Frosting Deprivation – then Backlash!

This summer I went to a birthday party for a person that doesn't like cake. This is a completely foreign concept to me, by the way. At the time I was sorta happy to not have the calories. But over the next couple weeks I kept thinking about frosting – which is the real reason I like cake. You can't just have frosting, coincidentally, you have to have cake to anchor the frosting – and it allows you to pleasurably consume more frosting if you have cake than if you were just eating frosting out of the jar. Not that I've done that – oh no, never, never. Ok, maybe once or twice. Or that I've conducted a scientific study. But I am pretty sure I'm right about this frosting stuff. I have a lot of experience.

At any rate, I went to a lunch at P.F. Chang's with some girlfriends. They have those mini-desserts. After lunch, I ordered first and I asked for two: the velvet cake and the chocolate one. You should've seen the look on the face of the girl across from me. "I didn't know you could order more than one!"
she blurted. I giggled, but honestly, I don't think mine is a revolutionary idea…no one likes to be limited, do they? Both the desserts I ordered have plenty of icing.

About a week later I found myself dog sitting for some friends. I went to the store to buy myself some snacks and found myself in front of a single-sized serving of carrot cake. Coincidence? Probably not. Here's the cake before I consumed it – look at that frosting-to-fork ratio!

I was surprised that I couldn't eat the whole thing in one sitting – and not even in a single day. I would normally say that's a sign of maturity and growing up…but I really don't think a mature person would still eat so much of the cake that they feel icky. Granted I felt slightly better after complaining on FaceBook that I ate too much frosting. But it didn't stop me from finishing the cake the next day (and getting a minor sugar rush/wooziness all over again). 

I must conclude from this experience that I should've had cake the day of the birthday party because I had thought about it so much that my body needed it.  In the end that would've saved me a lot of calories.

The moral of the story is: even if you don't like cake, people expect birthday cake at a birthday party. (So please have mercy on us and have cake anyways!)

Memory Lapse (High School)

I found myself in one of those situations where I was feeling disgruntled and simultaneously appalled that I was feeling that way. Does that happen to you?

A high school buddy "friended" me on FaceBook and his profile picture showed someone I didn't really recognize. I was vaguely offended that this person had "gone on" with his life and visibly aged – that they didn't fit into the mold or the image I still held of him. At the same time, it was cool to see that he'd turned out totally different than I expected and that he seemed super happy. Really, this was a minor player in my high school life (and never a romantic interest). It's akin to the feeling I have when my cousins (who were 2 when I met them) started driving, or graduated high school or (gasp) got married. It's jarring and elating all at once.

So it got me thinking specifically about high school. I HATED high school. Or, more specifically I HATED Greeley. I've basically blocked a lot of that experience from my mind, I think. For example, in the last few months the following events came up:

• A friend says I wrote letters to him one summer that he spent out of state. While writing letters to an acquaintance that is out of state is definitely something I would've done as a teenager, I had no recollection of this until he produced the letters.
  
• Another friend emailed me that "every time I hear Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard, I think of sitting on your kitchen floor and singing that at the top of our lungs". I can totally see us doing this – because we were
  HOT (so hot), Sticky Sweet! From [our] heads to [our] feet! Yeah!
  But again, I have absolutely no recollection of it.
  
• I found this picture of me on FaceBook:
  

  
  
  

Don't I look like I'm happy and carefree and obnoxious? Even though they seem totally in character with how I remember myself during that time, I just don't remember those moments. I do, however, remember just about everything since the minute I left Greeley.

There were certainly some good things that came of my time in Greeley (my best friend to this day, my brother and I learned to drive, my parents were the happiest I'd seen them in a while, I learned how to survive in "typical America", etc.) but I counted the minutes until I could leave.

I moved to college in the fall of 1988 and spent the next year coming back to Greeley on the occasional weekend to visit my mom and brother. When my dad came back from his remote tour and the family moved to New York State, I gave Greeley the double-bird in the rearview mirror and avoided it for the next several years.

I remember the first time I was asked to go back and do something fun with a friend. I really didn't want to, but it was important to her so eventually I said I'd go. She drove. When we got to the old section of town, my body had a physical reaction – my throat closed up, I gulped for air and hyper ventilated. But it largely turned out to be anticlimactic. So I got to thinking maybe it was really just my issue. In fact many of my high school buddies still lived there – and were raising their families there.

There are some obvious superficial reasons that I disliked Greeley almost immediately when we moved there:

• I was in High School in Las Vegas. But in Greeley, 9^th grade was still Jr. High. (Huge insult at 14!)
  
• In Las Vegas I had 6 classes – including computers!!!
  
• In Greeley I had to take 7 classes AND they didn't have a computer class (what sort of backwards place was this to not have computers in the mid-1980s?!?). So I had to pick 2 classes to join mid-semester that I didn't think I would fail. So I took Home Ec (my male counselor seemed to think I could handle that) and French 2 (since I was in French 3 by the time we left Germany, I figured this was safe, plus the counselor wouldn't let me go higher than that without some sort of testing despite what my transcript said).
  
• Everyone in Greeley had lived there for a lifetime. This was unfathomable to me. I actually had someone tell me "don't talk to him; he wet his pants in the 3^rd grade". So, apparently a single mistake in an entire lifetime would never be forgiven AND I was lacking a lifetime of history which would tell them who I "really" was. This was completely foreign to a kid that moved every 2 years on average.
  

And a couple reasons I was slow to let go of my prejudice:

• I got to read Romeo and Juliet for the 3^rd time (and in my third school).  Lucky me - but my essay was easy to "write"...
  
• I took all the math (my favorite subject) my school even offered by the end of my junior year, but if I'd lived on the "better" side of town I could've gone to a high school that offered Calculus.
  
• My Speech/Semantics teacher thought it was appropriate to let 2 students use the PA-system for their project. These two students had the principal announce that there had just been a shooting in the front drive and that the school was on lock-down. They used the next 10 minutes to observe our communication and then presented on "the language of duress" or some nonsense. Note that this is a good decade+ before Columbine. Nevermind that I'd actually lived through something similar when we were overseas (but with unknown foreign terrorists to blame, not American teenagers). After class I told the teacher about that incident and that I sincerely hoped she lost her job. I didn't follow through on going to the principal though – after a little reflection he was also without the ability to judge appropriateness (since he was a participant).
  

There were some other less obvious reasons:

• A girlfriend of mine was raped by one of her sister's friends at a party her older sister threw when the parents were out of town.
  
• Another girlfriend was raped while walking home from cheerleading practice.
  
• Another friend's mom got a restraining order against her dad when they moved out. Eventually my friend and her mom just left town in the middle of the night with no forwarding address. We did hear from them later…but several months later.
  
• One of my girlfriends had her mom and dad start charging her rent the day she turned 18. This was mid-way through our senior year. Who does that?
  

I'm not saying these things don't happen. I think one of my biggest issues with Greeley is that it was billed as "an all-American town – the perfect place to raise a family". It's not like a "big city" where everyone universally accepts that "bad things" happen.

Beneath the lovely veneer Greeley was insidious and creepy. I always get the image of the witch in Snow White when I think about this… At this point, Greeley's grown enough that its creepiness would be expected, in my unsolicited opinion. Or maybe it's just me – and my trite coming-of-age experience.

Thanks… (or “The Cast of Characters”)

On my long ride this weekend, I got to thinking about why it is that I get so frustrated with wasting time. I've been frustrated that it took me so long to get out of a relationship that wasn't great for me…and with not trusting my instincts on several occasions in relationships. My only real conclusion was that lame saying about "you have to have the bad to appreciate the good." Aside from that drivel, I realized I did learn a few things along the way – and that there have been a lot of people in my life who've taught me something whether I wanted to learn it or not.

I think that all of these concepts have put me in the spot I am today…and losing Ariel seemed like a good place to review it all. So I think, in short, that I need to stop wasting time being annoyed about wasting time (yes, I get the irony there)! I'm in a good spot now.

Family

The 'rents: A constant in my life. Always pro-Tamma even when they tell me I'm not doing it right. I'm very fortunate here.

Bro: True ally in learning to navigate life – when we were military brats, when we were trying to figure out life in the USA and small-town America (mind boggling!), and in learning how to integrate life outside the nest with our upbringing. And I had a fabulous time touring Rome with you – even if your idea of being a tourist didn't include the Coliseum or the Vatican. Eating/drinking our way through a week was fabulous!

