Fellow flying follies

Hello fans and friends,

Sorry it's been awhile since my last post.  I have been alerted on several occasions by many of you that I have not blogged in awhile so it seems as though some of you think I am overdue and in fact, I AM!  I have several blogs in the "hopper" so to speak.  Should I write the Truman CMDS Triumphant "Quest for the Cup" blog, the grandmother passing away experience blog, the trip to Mexico with the students  blog or the nutty e-mail exchanges between my self-dessert named colleagues and myself entry?  These are all memories sitting in the midst of my cerebral gray matter waiting to explode onto the computer screen yet they will need to remain in short term(?) storage for now because I just HAVE to write another airplane related entry. I can't help it.  Sometimes my need to write these things down is akin to a bodily function of some kind.  (Including but not limited to child birth).  I just FEEL BETTER once I get it out!!

As I write this I am sitting on  an aircraft heading to Kansas City from a meeting in Maryland at our national professional association office.  The meeting I was just at involved a group of peers who are interested in supervision and administration of speech-language pathologists.  In an attempt to not bore you with mind numbing professional jargon I will leave it at that.

It was a short meeting.....only 1.5 days which as meetings go, is quite the sprint.   My friend Mark was also at this meeting who much to my dismay will rotate off the group at the end of this year.  I met Mark while we were both students in the inaugural class of a national association leadership development program.  (In retrospect the mere idea that they let both Mark and I INTO a "leadership" program is a hoot) I like Mark a LOT as he speaks my native language which is sarcasm.  I also like Mark because he spent our leadership conference time with me together in a national association van making fun of and in fact BREAKING most of the laminated "rules" for driving the coveted "association" vehicle.  The "rules" in and of themselves would make for another excellent blog topic but what with my aging relatives passing on, chaperoning young adults to 2nd world countries and incessant e-mail exchanges from my hysterical colleagues I'm all stocked up on topics at the moment.

At the end of the meeting Mark wanted to print his boarding pass back to his metropolitan university destination before we left the national office so he logged on to the airline website where he discovered his seat was located in row 41 which we took to mean in the rear aircraft restroom next to the crew's jump seats.   After mulling over the perks of having ready access to the rolling bar cart back there, he decided that since he has access to the hoity toity airline "club" at the airport he could do his reduced cost imbibing while there and chose to locate to another available seat further up.  Lucky for him there WAS an open seat.......in the emergency exit row.

Now from my experience with other human flyers I have learned that the are two general schools of thought on this particular seat location.  You either love it (for the extra leg room allowing you to sit in the civilized fashion of having your legs crossed WITHOUT your toe resting in your seat-mate's crotch) OR you hate this location  because you are not allowed to stow your carry-on crap in this space which is large enough to house a St. Bernard's training crate AND there is no handy fold down tray table to rest ever-so-stylishly on your belt buckle. Mark was just happy that he was now out of the toilet and opted to take the seat.  He did so that is, after he had a witness attest to the fact that he could in all good conscience sign the online waiver which consisted of the following statements:

1. "Mark must be physically able to open an exit door and lift and stow a 31-52 lb window exit." (Who knew these things varied in weight?) Mark is in very good shape, runs every day and "eats right" (you know, when not drinking.......so check)

2.  "Mark must be able to quickly activate the evacuation slide and help others off to it." (Being a non-smoker, Mark has excellent lung capacity and in the event that the slide should need to be blown up using a crazy straw he could amply perform this task.....check)

3.  "Mark cannot be traveling with a child restraint seat."  (Mark's son was not on this trip and regardless is a junior in high school and of normal height anyway so.........check.)

4.  "Mark cannot be traveling with a pet in the cabin of the aircraft."  ("Shit, there went droolow the St. Bernard.")   Check

5.  "Mark must not require the use of a seat belt extender DUE TO THE HAZARD OF ENTANGLEMENT". And THIS my friends and fans is where we completely lost it.

