chelseahenderson

jack on jack

My kid is rather perfect, whether he’s displaying a moment of creative flair or getting on his preteen angst.

Today he turns 12. As we celebrate his loud arrival into the world, instead of my usual birthday gushing, I share with you the words Jack chose to describe himself as part of a recent art project. Frankly, I couldn’t have captured his essence better myself.

Short. Thoughtful. Energetic. Daring. Keen. Good. Curious. Witty. Messy. Leader. Smart. Happy. Excited. Proud. Busy. Patriotic. Successful. Funny. Humorous. Self-confident. Imaginative. Bright. Creative. Pleasing. Tireless. Thrilling. Brave. Inventive. Unselfish. Helpful. Tenacious. Honest. Joyful. Expert. Confident. Artistic. Adventurous. Friendly. Light. Cheerful. Fighter.

As a parent, you want your children to be self-aware, to know how truly amazing they are. With Jack’s self portrait, I know that he sees in himself the same qualities I see him. And I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Happy birthday, Jack Rabbit!

friday the 13th

I’m wicked superstitious.

I do not step on sidewalk cracks or pick up pennies that aren’t heads up. You won’t find me anywhere near the underbelly of a ladder. The number 13 is all the more ominous because its digits (1+ 3) equal my unlucky number 4. I don’t remember exactly when 4 took on that role in my life but 4s and multiples thereof are to be avoided. Well, except 12 because 1 + 2 = 3, which is my lucky number and has been since Steve Sax won Rookie of the Year in 1982.

Don’t even get me started on baseball. When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 it was all due to an elaborate block building routine Jack and I had before the start of each game. Picture frames aligned on the mantle? Check. Lucky underwear? Check. Unlucky t-shirt? Chuck.

It was suggested I remain indoors today. I replied with, “you mean my house with the AC that malfunctioned just as temperatures soared north of 90?” In this same house where I retain ownership of a broken mirror (with about 3 of the 7 years bad luck worked off) in my bedroom because it’s possible (though unconfirmed) this is the same mirror my great grandmother peered at herself in everyday for 60+ years?

(Now that I think of it, maybe the broken mirror in my bedroom reflects what’s wrong with my sex life.)

In the spirit of progress, I have relaxed my position as it relates to black cats. I mean, I love cats. And one moved in down the street from me, so we had a little talk the other day, came to a mutual understanding, and she won’t cross my path if I don’t look at her with disdain.

As for addressing today, 2013 has been one giant Friday the 13th, so bring it on. My fingers are crossed everything will be fine.

9-11

I tested myself the other day. Can I think about 9-11 without my eyes tearing up?

The answer is no.

My personal story is not especially tragic. I didn’t lose a loved one. I didn’t spend many tension-filled hours anguishing over the fate of friends, family or colleagues. I wasn’t trapped in the rubble, waiting for rescue workers and did not give birth waiting to get into the ER. I even had the assurance that my loved ones outside of Washington, DC knew I was safe thanks to a hastily cobbled together phone tree.

I don’t need a never forget bumper sticker to remind me of 9-11. How could I ever forget the sense of fear, confusion, and panic, normal emotions on any given day for a 9-month pregnant woman about to have her first baby, suddenly on steroids that crisp blue-skied day when our world irrevocably changed.

Memories of 9-11 and my impending foray into motherhood are forever linked. I remember the lilac maternity shirt I was wearing as we evacuated the Senate. I remember the pressure of the contractions as I waddled to Brigid’s apartment and how I (successfully) willed them to stop. And as I watched with horror the footage from the day, I remember the impromptu speech Congressman Steny Hoyer made to an apartment full of young House and Senate staffers from different offices, different parties. I remember how I held my pregnant belly and took his words to heart.

I remember the moment when I realized the passengers of United Flight 93 saved my life and the life of my unborn baby.

It sounds trite to say that I feared what kind of world awaited my baby. Every mother worries about that. Just because my kid was born four days after September 11 doesn’t set me apart. Mothers about to give birth today have equally real and present dangers to fear, just as mothers have from the beginning of time.

But with the benefit of 12 years behind me, I can see that this is the kind of world my child was born into: a world where friends help each other, where a few kind words can sustain you for the day, where opportunity abounds and freedom reigns. We might not always agree with our government and the decisions it makes, but we can express our frustrations at the ballot box. We are more tuned in to unattended packages on the metro, suspicious looking envelopes and what we pack in our carry-on bags. The world is markedly different than it was on September 10, 2001. But it’s the only world my son knows and as he grows, hopefully he will continue to make it a better place, as he has done for me every day since September 11, 2001, when really what he filled me with was not fear but hope.

birth control

When I was 15, I was present in the delivery room as my baby sister was born.

