the life – Page 6 – the chelsea chronicles

apathy

In case you missed it, there was a mass shooting in our nation’s capital on Monday.

Sure, the twitterverse was abuzz with rumors and inaccurate reports all day long, but as far as I can tell, there was more horror expressed over the show Breaking Bad than there was over real events unfolding in DC just days after the 12th anniversary of 9-11.

My office had a staff meeting. Hardly a person mentioned the manhunt going on merely a mile away. The Nats game wasn’t postponed until late in the day. I didn’t see tears or panic-stricken faces. And personally most upsetting is that not one member of my family (except soul sister Kassie) checked in to see if I was okay.

I’m still trying, days later, to come to terms with the apathy of those who shrugged off Monday. Is it because we as a nation are desensitized to acts of violence? Is it because the shooting seemed “contained” to a military base or that the victims were less innocent because of where they worked?

Maybe I’m more sensitive because I was a few blocks away from the Navy Yard at the time the shooting started. Maybe I was on edge because for the entire day the authorities were seeking a potential second shooter who could have been hiding anywhere. Schools were locked down, as was my beloved Senate, leading me to fear a crazy person in camo with a gun was making his way toward the complex where so many of my friends work.

This shooting didn’t garner the nation’s tears the way Sandy Hook did or its attention like the Boston Marathon Massacre. But it was scary, and I know I’m not alone in feeling frustrated at the tepid reaction to Monday’s tragedy.

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!

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.

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.

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.

third string quarterback

Football Jesus is coming to a Patriots jersey near you.

It was bound to happen. I feel like rarely in New England sports do we get saddled with a so-called bad guy player. For example, I can say with some level of certainty that Derek Jeter will not end his career with the Red Sox. Usually it seems to go the other way around. Our beloved stars play their final days with the sworn enemy.

Not that Tim Tebow is that level of the devil. I just find him mediocre as a player and intolerable as a public figure. So he’s in the third string quarterback position. Hopefully he will only get his hands on the ball when the Pats are so far ahead that Tom Brady can give his arm a rest. (Though I do love me some fourth quarter Tom Brady action.)

Third string, third string, third string. I keep whispering those words to myself but we all know how this season is going to play out.

Either Tebow is going to come in and save the day, I mean, game, and I will have to like him, which will make me hate him more. Or he will come in a game, blow the lead, and I will be vindicated, but at the cost of a tick in the loss column.

Honestly, I don’t know which way I’d rather see it go down. I just know that I will not be buying a Tebow jersey anytime soon, and I hope my small gesture is a form of, shall I call it abstinence, we can all agree on.

my aching head

I woke up in the middle of the night a little discombobulated. But once I got my bearings, I could not fall back to sleep. So in my head I wrote the definitive account of how I managed to get myself concussed this weekend.

In the light of day, I don’t remember a single word. But I couldn’t remember who Stannis Baratheon was when turning the TV on for the first time all weekend (screens hurt to look at) because after last weekend’s “Red Wedding” I was sure the season finale to Game of Thrones would find Dany charred by her own dragons, Arya encountering White Walkers and Tyrion drinking poisoned wine, all in very bloody and violent fashion.

So for all who asked, the short of it is that at 5:00am on Saturday, I was about to take my younger son to the airport. I opened the hatchback of my Prius, swung his suitcase up, and clocked my forehead on said hatch which had caught and not provided its expected clearance.

That hurt.

I saw stars. There was blood. I needed a few minutes to compose myself but I’m Chelsea and a job needed to be done so I got in the car for the 45 minute drive.

“I need coffee, that’s why I feel hazy,” I told myself.

“I’m hungry, not dizzy.”

“Of course I have a headache. I just hit my head, hard, on a car door.”

I got us to Dulles and since we had time, I grabbed a coffee and a bit to eat but those feelings (okay, symptoms) didn’t go away. In fact, I started to feel nauseous (“I’m nervous for Colin to fly alone”) and had a hard time finding the right words to say to him.

After his flight departed, I got back in the car and started to make my way home. But something wasn’t right. My friend Kate offered to come get me. My ex-husband was more direct: don’t mess with the head, go to the nearest ER.

So I did. Well, the second nearest because I will always choose the ER at Sibley if given the choice.

