Random Word Post: Checkpoint

April 12, 2015December 8, 2018Lauren 2 Comments

I found a random word generator and only had to scroll through 18 words before I picked “checkpoint” as the word of the day. Some of the others I can remember were: bloke, dolphin, national, and solitary. Sounds like the makings of a Nicolas Cage movie, doesn’t it?

Checkpoint

I go through checkpoints quite often. They are near, but not on the border- does everyone know that? The checkpoints are about 50 miles (total guess there. Could be 20, could be 70… I’m bad at measuring for belts too.) from the US Mexico border. So make note of that, paperwork lacking new immigrants!

So, in the past when I’ve gone through a checkpoint with my husband and family we get asked “US citizens? Where are you heading? Where did you visit? etc.” Really boring and soul killing stuff to have to ask every single car on an 8 hour shift, when you think about it. Poor Border Patrol agents… their lives are nowhere near as exciting as all the recruitment billboards make it seem. But in the past two years I’ve been going through them alone as I travel the border region for work. And, without exception, I just get waved through. Every time. And I am irate about this!

Does my British Isles ancestry make me seem non threatening? Ever heard of the IRA, fuckers? It makes me want to become a super villain (please note-I already have a long haired white cat so I’m all set) just to laugh maniacally at being so thoroughly discounted by multiple border guards in the past. And then I have to sigh and just accept the fact that I am no international woman of mystery over here… I am a middle aged mom of two with shoulder length hair who votes regularly and that the only things I do maniacally are weed my garden and listen to NPR. Oh wait- that’s manically- damn!

And every single time they wave me through I think: “I gotta start running coke.”

Business Travel Children’s Stories: The Denver Bunnies in Bed

April 1, 2015December 9, 2018Lauren 2 Comments

The Denver Bunnies in Bed

“Boy, this sure is weird snow, Creampuff.”

“I know, Sweetie Pie! It’s not cold on my paws, or wet… and it tastes TERRIBLE!”

Mom and Dad said: “Bunnies! Stop chewing on the blanket! This isn’t snow, it’s a bed- this is where you’re going to sleep from now on!”

“Uh, wait. Are you telling me I don’t have to sleep outside in the snow anymore?”

“And are you telling me I don’t have to shiver all night long and worry about being eaten by a bobcat or owl any more?”

“Yes bunnies, that is EXACTLY what we’re saying.”

“Hooray! Bunny Rabbit high five!”

“Time to go to sleep then! I think we’re going to like all this “bed” and “blanket” and “pillow” stuff a whole lot!”

“Ummm, bunnies? You’re doing it wrong…”

“Oh. Okay, so it’s supposed to be like this?”

“Nope, I like it better the other way. Good night, Creampuff!”

Creampuff said: “Dude. Not okay.”

“I’ll sleep waaaaay over here, Sweetie Pie, if you are going to sleep like that! Goodnight!”

And the little bunnies slept warm and safe for the first time ever.

Denver

March 8, 2015December 8, 2018Lauren 1 Comment

I recently took a new job (which- let me just say: Love it. Would have quit the old one sooner if I’d known you could enjoy a job this much) and we’ll be relocating to Denver this summer. Which sounds big, and is… but it’s so much easier than I thought it’d be too. It reminds me a bit of the feeling I had when I met my husband. It was so easy to accept the fact that my life, in the moment of meeting him, was going to change completely- fundamentally and permanently. I knew all of that looking into his eyes all those years ago… and it was so easy to accept, be excited about, and welcome in my life. My life was never going to be the same again- it was an amazing feeling.

And now, again- this is a huge change. Moving across the country changes not just my life, but my husband’s, my daughters’, my family in Texas… so it’s big. But it also is surprisingly easy to accept and welcome. My husband and I are in Denver this week- I’m working, he’s applying at school districts, and we’re house hunting. Plus fitting in as much fun as we can.