I mean seriously, can you just hear the announcement on the flight intercom????  "Ladies and gentlemen, the plane is crashing but please mind your step over Mark's fatty seat belt extender.  We would hate to have you trip and sue us on your way out to the blow up slide after the crash."  Seriously, I have not stopped laughing over the danger of "entanglement" from the what must be the MILE of seat belt extender that some folks must need.  (But not Mark so check)

This caused my friend Melanie to subsequently share her worst ever in-flight story.  Melanie's  friend was traveling alone somewhere when a man with NO LEGS and ONE ARM came scooting down the center aisle on a skateboard.  He hoisted himself WITH HIS ONE ARM into the seat next to her friend and sat SIDEWAYS  with his nose to her shoulder FACING her.  (It seems you can sit this way when you have no legs and STILL do not need a seat belt extender.)  The subtle sick comedy of this scene soon turned horrific when the man began to mutter under his breath into her shoulder that he was going to stab her with a knife.......a statement he felt compelled to make over and over across the United States air space.  It seems among other tragedies that had befallen this man in life, he was also plagued with TOURETTE'S SYNDROME and the knife stabbing statement appeared to be his consistent phrase of choice. People, I CANNOT make this stuff up.

Melaine's knife story reminded Mark of a return flight he took from Taipei some time back.  It seems in many third world countries, airline security is rather LOWWWW on the priority list.  Once airborne the oriental woman sitting next to him who BTW, spoke ZERO English dug into her carry-on and pulled out a sword-sized machete from its protective cover and began to HACK INTO an apple on her pull down tray table.  "Hack into" being akin to  hacking off the head of a chicken which for all Mark knew was the next thing to be pulled from her bag.  Again, can't make this shit up.  She non verbally offered Mark some of her newly slaughtered treasure to which he politely declined with a non verbal pitcher's cue of shaking off the next pitch complete with a set of saucer sized pupils.

As I finish this entry I find myself on what I like to call the "wind up plane" headed back to my corn field surrounded institution of higher learning in Missouri. We boarded the plane from OUTSIDE the terminal using a step stool and I swear we took off from someone's drive way.  The wings on this sucker are no higher off the ground than the low dive at our town pool.  Seriously, my kids could climb up there WITHOUT a ladder and cannon-ball off. The ceiling of the walkway in the center aisle of this plane is SO LOW that to walk down the middle you have cock your head to one side. The surface area of the overhead bins is only slightly smaller than the glove compartment in my van.  I guess if I wanted to I could store my I-phone and ball point pen up there.  Maybe squeeze my glasses in if I'm lucky.  The pilot himself seems to be seated in row A and carried on a 12 pack case of water bottles for "Gary" our ONE flight attendant to serve to my thirsty plane friends when we comfortably reached our cruising altitude.  The announcement before take off simply said, "Gary we're ready to go so sit down."

I am sitting in a row of single seats on the left hand side of the plane kind of like a seated Catholic communion line only we don't advance forward.  The monitor in the terminal before take off (which BTW WAS DELAYED because they were missing a crew member????  Yeah, whose day was it to watch THAT guy??) said that the flight would be 2 hours and 47 minutes.  However when we boarded, our captain up in row A told us we were running 2 hours and 18 minutes wheels up to wheels down.  Seriously?  How does THAT happen?  Are we speeding??? Is this allowed?? It feels like it anyway as we bump and weave along at our cruising altitude which for a long while has been the height level of most flag poles and fruit bearing trees.  ("Look, there went a healthy looking lemon.") If you have read me in the past, you know that "I don't fly."  I DO eat gummy bears though which are my answer to most of life's pressing or terrifying issues including flying passage on the Barbie plane. 

Gummy bears with several Xanax chasers that is. Let's just say due to my less than intense love of flying I have already taken FOUR Xanax from a bottle that says take ONE tablet three times a day as needed for anxiety.  What the hell.......I may eat Xanax like tick tacks but at least I don't (YET) need a seat belt extender endangering other passengers with my possible "entanglement" issues!  

The pilot in row A just told us to fasten our seat belts TIGHT which honestly is NOT what this already stoned passenger needs to hear.  I see Xanax # 5 being ingested soon!!!  Signing off for now from some thousand feet.........and chanting hundreds of silent "Hail Marys."  The pilot just apologized for the bumps and said something else completely unintelligible.  I hope it wasn't something I might need to know because Gary is already buckled back up in his jump seat.......and I just dropped a Xanax stuck to a gummy bear down my cleavage.

Maddie's miracle

I never wanted a dog.  Really, I didn't. Growing up, we were cat people.  James grew up with dogs but they were all outside dogs and I could never wrap my head around that with the below freezing temperatures in winter and the above normal temperatures in the Missouri summers.  Dogs are messy and they smell.  They drool.  They bite people.  They SHED.  I never wanted a dog.