48 hours later, my head still throbs though not quite as severely. I’m still a little light of head when standing, though my goal today will be to do more of that. Writing this is going to take all the screen time I have allotted myself for the morning, but I didn’t want to forget, and now I have somewhere to point people who want to know what happened.

Just please, when checking in on me, do not reference Natasha Richardson.

a big boy now

Colin had been waiting almost exactly 365 days for yesterday to arrive.

About a year ago, Jack let slip that in August, he’d be going to San Francisco, by himself, to spend a week with my dad, their “Papa.” (And by “let slip” I mean the kid can’t keep a secret to save his life.)

Colin fretted all summer. Why not him? Why Jack? It was so unfair.

Oh, the injustice of being the younger child. It’s something I’ve tried to be more cognizant of as a parent. As the oldest sibling among my brothers and sisters, it seemed perfectly fair that Jack would get his adventure first.

After a painstaking year, during which the question, “when am I going to California?” was posed nearly daily, the big day finally arrived, but was shrouded in a typically klutzy Chelsea maneuver that left my literally seeing stars for the drive from home to Dulles.

He was quiet in the car. Not unusual for the 5:00am hour or for Colin. For a kid that can be really loud, he can also be quiet as a church mouse. (Assuming church mice are quiet. I don’t exactly have field experience there.)

As we approached IAD from the parking lot, Colin wrapped himself around my arm.

“Come with me, mommy.”

“I can’t,” I said reassuringly. “I don’t have any clothes to wear.”

“You can buy new clothes,” he offered, hitting me at my vulnerable point.

“Jack is home waiting for me to return.”

“Daddy can go get him.”

The reasons I should go with him continued as we made our way through security and to the gate. I started to dread boarding. Would he cry? Would be refuse to go?

But when it came time, he gave me a hug, pulled his face into the most serious look I’ve ever seen on the kid, and made his way.

And of course, on the other end I know he’s being spoiled, getting the special one-on-one time he deserves and not having to share this experience with Jack or with me. He will return with fantastic stories and detailed accounts of where he was able to drink Dr. Pepper, which seems to be a big goal of his trip.

But it’s up to Papa to break it to him that the Hollywood sign does not live in the Bay Area, as seeing that iconic landmark is definitely on Colin’s bucket list.

on growing things

People, I planted stuff.

And five hours later, everything looks happy still. If plants can look perky, then yes indeed, that is the word I’d use to describe them. What started as a Weekend Warriors project in April has morphed into a new obsession.

I can’t and won’t let the hard work of my devoted friends be for naught.

I had not done much in the yard since my home improvement day except water. And trust me, that endeavor represented a huge outdoor commitment on my part.

Then Lola had to be put down, kids were crying, and I was my own little emotional mess when it hit me.

“Mom, can we go to the pool!” Jack asked on our tear-filled Friday afternoon.

“No,” I replied more curtly than I meant to. “I need some time alone.”

And I went outside.

I started pulling ivy. And weeds. And more ivy, maybe some of it of the poisonous variety. (I know what it’s supposed to look like but part of the evil plant’s power over me renders me unable to identify it when I’m actually among it.) It felt good to just mindlessly pull trails of ivy out of the ground. I suddenly knew what I wanted to do over the weekend.

Saturday turned out to be more of a prep day as between an extra long little league game and visits with friends who wanted to drink to Lola’s long life, I ended up not being able to spend as much time in the yard as I’d planned.

(By the way, when my time comes, I hope you all toast me as robustly as you toasted my cat.)

Sunday I woke up with the birds. Grabbed the book on my nightstand before remembering I had work to do and an entire day to do it. I started with the front yard. I pulled hostas that needed dividing. I reorganized some plants that weren’t getting the sun they needed. And I ended up planting this new flower bed. A Fothergilla anchors the bed, an Abelia taking up the rear, with transplanted hostas lining the brick border that was already in the dirt, just covered by years of neglect.

(Oh, and I pulled out all the ivy and pokeberry weeds that had been the tenants of this space until today.)

I performed lots of other gardenly tasks but this bed was my coup d’état, and five hours later, my back was achy but my heart was filled with pride at how I suddenly converted my black thumb into one of green. It felt good to bring life to my yard after a few days of thinking only of death.

And so here I sit with a crisp Rosé while the kids read (what else?) and I’m planning the next project.

All bets will be off when temperatures hit three digits but for now, I’m enjoying my newfound hobby.