Anyway, so this bear is outside of the convention center right around the corner from the hotel we’re staying at in downtown Denver- and it may be one of the best known pieces of art in the city. I love it- it makes me smile. And outdoor art… there is a lot of it in this city, which I both like and was a bit surprised by. And it’s all pretty good- not pretentious stuff like Austin has.

Ugh- seriously, let’s talk about Austin for a second. Austin is as over praised as Breaking Bad, bacon, Starbuck’s bitter-ass coffee, and Andy Warhol are. Seriously- why are those all put on a pedestal? It’s baffling to me. Having lived in Austin and gone to school there I can easily say- give me San Antonio any day. Or Denver. I’ll totally take Denver too.

What I Do On Business Trips…

February 7, 2015December 9, 2018Lauren

So, as I’ve mentioned before, my day job is a traveling sales rep. Traveling sounds cool until you do it- it’s mostly quiet, and you aren’t out living it up or seeing whatever local highlights there are to see and do in your destination. (“So what’s there to do in Port Lavaca, TX? Be sad and breath in carcinogens? Oh. Okay…I’ll just stay in my hotel room then.”) Mostly it’s just time you are aware, every single second, that you are away from where you want to be. I turn into Dorothy when I travel: “There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home!” Maybe if I got some red glittery heels off of a corpse that would work, because it sure didn’t work with the snow boots I wore on this last trip.

So when I do travel for more than a few days I take along a couple of my daughters’ stuffed animals and write stories about them. Making these lets me feel- from very far away- that I’m still participating in my family. I’m contributing. Connecting. It’s totally worth an hour in a hotel making something for my girls to laugh over while I’m gone. And I always call my husband IMMEDIATELY after I send it and ask if he read it. “Did you read it? What did you think? My favorite part is…” and so on. Because I’m THAT person, I guess.

I don’t buy them anything on my trips usually- as a wise Snapple cap once told me: “The more you own, the more that owns you”- but they have binders of these stories from me. I hope it’s something they remember- that Mom sent them effort and some chuckles instead of a magnet or keychain. I hope they remember. But even if they don’t… writing these stories for them made me feel better when I travelled and I needed it. Oh! And also, I feel like I grow as a person each time someone gives me some side-eye for being a grown ass woman walking around taking pictures of stuffed animals. Pride is a sin, so they say- so those occasions help me overcome my not insubstantial personal share.

(So- Baby Tiger is the big eyed one here. Stripeless USED to be called Baby Tiger until the new Baby Tiger came along- at which time the name was changed by my oldest daughter to Stripeless- because she’d been so well loved by that point her stripes had rubbed off. They are both girls.)

The Adventures of Baby Tiger and Stripeless in Canada, eh?!

“Well, here we go! I’ve never been in an airplane before, have you Stripeless?”

“No, I never have, Baby Tiger! I’m so excited! I sure am glad we got to come with Lily and Noelle’s Mommy on this trip. I bet she is too- I’m sure their Mommy would have been lonely without us. We have a very important job to do- keeping her from missing Lily and Noelle too much!”

“That’s true, Stripeless… but we are here MOSTLY to have fun, right?”

“RIGHT!”

“Canada! It wasn’t the quickest airplane ride, but we finally got here. I wonder if Lily and Noelle have looked on the globe to see where we are in Winnipeg, Canada? This snow sure is cold, how does it taste, Stripeless?”

“It tastes freezing! The world is one big snow-cone up here- lets go back inside, Baby Tiger!”

“Run quicker- we’re not snow Tigers!”

Whew! A hotel fire- that will warm those cold tigers up!

“Ahhhh… it sure was nice to warm up in front of that fire, Baby Tiger! It’s been a really long day… I think it’s time to go to bed, don’t you?”
“I sure do, Stripeless. Do you think if we shouted loud enough that Lily and Noelle would hear us tell them goodnight?”

“GOODNIGHT LILY AND NOELLE!!!!!”

Part of me can’t believe I just wrote a blog post about stuffed animals. And part of me totally, totally can.