A nurse of Julia Child stature pressed on my mother’s belly in all sorts of uncomfortable looking ways because Meghann was face up instead of face down and this woman thought she could manually manipulate the already stubborn baby into facing the right direction. When that didn’t work, they pulled out this vacuum cleaner thing and attached it to her wee little skull to twist her into compliance. She was born with such a huge lump on one side of her head that she easily resembled the devil.

Talk about the best form of birth control ever. No high school boy stood a chance with me after I witnessed that 28 years ago today, when the world finally granted me a real life baby doll I could dress up to my heart’s content.

I was a sophomore when Meghann Channing burst so dramatically into my life. For my girlfriends and me, her arrival meant we had a new mascot. We brought her with us to school-sponsored events. We took her to the mall. She sometimes even came with me when I went to hang out with my friends. She did sit out my prom but later inherited my prom dress as a costume. She found it funny to call me “mommy” out in public just to see the reaction on the faces of passersby.

(I did not find that part of early sisterhood so amusing.)

She was only three years old when I left for college and was already a budding gymnast who later turned cheerleader. (Sorry, Mom, if that was my influence). From the beginning of her life, she’s had a heart of gold. There’s no man, woman, child or puppy dog whose aid Meghann won’t jump to provide. She gives a killer foot massage and is an expert cupcake baker. Perhaps because she’s the baby of the family, she relates to kids like nobody’s business. My boys and their cousins love Auntie Meghann.

And I love her too. I think we’ll keep her even though her entry into this world stunted my foray into teenage dating.

Happy birthday, baby sister! May you always be faced in the right direction.

new york, new york

A funny thing happened on my way to a business meeting.

I fell in love with New York City.

I’ve long held her in high regard for her street cred as a “real” city, her grittiness, her style. While I might hold a grudge against her for her taste in baseball teams, there’s an elegance to her that has nothing to do with Park Avenue and everything to do with her recovery from 9-11 and pizza by the slice at any hour of the day.

But with that said, New York always intimidated me.

I’m stylish by DC standards, but in New York, my clothes feel commonplace. Likewise, I’m creative and artistic in our nation’s capital, but in New York, I feel stilted and unimaginative.

That all changed on this trip, beginning with a simple subway ride.

I’ve only ever been on the New York subway with natives to hold my hand. I don’t know why I was so scared to use this system solo considering I’ve mastered public transportation in foreign cities where I don’t speak the language. But once I had my ticket in hand and some sense of assurance that I was on a train moving in the right direction, it was a piece of cake. I didn’t even mind the crazy man who sat next to me, grabbed my forearm in a friendly sort of way, and exclaimed, “take care now! It was great to see you today!” Part of me is disappointed in myself for all the long and expensive taxi rides I endured in the past out of fear of New York’s public transit.

My destination was the Upper West Side apartment belonging to my friend Margaret, who as the evening progressed, proved herself to be the mayor of her neighborhood. She knew someone everywhere we went and even managed to make a new friend. Before the night was over, the ease with which she navigated her corner of the city turned this sprawling metropolis into a small European town.

And I’m a sucker for small European towns.

I spent the time between meetings today daydreaming about when I can take Margaret up on her offer to use her apartment anytime I want. (I almost went home with her spare keys to facilitate my inevitable return.) I’m aching for a walk in Central Park on a crisp autumn day. I yearn for the solitude a city of 8 million residents can provide. I want to find a good people watching spot and sit for hours, maybe developing some characters for the novel stuck in my head. I want to master the subway and go back to Margaret’s yoga studio.

But mostly I crave a late night slice of pizza.

reverse the curse

I’ve got Steve Sax Syndrome.

Today’s wide throw to first on a routine grounder came in the form of a 2.5 hour search for my car in the DCA parking lot. Please spare me the suggestions to write down or text myself with my parking location upon future garage visits. Trust me. I got it.

And what else have I had going in this fine year?

Flooded kitchen and bathroom? Check.

Concussion? Check.

Dead (old) cat, lost (new) cat, flat tire, cracked iPad screen, wasp sting and poison ivy outbreaks? Check, check, check, check, check, check.

Okay, I guess some of those examples can be chalked up to bad luck and not a fielding error on my part. But when you’re jinxed, the fear of another misstep, accident or failure pervades every task, every thought.

At the beginning of each month I tell myself that I’m going to turn it around. Then another glass breaks, and I end up stepping on one of the chards that evaded sweeping.

I’m not sure if it’s a Year of the Snake thing, bad karma for something I did in a past or present life, or just an unfortunate series of shitty events, but I can’t wait a Red Sox eternity (86 years for those not initiated in baseball lore) for my situation to change.

Goat sacrifice? Sage burning. A seance? I’m open to ideas.

let freedom ring

As my kids like to say, “it’s a free country.”

Usually this Declaration of Independence comes in the context of some you can’t make me retort involving Harry Potter play or Lego pieces.

And they are right, it is a free country. We are free to choose whom we love, where we live, our profession. We have the right to vote, speak our mind, control our bodies. We can redress our grievances to our government and hire redress grievance officers (i.e. lobbyists) to advocate for our views.

There is much that is screwed up in this beautiful country of ours, but with the good comes the bad.

Today I toast the good.

and I’m off…

A week ago, I was going to do a post on summer beauty. But I was too hot to think and realized it’s all pointless when it feels impossible to look fresh and put together in the DC heat and humidity.

Then last night I was going to write a post on packing. But let’s be honest, I suck at it. I mean, I’m good at folding and organizing and remembering everything (and I do mean everything) but I always bring one pair of shoes too many. At least this time I practically (almost willingly) left my precious hair dryer behind, but I more than made up for it, as evidenced by the grunt the driver made when loading my deceivingly small but heavy suitcase into the trunk.

Five dresses (think easy breezy, not work), four pairs of shoes (not including the travel pair), three workout outfits (maybe overly ambitious), two lipsticks (not including lip gloss) and one bathing suit (just in case) later, I’m in a car on the way to the airport.

And where am I going? I almost forgot to mention. San Francisco until Friday. Napa for the weekend. Enough said.

This trip to SF that I used to take quarterly already feels different. For starters, it’s the first time I’m not building a long weekend in wine country around a business trip in the city. Then there’s the whole not flying Virgin thing. (I’m not breaking up with you, Richard Branson… Your flights were just so much more expensive.)

The bottom line is I’m ready to get out of dodge and while Northern California apparently is not welcoming me with the cool weather embrace I crave, I’m thinking that a “heat wave” in San Francisco holds a different meaning from one here in DC.

I may have packed poorly, but I’m getting away. And I hope Napa has a lot of wine to help me drink to that.

getting dirty

I have really been wanting to get down and dirty lately.

(Get your mind out of the gutter. I don’t mean that way. At least not with you.)

Every day since my big gardening weekend three weeks ago, I have looked at my backyard with a wistful eye. But even though my enemy, WebMD, recommends gardening as a gentle, stress-free activity a concussed person can undertake, I’m not thinking it would be wise at this time. After all, the authors of that suggestion have not seen my backyard.

I need to pull ivy. I need to dig through the hard red clay that passes for top soil in this region to make holes large enough to plant shrubs. I need to mulch. Did I mention I need to pull ivy? Oh, and I have to contend with my other enemy, poison ivy, which has such power over me as to render me unable to recognize it in the wild, even though I rationally know what it looks like.

But when tasks like warming up a bowl of soup, driving to work, and reading the newspaper still leave me exhausted and lightheaded (by the way, a CT scan today revealed my head is normal) it’s hard to imagine I will beat the incoming heat and humidity to get done the gardening I want to do before summer’s end.

Which makes me sad. And makes me even more determined to get my hands in the dirt. You think I’m a girly girl and I am. But I also like to sweat and work hard and get my boots muddy.

Alas, for now the only mud in my life coats my brain.

why I quit foursquare

I joined Foursquare a year ago when I got curious about all the “4sq” tweets I was seeing in my Twitter feed. What was this social media function? And oh, there are points so it’s like a contest? Sign me up.

I quickly became “mayor” (automatic +3 points) of places no one else checks into like my house and the kids’ bus stop. Then Nancy’s house and the gas station and our local farmer’s market. When I finally became mayor of Biker Barre, I felt a sense of glee.

I never had more than about 35 “friends” (followers?) many of whom I’d never met but was connected to on Twitter. I didn’t consider myself to be competing with them for the top spot on the leadership board but I was definitely competing with myself. One new coffee shop away from a new level of the fresh brew badge? Let’s go here. I loved being awarded +7 points or even +9 points sometimes for a new place I was checking into. My highest single check in (+12) occurred in Hawaii where I was first of my friends to check in said spot, it was the first of its category I’d frequented, the mayor was in the house and I’d already hit x number of spots that day.

Last week when I was home concussed, I didn’t go anywhere after checking in at Sibley Hospital that Saturday (only +1 because I’d been there before) until Thursday when I made the poor decision to try to return to work (+3) before my body was ready. My point totals for the week were near their lowest ever, my head was throbbing, and I thought: why do I care? And furthermore, why do I feel like I need to tell the world where I am at every single moment?

(In my previous bouts of asking myself these questions, I’d justify my addiction with the thought that if something happened to me and the DC CSI team needed clues as to my whereabouts, they could follow my moves on Foursquare.)

We live such public lives even when we aren’t public figures. With all the focus on privacy the last few weeks, I’ve been less astonished on how it might have been violated and more struck by how much we reveal of ourselves.

So this morning, I checked in at Washington Radiology (+1) where I waited two hours to get my mammogram. But I purposely did not check in for coffee afterwards. I checked in at work (+3) out of force of habit but that was my last official check in. As I sat outside Biker Barre tonight, waiting for the rain to subside before going in, I deleted my Foursquare account.

But not before I received an email telling me I’d just been ousted as mayor of Biker Barre.