SO's

Irv: I will never be happy in a relationship where there's not a lot of physical contact/affection. Sadly, I had to learn this one again. (I am a slow learner.) I always fall in love intellectually, but I am never happy with only the intellectual connection.

Zog: Communication and expectations. We spent so much time together that it seemed like we really should be able to read each other without speaking. But that's just not how it works. (sigh) Thanks for all the work we did learning about how to communicate. And along the way it opened my eyes to what I expected the world to be – and how that was so different from most of the people around me. And thanks for getting me into playing hockey – it's been a conversation starter in so many areas.

RBS: You deciphered the "blank look" that has plagued me for years. I could've avoided a lot of frustration if I'd figured that out before. Now I'm learning to use that as my poker face. ;-)

Rico: Even if it was all a "what if" scenario you reminded me to dream big. And I love how different our outlooks are – I am constantly learning from you.

Alan: You believed in me and got me started on a new career path. I am so happy to no longer be a code monkey! I would be dreading every day still if I had to write code all day and not occasionally talk to a real live person without having to first read up on the latest Java lingo. You helped me pick out/buy my road bike and are largely responsible for my current obsession with riding. I liked to ride my bike before, but became addicted once I got a really fast bicycle. Thanks for pushing me to that next level. It helps immensely with my ability to deal with the world.

Chix

Becca: A constant in my life. Always pro-Tamma even when I'm being an idiot. And usually not afraid to tell me I'm being an idiot. Honorary sister, really.

Calle: My partner in crime! I wish I'd met you years ago – we've had great adventures and have more ideas for adventures than I think we'll be able to squeeze into this lifetime. We have so many similar interests and life occurrences it's a little unreal sometimes. But let's keep it that way – always push the envelope!

 

…and the fine print

This is by no means an exhaustive list. It's simply as far as I got during my 3-hour ride…and as much as I can remember now that I'm back in front of the computer. My brain is super-dinky.

And, while I know you're significant, Iggy, I don't know what your bottom line contribution to my life is yet. It's easier to see that when it's either existed for a lifetime or it's over and done with. I'm by no means ready to be "over and done with" our time… Thanks for the last week – I know in reality that I was a bit melodramatic over a cat, but you get the concept of her being part of my family too. And this was a review of my past, not my present or future. ;-)

In Memoriam

When we first “adopted” you outside of King Soopers Grocery, you and your sister could sit on top of a medium pizza box!

I remember you meeting Akela and telling her who was boss.  And not really believing that we needed another dog when we got the puppy.

I liked the expression you had when Akela would hold your head in her mouth—and you had to walk around with crusty hair until you could find a place to clean your fur.  I could almost see you roll your eyes.

Although, to be fair, Akela wouldn’t let any other dogs chase you (you were HER cat) and she did save your life once.

I remember our battle over you being an indoor cat.  You were so determined that I once accidentally caught your tail in the door as I was carrying in the groceries! :( The vet fixed that though—and even if your tail became one vertebra shorter than normal it looked OK.

You were a radio-active cat once!  And you had to stay at the vet for a few days until your levels were “safe”… But it worked and the hyperthyroid issue never bothered us again.

The school bus driver once stopped because you were following Akela and I on our walk.  She wanted to know if you followed me on all my walks.  You usually did.  But when it was time to come home, you would lie down and meow at me to carry you back.  I guess that’s fair — your legs were much shorter than either mine or the dog’s...so it was probably like walking a marathon for you.

The neighbor across the street asked if I could keep you inside on their wedding day because you were apparently in the habit of leaving them presents (little mice) on the doormat.  And they didn’t want to have to clean that up when they were in their fancy clothes.  You used to leave me presents by my truck if I had scolded you for something.  You used to leave GW presents by his jeep if he scolded you.  I assume the presents on the front door mat were for Akela.

Although there were small squirrels and rabbits in addition to the plethora of mice you left us in your lifetime, probably the most impressive “present” was the hummingbird.  And all that without front claws!  I used to joke that if you had front claws we’d find the mountain lion on the front doorstep sometime.

You were very snuggly and loved people.  The vet always commented on this.  And you were a great comfort to me when I broke my wrist (both times) and especially when I moved out.

We had a good run—19 years!  I miss you.