From the Paper: Chaos Theory

January 18, 2015December 10, 2018Lauren

I find the opinion pages of my small town Texas newspaper to be a daily lesson in patience. Most of the time I can be that water-resistant backed duck. But sometimes… Perhaps it’s simply that any kind of nationalism (yes, even our own) strikes me as a bad idea. Odd to hear coming from a Texan? Who loves her state yet realizes calling it “the best” is an opinion based on bias and lack of knowledge on the others? Yup. Hi there, that’s me! Extrapolate that out to all nations, cultures, ethnicities, and races and that there is my world view. So anyone claiming to be “the best!” gets my back up, and strident whining about how everyone else should appreciate said bestedness even more so. Toss some twisting of historical fact and thinly veiled Hitler praise in there and I get all fired up. Same as the last time I wrote a post like this I’m not posting the letter to the editor I responded to here… due to possible issues with my local newspaper and because I’m not giving the author a forum for his words to go one step further in the world so maybe this is a bit cryptic. I’d like to think it can standalone in this way though let me know if not and I’ll work the next one differently.

Chaos Theory and that thing Mr. O said about 1941

Let’s talk “Butterfly Effect” briefly- and I’m talking chaos theory, not the 2004 movie with Ashton Kutcher. It gets oversimplified into this: the possibility that a hurricane in North America may be caused by a butterfly flapping its wings in China, and all of the aftereffects that result from that small action. Now, there are some problems with this theory, I’ll admit. One of the main ones: Could you really say with certainty, after the fact, which butterfly was responsible for a specific result? The other problem with the theory, as I see it, is that due to such rampant pollution I’m really not sure how many butterflies are left in China. Come to think of it, it has been a pretty quite hurricane season…

When this concept is taken out of the realm of just butterflies and applied to man it basically boils down to this: every action has an effect on the present and therefore changes the future. I’m not going to pick apart each of the claims Mr. O makes about the German influence on history… except for one. (We’ll get back to that.) I’ll just state that his assertion that “there would be no USA or Europe as we know it today (without Germans)” is only accurate if we realize there truly would be no USA or Europe as we know it today without every single action of every single one of the people of the world. Chaos theory. Butterfly effect. The past changes the future. It is a beautiful way of seeing the world and is one of the main reasons I love history as much as I do.

Now…let’s talk the German invasion of Russia in 1941 that Mr. O states was to protect Christianity. Go ahead and look up who ordered that action, called Operation Barbarossa and why it was ordered… no don’t do it on Wikipedia! Sheesh, use a reputable source… go ahead. I’ll wait here. Found who ordered it? Little bit shocked, aren’t you, that anyone would have the absolute chutzpah to trot out anything that guy did as heroic, protecting Christianity, or anything worthy of praise? Yeah, me too. And for anyone who didn’t look that up- here’s a hint: he’s wiped a specific form of mustache off the list of acceptable facial hair for well over six decades now. Was it done to defend Christianity? Do butterflies flap their wings to make hurricanes? Or do they do it to preemptively invade Russia to defend the Third Reich from a perceived threat on its Eastern front? Now, the cause of the invasion can actually be proven (there is, not totally unexpectedly, a plethora of very well-organized notes and directives concerning it) but the final effect is what is up for some interpretation from us today. So there you go, that gives you free reign to interpret and have opinions on the results of factual events in history… just not to misinterpret the motivations or to be piecemeal about the facts themselves.

(Image courtesty of Jean Scheijen)

Random Picture Friday

January 16, 2015December 8, 2018Lauren

Low on inspiration for blog posts? Or have SO many things to possibly write/think about; surgery, new carpeting, health insurance decisions, phone plan decisions, real estate decisions, vehicle decisions, work decisions… that you just want to take a nap instead? Well have I got the blog post for you! Here’s how it works: Press the Random Picture generator on a free images website. Press it repeatedly until you get to a picture you cleave to, but pretend you only take the first one that pops up.Write zippy comment(s) about said picture… and you’re done! Without further ado, may I present to you: