Bloggers Annex

Our poll of the week comes from anonymous! Would you like to submit a poll? Use the link our sidebar! We LOVE your poll ideas! Keep ‘em coming!

Edited to add: Because the largest portion of our members are from the U.S.—where Monday is a holiday, thus extending the “weekend”— we will not be publishing a new post until Tuesday morning at 12:01.

~Eowyn writes at Refracted Light~

I feel sad for the ants that I sweep off my kitchen floor.  There they were trotting along, looking for food for their colony and then all a sudden this tornado blows through (and it’s not like they were engaging in high risk activities like living in a trailer) and they don’t know which way is up.  And then when I dump them from the dust pan into the garbage they’re suddenly thrust into a pungent (I have two kids in diapers) dark world and let’s face it, they’re not gonna find their way home.

And when I kill spiders.  I’ve watched a lot of discovery channel in my time, I know that spiders don’t live in family groups.  But when I smash a spider I can’t help but picture his loving spider wife at home with their spider children wondering why her spider husband never comes home.

But this disease does not stop at sentient beings.  I wonder sometimes if the Nike walking shoes I wear at work aren’t sad that they see so little walking, and none of it outdoors, and so much standing.  (Not to mention the blood guts and gore that get dripped on my ever faithful shoes that I occasionally try to clean off but let’s face it, that blood’s never coming out of the stitching.)

Is my car jealous when I park it in the lot and take the train to work?

I think that the dinner leftovers must be sad when they go into the fridge.  And when they come back out moldy and inedible and I heartlessly throw them away… Wow, I am a cold, cold woman.

Do my favorite jeans exult at their status?  Do they notice that I wear them so much more often than I do the others?

And then there are the Cheerios.

When I grab a handful of Cheerios and drop it into a baggie to take to church I believe that this must be really exciting for the mild mannered Os.  Here our poor O sits a, breakfast cereal, and not the tastiest cereal at that.  I imagine sitting on the self at the grocery store stuck between the Cookie Crisp and the Lucky Charms gave him a serious inferiority complex.  Even the Life Cereal above him was tastier.  But eventually he was purchased and brought home and put away.  And there he sat.  Occasionally the woman would grab the bag and pour a bowl but the kids reached right on past, they were looking for the Honey Bunches of Oats.

But here it is, this Cheerio’s big day, he’s put in a baggie which is then tossed into the diaper bag, he’s going places, he’s on his way to see the world.  And then, he’s going to fulfill his destiny.  He will be eaten!  By a child!  Oh wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles the day he’s been waiting for has finally arrived!  All his wholesome goodness will not be wasted!

And so this little O goes to church.  He hears the child whimpering, whining, crying and he knows his moment is coming.  The woman reaches into the diaper bag and pulls out his baggie.  He takes a good look around, this will be his only chance after all, and then he’s ready for it, he’s excited.  the child reaches out, takes the bag, opens it. And proceeds to dump it out on the bench.  Our poor Cheerio rolls off the bench, onto the floor and back out of sight.  He is doomed to the same fate as so many of his brethren, to languish for the day, possibly longer, maybe for weeks, months, under the bench until some particularly through member who takes their assignment to clean the chapel very seriously vacuums him up.

No one will eat him now.  Not even the woman, that would at least have been a respectable way to go.  He certainly won’t fulfill his destiny, his dream, the ultimate goal for any Cheerio, to be eaten by a child.  That has been snatched away. He won’t even get to be one that’s used for the boy’s potty training target practice now.  Oh how he used to mock those target Os.  And what he’d do to become one now.

Alone in his dark nook our poor Cheerio cries himself to sleep.

Don’t even get me started on the powder at the bottom of the Cheerio bag.  Those used to be Os you know!

~Alison Wonderland writes at Alison Wonderland

~Charrette writes at Divergent Pathways~

I don’t know if I believe in saving for a rainy day, because here’s the thing: people I know who do that? Never figure out it’s raining. And I’m not saying it’s bad for them. I’m saying it doesn’t work for me.

I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple of days while we’re hanging out on a cruise ship in Alaska. There’s all this gorgeous wilderness lining the inlets of places like Glacier Bay and I look out and think about how my mother would have loved it. She always wanted to see the fall foliage in New England and to come to Alaska and soak up the untouched landscape.

She never did. She died young, but that’s not why. The thing is, we grew up poor because my parents’ teachers salaries were often stretched past breaking by medical expenses. My dad had cancer. A few times. And a few other crazy medical emergencies as well. Even when his health straightened out, something always went wrong. They’d get a little ahead, sock away some cash in the bank and then the oven would break or the toilet would flood and we’d be back in the red again. So we lived in hand-me-downs and had more than our share of church welfare cheese and granola.

