weaknesses. So today the llamas and I discussed various ways for me to strike the right balance between who God created me to be, and someone who needlessly puts herself in vulnerable places.

Nothing conclusive yet, though I do have another appointment with the llamas tomorrow. What can I say? They are very bossy.

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Today my brain parts are jammed up by Lost finales,
and by how good Matthew Fox looks in a tux.

How To Do A Thursday Right

I woke up very early this morning.  I rolled over to say good morning to Peter Pan, you know, as you do, and after I scratched his little velvet ears and played a drum roll on his ribs he reached over to my pillow and ate the hair elastic that had just slipped off of my hair. Just like that! Down the hatch.  I said to him, "Peter Pan, if you die today, it will be entirely your own fault."

I find I am saying that to him fairly often lately.

One of my dearest friends came to Moscow and today I got to eat a turkey sandwich with her that was the size of my head.  With cranberry cream cheese. As we sat down to eat her brother asked me, "Wow, are you hungry?" and I said, "I probably won't finish this," and then I did.

I played a rousing sonatina on the piano this afternoon, and when it was over the baby kicked me in approval. I thought this was rather nice.

Then I convinced The Holbs to take me and the dogs on a nice long walk through the neighborhood. We tried a route we've never taken and ended up in a giant field full of wishes. There were enough wishes in there to last you all summer. A person could really accomplish some things in there.

During a Grey's Not-Rerun commercial break we saw a preview for Eclipse, and then . . . I died.

And now I am going to go lie in bed and poke the fetus for a while, and possibly ask it what it thought about tonight's Grey's Anatomy, and was it as disappointed as I was when Lexi said I Love You to Alex in front of McSteamy? Because, seriously.

Jazzy, Tucker, Bonita, And Other Stories Of Laziness

Today I am mourning the loss of my fitness regime. Please, could you tell me, have you seen my will power? Perhaps it is in your back yard. Did you check the mail box?

I set out for a two-mile jog today but came home after kicking pebbles on the sidewalk for a scant mile. All day long I wished I was out running and then the minute I was there I felt like eating a slice of watermelon and tanning my freckles instead. My will power really is the rudest thing.

Though, had I not wimped out at the quarter mile mark today I might never have found out the real names of the three horses who live at my favorite house on D Street.  I was feeding them tufts of tall grass at the fence when two little girls in bright pink stopped to toss their hair and adjust their backpacks.

"Do you know their names?" the freckled one asked me, her braces sparkling in the sun. We were kindred spirits, me and Freckles, I could tell.

"Only the names I made up for them," I said.

I'd been calling them Estelle, all three of them, on account of Estelle is just the kind of name you would give to a classy horse.

"I know their real names!" she said. "That one's Jazzy, the brown one's Tucker, and that one over there is Bonita."

"Bonita," I said, letting it roll around in my will-powerless head as the horses nibbled at my fingers.

Then I handed the girls the last of the grass in my hands and I walked my lazy butt home and thought a little bit about purple lilacs.

There is something awry in my brain parts, is all there is to it.

The Holbs: GRADUATED

Two parents, one sibling, and six in-laws later and this girl is ready for a nap.