Over 15 years ago, I left for an out-of-state convention and James bought a dog.  (I'm sorry.......excuse me??)  Maybe he misunderstood.  I never wanted a dog. Our friend Paula told him that if we REALLY wanted to have kids soon we needed a dog first so we could begin practicing things like, well, not leaving the house without a sitter.  Practical advice but still.  Paula didn't have kids, she had a dog.......how good could that advice be from a non-child person?!   I returned home from my trip to find a tiny chocolate lab puppy who had JUST been weaned from her mom.  She fit in one hand.  She was adorable. 

James immediately began HIS duty of crate training her because lets face it, I DIDN'T WANT A DOG.  If he insisted we have a dog, HE was going to house break her AND she was gonna live inside with the people so I didn't worry about her freezing or suffering from heat exhaustion.  Period.  End of story on that one.  I was NOT gonna budge. The crate sat next to James' side of our bed.  Puppy cried because she missed her mom and siblings so James slept with his hand dangling over the side of the bed in front of the door to the crate so puppy could smell James and feel safe.  Since we live in a split level home and puppy's tummy was too big and her paws too short  to make it down the stairs, James would dutifully get up every night and carry her down the stairs and out to the yard.  I must admit, it worked beautifully.  She was crate trained in no time.

In an effort to appease me, James let me name the puppy.  I chose Madison (Maddie for short) because I liked the name a lot but not enough to use on a female child we may have later.  Plus, I strongly believe in two-syllable names for dogs because of the snappy cadence when barking out (get it....barking out?) commands;  ie, Ma-ddie:  SIT, etc.  This left the middle name for James to choose.  He chose
Tecumseh.  Again, excuse me?? (According to Wikipedia the name means: "pron.: /tɛˈkʌmsə/; March 1768 – October 5, 1813) was a Native American leader of the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy (known as Tecumseh's Confederacy) which opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812. Tecumseh has become an iconic folk hero in American, Aboriginal and Canadian history.<sup>[1]")

Okay, whatever.  Maybe we never had to actually SAY the middle name and thus explain all of THAT nonsense.  Now, part of my demanding that we have an indoor dog that I did not want involved a discussion revolving around the ever-so-important manners of an indoor dog.  This landed Maddie and I straight into dog school.  I gotta say, I loved dog school.  I really did.  There is so much power in training and commanding a dog.  I had no idea.  Our only problem was that Maddie was a bit like her handler and often lazy.  She was the only dog in dog school that performed a lay down-stay in stead of a sit-stay.  She just didn't have all of that interest in sitting.  Luckily the teacher took pity on us and we passed with flying colors.  By the end of our time at school she had earned her basic obedience 1 & 2 degrees AND her canine good citizen degree.  She was trained, well behaved and most importantly, I was the alpha dog in the house.  This is where our relationship truly began.  

Maddie slept on our big bed every night.  We decided that her weight multiplied exponentially when she laid down because once down, that's it.  The covers were NOT moving.  We got used to it.  We added her name to our answering machine message.  She took center stage in all of our Christmas photos.  She had a bed with her name on it and her own personalized suit case for travel.  We were DOG people now.  She had become our child and we loved her very very much.  

Sometime during this period, my grandmother began creating those towels that you button around your stove handle.  We had dozens of them.  I once buttoned one around the refrigerator door.  One day, we returned home to find the fridge door wide open and all of its lower level contents strewn about the entire upper level of our house.  I'm talking ketchup, salad dressing, syrup, mustard, mayo, plastic containers with left-over treasures from our meals, etc.  Did you know that a teenage chocolate lab can chew right through plastic?!  Its true.  They can.  Her artistry all over our carpeting was brilliant. We now have hard wood in the dining room area.  Enough said.

Once, James was making a Chef-Boyardee pizza.  It was warm outside so he set the dough to rise in a bowl out on the top ledge of our deck.  When I went outside to retrieve it I found the bowl empty but Maddie quite full.  We 911'ed the vet, certain of her immediate demise.  The joke was on us though as the vet said she would be in a carb-coma for awhile but otherwise fine and by the way, what were we now gonna do about dinner?

If you know anything about chocolate labs you know they have very powerful tails.  To this day, we do not have a coffee table in our living room because we quickly grew tired of her standing in front of us with her tail wagging and completely sending all of the coffee table contents across the room after a short flight.  You know, things like candy dishes, candles, full glasses with colored drinks in them.  It was fine.  She was our baby and we loved her.  We didn't really need a coffee table.

The Maddie stories are endless.  One of my favorites is the conversation James and I had about her being sick.  (see Christmas letter 2007).  Not long after falling in love with her we decided to try our hand at actual human family members.  The day we brought Alex home I laid him in his bassinet next to our bed.  We had a large four poster (tall) bed at the time and when Maddie jumped up onto the bed she could put her nose down into the bassinet and literally be eye-to-eye with Alex.  We were tentative as we had read everything written on introducing your new human-baby to your older dog-baby and we knew this could go either way.  Maddie approved, gave Alex a big lick in the face and the two of us lied down on the bed and watched Alex sleep.  Soon, Alex was laying on a blanket in the middle of the living room with Maddie right next to him.  After considerable training, Maddie learned which squeaky toys were hers and which were Alex's but there were times when I wondered if maybe they really just shared all toys.  Alex grew to crawl after Maddie and eventually try and ride her like a pony.  She was the most tolerant dog you can ever imagine.  She loved Alex just like we did.

Four years later, Adam came along and they quickly fell into the same routine.</sup>

<sup>Her name was removed from our out-going message as the kids' names were added but she was as ever present as always.

Time passed as it always does and Maddie grew older.  Her parents died as did every one of her siblings.  James, who had declared MANY times that once Maddie goes he is NEVER getting another dog fell in love with a Springer Spaniel named Lucy  that we met at my Aunt Polly's house.  Polly and her partner Sherry work in social service but had also been avid dog rescuers for quite some time.  (I think after meeting Maddie)  There were always MANY dogs to play with at "camp" in Iowa and it was during our frequent trips there that Adam decided he wanted to be a vet when he grew up.  Here is a pic of him and "Barney" one of the Polly/Sherry Iowa dogs.</sup>

^{James' new love interest Lucy is an adorable dog who was ALREADY trained.  James made us all take a picture of her to send to her original owners (who could not house her anymore) to illustrate what a wonderful family she would have with us and instead of finding a way for them to keep her, could we please just have her?}

<sup>James and the boys drove back to Iowa a few weeks later and Lucy has been with us for nearly two years now.  We can't imagine our life without her.  One of the most interesting things is that she kept Maddie young.  I firmly believe that Maddie stayed with us for as long as she did because she was determined to go up the stairs every time Lucy did.  James liked to tell people that we got a dog for our dog.

Last year in January of 2012, we returned home from a New Year's Eve trip to the lake.  We had to board the dogs while we were gone which we do not like to do but since it was Christmas break, I had no college students to call upon  for in-house dog care.  After getting Maddie home we noticed that she had significant trouble standing and walking.  I sat all night with her on her bed in the living room, willing her to move.......but nothing.  When James and the boys came home from school, we all said our goodbyes to Maddie.  James carried her one last time down to our back yard for a visit.  He laid her down in the grass.  It was just about this time when the kids came running into the yard from the side gate and that dog STOOD UP and walked over to them.  We were dumb struck.  Tears in our eyes, I am not quite sure we believed what we had just seen.  James carried her to the truck and took her to our regular vet who met him outside. He took one look at Maddie and told James he would not give up on her yet and to take her home for awhile.  It was a miracle.

Maddie stayed with us the entire next year.  On Christmas eve of 2012 she was at a different vet where we take the dogs to be groomed.  The vet, a woman with children of her own, called and asked if she could run some tests on Maddie because she did not look well.  The result was leukemia and the time had come.

Initially, my plan was to send James to the vet to be with Maddie as she made her transition and to tell the kids she had a heart attack and died while there.  Things turned out very differently.  Because it was Christmas Eve I had an entire house full of relatives.  One of those relatives was Aunt Polly.  We shared our news with her and she encouraged us to ALL go (even the kids?!?!) because we were all a family.  Now I need to tell you that I had SERIOUS doubts about this course of action.  In the end, I said the only way that I would do it would be if Aunt Polly (who had been through this numerous times) went with us.  Into the truck we then all piled.

When we got there they put us all in a room together and James and Adam and I sat on the floor and Alex and Polly sat on a bench.  They brought a blanket in and then brought in Maddie who was so happy to see us all!  I told the vet that Adam wanted to be an animal doctor when he grew up and she said something I will never forget.  This woman whom I had never met and who was helping us in this most special way looked at my 8 year old son and said "this is the hardest thing that a vet EVER has to do.  When you become a vet you make a promise to the whole world that you will help all animals to get better. If you cannot do that, then you promise to help them to not hurt anymore."  He looked at her with his big brown puffy eyes and I KNEW this was gonna be okay.  The vet sat on the floor with us and I asked her to explain the procedure to the boys who listened and petted Maddie.  She gave us treats to feed Maddie  as we all sat there on the floor and she talked us through it.  When Maddie left, all of our hands were on her.  We cried but felt some peace in the notion that this is what responsible pet owners do.

After she was gone, the vet told us that we were looking at a unicorn........that labs in general never live this long and she must have been very well taken care of and very much loved.  No truer words were ever said.

Now, this experience could be viewed (and read) as a negative thing what with having to say goodbye to your long time friend on Christmas Eve but I will ask you to consider some things for a minute that might help you to look at this the way I do.  There were many blessings at work here.  First of all, because it was a holiday, our home was filled with family.  Instead of returning to an empty house (except Lucy) we had the grandparents to help with sad feelings.  Grandparents are great at that.  Additionally, Aunt Polly was in town.  There is NO WAY I would have gone and taken the kids to this event if she had not persuaded us to do so.  Alex felt safe in shedding tears because his great Aunt was also. Looking back, I would have had it NO other way.  Finally, we were with a female vet who knows how to talk to kids.  In its sad own way, that was a beautiful thing.
  
The way I look at it, God was in complete control of this situation.  He had it taken care of and did not need my help in the least.  (Hard to believe I know LOL)  Maddie had the miracle of an extra year with us AND Adam has Lucy to snuggle every night.</sup>

     

Christmas Crisis--Someone push PAUSE!

Dear family and friends,

Merry Christmas.  Happy New Year.  Well, that’s about it.  Time for me to close.

Peace to you and yours,

Missy

This is very nearly how my Christmas letter is going to read this year and really, (and I do mean REALLY), I have NO GOOD EXCUSE as to why.

I am lucky, blessed, healthy, blah blah blah.  For whatever reason, I’m just not that “into” Christmas this year.  James constructed the tree two weeks ago and I have yet to hang a single ornament.  We have a few bubble lights that are not working and I have not yet rushed to Walmart in a Christmas decorating frenzy to make certain that the last bubble light in Kirksville has not already been snatched up.  Our neighbor went all out with lights on his house this year and I truly feel like taking this approach:

Someone needs to perform a Christmas intervention and QUICK.  I think the problem may have to do with my children trying to grow up and frankly, I don’t care for it.  Earlier this year, my body decided to enter the non-child bearing years which honestly, I didn’t see coming.   I mean yea, I’m 45 and all but seriously?  My insides just looked around at each other and declared “yup, that’s it, we’re done?!”  Never thought it could happen.  I would have 10 kids if my body had cooperated and YES I am happy and FORTUNATE to have not one but TWO healthy boys to love and raise.  It’s the RAISING part that feels nearly over.  They are 8 & 12.  Now I know I came to the parenting party relatively late and that many of my friends have children who have graduated from high school or who are about to have a child reaching that (devastating) landmark so I realize I am lucky to still have children on the younger side.  But still……..

A few years back I wrote a Christmas letter about how no one ever ages where I work.  It’s true.  Every single year for the past 20 years the majority of the people I interact with have been between the ages of 18-25.  I myself was 25 when I began my work at the university.  I was “one of them.”  Somehow, they continued to remain the same age and I didn’t.  Neither did my kids.

At Thanksgiving, my 12 year old was taller than my stepmother and mother.  I myself no longer reach down to hug him, I reach out.  I guess that should be a beautiful thing but to be honest, I hate it.  His voice is deepening.  He is beginning to have the “attitude” that I SWORE no child of mine would ever have.  He puts together Legos for his brother and not for himself anymore.  He goes to movies WITHOUT ME.  WHAT?????  When the hell did that happen?!?!  His pant legs are perpetually two inches from the ground and most people think it’s because he is just growing so fast that we cannot keep up but really, part of it is because if I buy him new pants every 12 seconds I have to confront the fact that he is growing up.  He keeps asking us for a phone.  When I tell him no and that he's not old enough he says that’s not true and I just don’t want him to grow up.  (I hate it when there's truth in what he says----let’s not go crazy though, he’s still not getting a phone yet)

I understand now why the “baby” of the family is ALWAYS the baby.  It’s because if mothers ever let their “babies” grow up the world would end as we collectively know it.  My eight year old will forever be four years old in my eyes and NOT graduating up to playing flag football, NOT driving and CRASHING go carts and NOT wrestling two times a week with HEAD GEAR.  He’s just a BABY!!!!!

James always says it’s lucky that we did not have any girls.  He says this because he claims that 1.  “If you make a decision based on emotion, he cannot help you” and 2.  “A daughter would be just like the mother and there is no way there could be TWO of us in the same house.”  I am now beginning to question this logic.  I have been a student of life long enough to recognize that boys tend to grow up, get married and gravitate toward their wive’s families for their adult lives.  Well guess what?  I don’t have any girls so does this mean that both of my boys will be GONE soon?  HELP!!!!  This thought makes me crazy.  Additionally, I have listened to enough Dr. Laura to recognize that unless I bow down and kiss the feet of the girls that they may marry one day, I will have no access to the grandchildren.  This thought makes me MORE CRAZY.  (Let’s not go nuts here, I’ll do it and won’t even blink but still…….)

A few weeks ago I was in the car with the 12 year old.  I was talking about (okay, lecturing) the idea that the child needs to find SOMETHING to motivate him to get better grades.  This conversation went on pretty much like you can image it would between a 12 year old boy and his MOTHER when all of a sudden I got desperate for material.  The next thing I knew I was telling him that regardless of whether or not he gets good grades he is outta the house in five years at the ripe old age of 18.  I told him I no longer cared if he studied because frankly, I am tired of talking about it.  I went on to inform him that if he did not pay attention and try in school NOW, he will not gain command of some important pre-high school concepts, followed by high-school concepts and resulting in admittance into a college.  I told him it was fine with me if he wanted to skip college as long as he could find a job (McDonalds) didn't mind walking to work in his spiffy fast food uniform (because he couldn’t afford a car) and could NEVER again afford to go to another Cardinal game (really, have you seen those ticket prices?).  I told him he was in charge of his own destiny, he has five years left on the family payroll and good luck.

Why do I mention all of this?  I do so because in a sick kinda way I actually thought maybe that would not be so bad.   If he fails in school he would have to stay in town and never really grow up and move away.  (Not to worry,  I quickly came to my senses when I imagined him living in the basement and dealing drugs out the back door to make a living.  I also imagined the caliber of female that this M.O. would attract and that I would have to subsequently bow down to and became myself suddenly quite ill.)

The week of Thanksgiving we took the boys to Florida to Sea World, Lego Land and the beach.  They had never seen the beach and I will NEVER forget their eyes when they FIRST saw the ocean.  Hey you can read about it here in Missouri but there is no comparison to a field trip to the real deal.  They were stunned.  They were giddy.  They were…….child like.   

We have never pulled them out of school and taken them anywhere like that for two days but I felt the need then and the truth is, I continue to.  It’s like, I'm BEGGING the universe to pass me the remote control for life so I can push PAUSE!!!!!!  SERIOUSLY!  REALLY! HONESTLY!  I NEED A PAUSE BUTTON.

I think I'm having a Christmas crisis. I think I don’t want to decorate or wrap or sing or do ANYTHING because I’d rather just sit on the couch with my kids and watch movies or listen to their stories or make them a snack because time is passing and FAST.  Last month we celebrated my only living grandmother’s 90^th birthday.  That’s 90 candles.  

 

Time is FLYING people and I’d really just like it to stop.  For now, for maybe just awhile longer, I want to keep them young.  Lately, they have wanted to sleep in our bedroom with us.  Because they are so huge, there is no room in the bed so they have been camping out on our floor each night.  I know I am supposed to hate this and DEMAND that they return to their beds and not sleep on our floor because its unhealthy for them in some way and yadda yadda yadda.  Maybe there will come a time when I feel that way.  That time however, has not yet arrived.  That time is not today. 

My one wish for you this Christmas is the gift of a pause.   I think we should all ask for one.  I need to submit final grades, decorate the house, plan the holiday menu, wrap some gifts, create the clinic schedule for next semester and pay the bills.  Instead, I think I will go home and watch a Christmas movie with the kids while they still want to be in the same room with me.  Instead, I am going home to push PAUSE.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Midlife me to all of you!