That habit of squirreling away the cash lasted even when things finally stabilized and insurance covered all the health disasters. My siblings and I were all out of the house and paying our own way for stuff. The mortgage was low, the cars paid off, and their years in the school system finally earned them comfortable salaries. Very comfortable. They still lived really modestly, which was great. I learned a great deal from that.

But then in November 2006 I had to wake my mom up one morning to tell her that my sixty year old father had died of flu in the hospital the night before. She couldn’t be there because she was undergoing chemo and hospitals are bad, bad places for sick people. And a month later, she had to shop for our Christmas presents in her bedroom, using the Sunday circulars and sending my sister and I out to get the gifts for everyone because she was too sick to go herself. She would fret over this picture and that ad, unable to decide what to get. We encouraged her to do gift certificates for everyone to their favorite stores. She felt relieved by this solution.

She wondered how much she should gift to each person. I suggested she go hog wild and give out a few hundred dollars. Now, mind you, she only had a few people to gift and she had a ton of money to shell out. I know. I was taking care of her accounts. I wanted her to have fun in her last weeks spending the money she’d worked hard to earn and save. The rainy day money. But she blanched at this suggestion. She might need that money, she said.

For what? She knew she was dying. She knew it would be soon. Funeral plans were already paid for and we would have no other expenses to settle for her estate. My brother and sister and I didn’t really want any of the money, anyway. It felt like blood money. It is blood money. All of us have done the same thing with it: gone on a major trip and stuck the rest in retirement funds. I thought my mom should spend the money on something that she would enjoy giving while she was alive.

Because if dying two months after your husband, especially when you know it’s coming, isn’t a rainy day….

Then what is?

She stuck with $50 on the gift certificates. I smiled. I didn’t think she’d really do anything different. And as I look out over the railing at the passing Alaska landscape, I realize that this trip could pay a month of our mortgage.

But then again, I feel the rain. On my face. In the place my mom only dreamed of going. I’m here for her. And it’s worth every penny.

~Melanie J writes at Write Stuff~

I awoke feeling anxious. Free-floating worries which previously resided independent of one another had joined to form small knots of anxiety. I couldn’t qualify it as a rock in my stomach, rather it felt more like a dozen pebbles sitting fast in the pit of my belly. Something akin to polished marbles in a leather pouch with a drawstring closure, the worries click-clacked against each other. Agitating. Stirring. Click-click-clacking. Creating a general feeling of unrest.

• Would Andrew survive the day under my friend’s care awaiting Don’s 6:00 p.m. retrieval after work?
• Would my friend survive Andrew, his singing-frog-itis and his high energy for the day?
• Would she be my friend after that experience?
• Could Don survive the weekend of single parenting for three?

This particular marble–worth double points–carried double anxiety. The nagging second question following the first,

• Would he survive it so beautifully and so easily as to wonder what it is exactly I get on about in my daily whining?

click-clack-clickety

The list seemed endless.

• Could I do this by myself? My bags packed, my tickets purchased, my travel instructions in hand. But always when we travel together, I chiefly rely on Don to navigate tube stations, decipher routes, and fuss with ticket agents. Am I capable of handling the inherent challenges of travel?

click-click-click

And a yet unnamed anxiety settled deep in the pit of my stomach.

clickety-clack-clack

I suppose it would be easy to chalk the entire thing up to hormonal surge, and that wouldn’t be entirely without street credibility. However, the gut level truth of it was I was frightened. Just like my seven-year-old self waiting in the wings for my first solo on the big stage. What if I trip? What if I fall? What if I’m no good at this? What if? What if? What if?

With apprehension I approached my husband and confided my fears. I confessed to the child in me feeling afraid. He consoled. He counseled. And as he most often does, he left it to me to decide whether I would be walking out the front door to claim my weekend alone. I knew his support would be mine regardless of the decision I made.

I also knew with a certainty that I had to do it. Had to.

With the zero hour of departure eminent, I gathered my courage, hoisted my bag and my camera over my right shoulder and marched out the door with my pre-schooler in tow. My shoes made a resounding slap-slap on the sidewalk. My heart beat loudly, but resolutely.

click-clack-click

As we walked to the tram stop, my inner dialogue was not so much ‘I think I can, I think I can’ as the little blue engine might chug, but more an ‘I must, I must, I must’.

clickety-click-click

While Andrew and I rode the tram across town, I examined each of the worry clusters individually, running my own one-sided conversation–a self-talk lecture, if you will–inside my head.

• Of course Andrew would be fine.
• As would my friend who had agreed to take him for Thursday afternoon and the whole of Friday.
• Obviously, we would still be friends upon the conclusion of the exchange.
• Naturally, Don would manage. And even if it did go swimmingly without a bicker, a bark, or a blow-up, I know he appreciates the job I do daily. Further, he does not begrudge me the whining. He never has.

We arrived at my friend’s home where I deposited Andrew, his Lightning McQueen backpack, and instructions for his care. Specifically, tips on how to feed a boy whose food vocabulary is woefully inadequate. Andrew had immediately galloped off to play with best friend, Harry, and barely acquiesced the perfunctory kiss goodbye.

click-clickety-clack

After that, I stepped onto the bus which would take me to the Central Station, and with the worry marbles whirring, inadvertently told the driver “Naar Schipol” (to the Airport) which exposed my innermost thoughts that I just may double back if he didn’t quickly get me to my airplane. It was a lucky light moment and as the driver handed me my stamped ticket, he jovially pointed out my mistake and we laughed together. At that moment, I caught my reflection in the mirror and realized that in cracking a smile, I was cracking through this anxious mess my gut was in.

Once at Central Station I boarded the train and contemplated the other contents in this sack of marbles.

click-click-click-click. I must. I must. I must.

This was the rhythm I was reduced to as the train whoosh-shushed along the tracks toward Amsterdam. Somewhere along that line, I dug deep to examine the most nagging worry of all. I named that last great worry, suddenly fully conscious that the last time I had attempted a weekend without the children was the very moment I lost someone very dear. At the moment of realization, this very glimpse into my psyche, I sucked in my breath and heaved an open audible sigh.

• ‘Grandpa isn’t going to die again’. I told myself ‘You are going to be okay’.

The remainder of the train trip, I allowed the tears to flow, the worries to wash away. The big one carrying the small ones in tandem until most had flushed clear. When I arrived at the airport I felt put together from the inside out. I was breathing in a normal cadence, and smiling with genuine enthusiasm.

The last worry about my personal potential to travel alone was already resolving itself as I stepped through the security gates, navigated hallways and boarded the plane.

• Indeed I could do this, and what’s more, I wanted to do this.

When I disembarked in Vienna and my feet hit Austrian ground, the only click-clicking left was the quick stepping tap-tap-tap of Italian made shoes on posh Viennese women. This offered a fresh counter rhythm to the comfortable slap-thuk slap-thuk of my own flip-flops as I strode through the corridors of the airport heading for the subway, to the train, to my destination.

I was well on my way and I was going to be just fine.

~Jenn in Holland writes at Something to Say: About Life in the Netherlands~

We had thirty people vote in last week’s Poll of the Week.  To see those results, click here.

If you would like to submit a poll for our Poll of the Week, click here.

Remember that polls open at 12:01 (Eastern Time) Saturday morning and close Friday at midnight.  Comments are left open for further discussion, but the voting is completely anonymous (unless you TELL us how you vote!  haha).

This week’s poll came from Jenn in Holland.  Thanks, Jenn, for the great poll!

When I was little I was one of those kids who needed a lot of love.

I know, I know, all kids need a lot of love, but I suppose what I mean is that I needed the cuddles and closeness and touch more than perhaps my siblings did.

Although I was in a loving family, we didn’t say “I love you” very often. It just wasn’t done, it wasn’t in our script, even though it was very much in our hearts.

The first time I said the words out loud was when I was 11 years old. My Gran was ill. She’d been ill for a little while, and something in me knew that it was serious. After a short visit in January 1987, a visit where my lovely, energetic, bubbly Gran sat tired and somehow smaller in her chair, as I went to kiss her goodbye the words somehow fell from my mouth, “Love you Gran.”

“I love you too sweetheart.” she whispered.

That was on the Friday, the last time I saw her. She died on the Monday.

Somehow, losing my Gran planted a seed in me that slowly grew in my family. I needed to tell people that I loved them. Maybe it was the fear of suffering so great a loss again and not having let that person know the depths of my feelings for them. Maybe it was needing to hear those words back. Probably it was a little of both. At first it felt awkward, to make myself so vulnerable, to ask for that vulnerability back, but it became easier, more natural, and now my parents and my younger brother exchange these words whenever we speak, whenever we say goodbye.

My middle brother and my older sister choose to show their love in other ways, and I accept and respect that, though I can’t say that at times I don’t long for them to put it into words.

When I had minor surgery earlier this year, I was touched so much by the cards, the emails and the texts I received from my family and friends, but there was something special that helped me keep it together when I kissed my sleeping girls goodbye that morning and we crept from the house.

The night before, my sister rang me. We chatted, we laughed and when we said goodbye, she told me she loved me.

I know it won’t become a habit for her, not because she doesn’t feel or mean it, but because it isn’t natural to her, but when she needed me to know, she made sure I did. On this occasion, once was ‘often enough’ for me, because I will hold it forever.

~Jo Beaufoix writes at Jo Beaufoix~

His name was Val and we were in love.

I still remember the first day we met. He was 12, and I was 13. I shyly entered the Sunday School room and sat on a chair in the center, my hands folded primly in my lap. Three boys lined the side wall, all wearing white shirts and red ties, all with dark hair, and all exhibiting a type of nonchalance that was unsettling and calming at the same time. At least they didn’t seem bothered by the newcomer, but they also seemed completely disinterested in me. I was too shy and insecure to even think about being attracted to any of them.

Later, I met Val’s older brother and immediately got into the ever-growing line of not-so-secret admirers. It soon became apparent that I would never get to the front of that line. It never occurred to me to get in a line for Val. He was younger than me, afterall, and lacking the showy charisma of his older brother. But we did become fast friends. We hung out together, spent hours on the phone, and laughed together in the school library. We always sought each other out in any crowd and I felt safe with him near.

Years passed, and slowly, I began to look at him in a new way. The slightly pudgy boy I had met that first Sunday had turned into a self-assured, passionate young man with a love of expensive cars and chocolate milk, straight from the bottle. His warm, brown eyes were rimmed with bountiful dark lashes, and his porcelain skin, not yet tinctured by the slight gray of youthful stubble, set off his crimson lips perfectly. He was beautiful and confident—in short, everything I was not. How was it, then, that he, too, saw me in a new light? Me, with my too-skinny body and heavily-permed hair, crooked nose and oversized lips? The only guys who had ever showed any interest in me were the ones who were twice as unattractive and awkward as myself. It was as though I had a flashing neon sign above my head that said, “Are you completely socially inept? Need braces and Accutane? Showering a chore? Then I’m the one for you!” I could hardly believe that someone as desirable as Val would have any interest in me. And yet, he wrote me clever and charming letters using words like “fair maiden” and comparing me to shiny diamonds and gold. He said I was the one who had brought light into his life, instead of the other way around.

Our love blossomed slowly, innocently, and carefully. Just holding hands was thrilling. He was my best friend, and my first love. Our first date was on June 19th, his 16th birthday. There was a full moon that night, not that you could tell due to the constant Seattle rain that fell in soft hues around us. I was dressed all in white, completely sweet, pure, and virginal. I had never been kissed, and neither had he. Expectation hung thick in the air as we stood under the eave in front of my garage while the raindrops spattered on our legs. I looked at him, then looked away. We stopped talking, and I brazenly held his gaze, waiting for him to make the first move. The tension was palpable. Finally, he looked down and said, “I just can’t.”

A month passed, and my birthday arrived. July 18th was blessed with another full moon. And another perfect opportunity for the long-awaited kiss. Val had been at my birthday party and had graciously offered to take home one of my friends when it was over. Would he come back? I went out to the front of our house and reclined beneath our huge maple tree. I stared up through the leaves that were being nudged by the wind, letting the moonlight filter in silver shafts to the ground below, and willed him to return. I wished with all the might of my newly seventeen-year-old self that Val would drive up in his champagne-colored Volkswagon and give me the only birthday present I really wanted. I thought of our theme song—“Fly Me to the Moon”—as though we were naïve children from the 1940s instead of the 1980s. It was the perfect song for us, and the sweetest way to say “I love you” without really saying it. I waited and waited as the soft wind and moonlight created the perfect scene to complement the song. But he never returned.

On August 17th, the third full moon of the summer shone brightly overhead as we embarked on the annual boat dance. As we boarded the ferry for our three-hour sail around the harbor, I could think of nothing but that kiss. Tonight would be the night. I knew it, and he knew it. I don’t remember anything about the dance, or the drive home. All I remember is walking up the sidewalk to my front door, Val trailing behind me as the cool wind softly danced about us. How would it happen? What would it feel like? Which way should I turn my head? When I got to the door, I turned around. There was no conversation—no time to think. He kissed me, sweetly and softly, then turned around and left. I felt no butterflies, no electricity. No figurative fireworks exploded overhead. Hollywood was nowhere around as I received true love’s first kiss. I stepped slowly inside and closed the front door behind me, my smile as big as all the world.

~Melissa writes at The Howell Herald~