Vocabulary Fail of the Week

Let me preface this post by admitting that when it comes to internet searches in Chez Doc Jess and Arizona, those that begin with 'why does my baby …' or 'is it normal if my baby ...' have taken on a resemblance to Youtube clips that begin with the fateful words: 'here, hold my beer.'

There's a whole lot of information out there, much of it contradictory, such that I can make a decent and scientifically supported argument for most anything. So when I've got a question, I ask my mom friends, do some research, pick a logical option or five, and sometimes run them past Arizona, who was a teacher in a past life. Then I try it on Wallaby, it either works or doesn't, and if it doesn't, I have some chocolate and try something else.

So it was that this week, we instituted the 'repeat and elaborate' theory of baby babble: when he makes a sound, we're supposed to repeat it back to him and then give some examples of words that use it. Which makes sense. But it turns out, it's not as easy as it sounds!

I'm not usually one for stage fright--I can get up in front of people and talk about most anything, whether or not I actually know squat about it. But ask me about my favorite songs, books or authors, and I'll probably draw a blank. It's like those word-to-speech connections get lost in the mix.

Turns out, the same thing holds for the baby vocabulary thing. The other day, it went like this:

Wallaby: Ba! Ba-ba-ba…

Me: Ooh, 'ba' is a good syllable. You can use it in all sorts of fun words, like ball and bat ... And … um … barrister. Barrimundi. Bandicoot. Er ... Badonkadonk.

Arizona (from the other room): Badonkadonk? Really?

Me: You think this is easy? You try it. Go on, I dare you.

(Arizona comes in from other room, makes funny faces at the baby.)

Wallaby (laughs): Baaaaa! Ba-ba-ba …

Arizona (opens mouth … closes it … looks over at me): Um … Barf?

Yep. Just call us a couple of wordsmiths. And send vocabulary links, stat!

Parking My A$$

A couple of years ago, I found myself getting snappy with the world despite having not a whole heck of a lot to complain about--I was newly married to a great guy, living in a great little house in the trees that we could afford, and the writing was going well. Yet, I was cranky. So, as I try to do when the snark takes hold (rather than, you know, spewing snark), I stepped back and asked myself, "What gives?" 

And Self said, "I miss having something that's mine." 

Which I supposed was true--in a few short years, I had sold my horses and taken up mountain biking, kayaking and fishing with Arizona, intertwining myself with him and our marriage at so many levels. In a good way, but still. Yeah, I was definitely missing a me-thing.

That surprised me, as I had been blaming the moods on our continued challenges in getting and staying pregnant. But that was part of it, wasn't it? Because that, too, was at least partly something I was doing for someone else, though a not-yet-born someone. 

So what could I do that was mine? 

Somewhere on my nebulous bucket list was the line item "volunteer," as my prior life had been rather selfish, all in all. But where? My first choice would be a cat rescue, but I know myself well enough to predict that: a) it would break my heart to see kitties in distress; b) I would want to bring them all home; and c) I actually would bring enough of them home that it would become a problem at some point. So horses seemed the far safer choice--I knew enough to be useful, yet had BTDT enough that I wouldn't get hooked on a pretty face and a sad story. Besides, Arizona's and my little house in the trees doesn't have enough room for a pony.

A bit of Google-Fu yielded the name of an equine rescue some ten miles away, and an email netted me the info that they were running a three-day training session for new volunteers the following month. And I found my Me Thing.

This is Beech Brook Farm, as shown to you by a website I built and maintain for the rescue. I get my quiet time doing chores there. I fill my creative well by helping rehab the horses and donkeys we rescue from auction and neglect, and helping to find them wonderful new homes so we have room and resources to do it all again. And I have made fabulous new friends.

Like me, many of the volunteers have a reason for being there, some hole we're filling by giving back. Others just want to give and keep giving, or to have access to horsey smells and nuzzles without all the bills that come with ownership. Or … or … It's a community. People. Animals. Healing. The farm is an important part of many of our lives, and it has saved more than a hundred horses and donkeys since opening its doors in '07.  But …

And (sigh) there's a but. 

You see, the farm is losing its farm. Er … okay, that was an awkward sentence if ever there was one. Let me try again ... The property BBFER has been leasing is up for sale, and the rescue will soon be without a home. We're fundraising like crazy to support the lease or purchase of a new property, and the costs of moving twenty or so critters and all the sheds, fencing and equipment that goes with them. So I'm doing something I rarely (never?) do on this blog. I'm asking you to please donate, if at all possible. Every little bit will help give us volunteers our animal therapy and help save more baby mini horses

baby mini donkeys

and hard-knock campaigners like Rhett, who is a personal favorite of mine, Gone With the Wind (gag) name notwithstanding: 

Here is the crowd funding link. If nothing else, go visit it because I helped write the copy! Then, if you can, throw a few bucks toward BBFER. It's an accredited nonprofit, and every dollar goes directly to helping the horses (I'm on the board of directors now; I can attest to this!). 

Okay, getting off my soapbox now, and wishing you all a wonderful week, full of the soft whiskers of your choice, and plenty of time for you own personal Me Stuff. And if you'd like to share your Me Things in the comments, I'd love to hear them!

Get While the Getting's Good!

Anyone who says animals have no concept of time has not (in my not-so-humble opinion) been around very many animals. Sure, maybe Pixel T. Cat starts cruising for squishy food around 4:30 when she knows darn well she doesn't get fed until five or later, but that's optimism (and, arguably, feline manipulation), not a fuzzy grasp of time. And have you ever rented a horse for an hour? The smart ones turn and head for home at minute twenty-nine regardless of their rider's alleged commands.

Back in the day when I was bringing up baby horses and teaching them how to be productive members of the equine community, one of the best tools in my arsenal was leaving things on a good note. Although repetition is a good way to learn, a smart baby horse will do things right the first time or two. If you keep going, though, they get this little horsey thought process going. To whit: "Since she keeps telling me to do the same thing, I must be doing it wrong. So next time I'll do something different. How about this? Or this?" And suddenly I would go from feeling like a rockstar to knowing I had blown it, at least for that moment of that day. So it was far better for me to quit while ahead, even if I had a whole plan mapped out for my training ride. 

Some days, on certain horses, I would ride for five minutes, pat them and put them away. Hey, we had accomplished our goal. Why push it? Granted, as the animal got older and more advanced, I could do a pat-pat, maybe hand over a peppermint, and move on to something else. But with the babies, shorter was usually better.

So it was this past weekend that I felt like I had a good Mom moment with Wallaby. Craving grown-up writerly companionship, and with Arizona off doing Guy Stuff, I loaded myself and the little one into the Roo and hied us off to the local chapter meeting of Romance Writers of America. And if 'local chapter meeting' makes you think of AA or Al-Anon, yes, there are days I want to stand up and say, "My name is Doc Jess and I'm a writer…" And, yeah, maybe I've corrupted the Serenity Prayer a time or two. Anyway, back to the meeting. 

Picture it: Me and Wallaby, and a hotel conference room full of his honorary aunties (and a couple of uncles), who have known me through a whole lot of ups and downs. And it's not like a girl can sneak anywhere pushing a gigantic stroller and loaded like a pack mule. So, yeah, we interrupted. And there were some squees of "Baby!" And ten minutes or so later, when the business meeting got to the "member news" section of things, our fabulous Jane (who was leading the meeting in the absence of our fabulous Gail) called me out and asked me to introduce our newest member.

Said member, having just started waking up from his car-ride-induced-coma, found himself whisked out of his car seat and held up in front of a whole lot of strangers. He was understandably confused.

That being said, he was a very good sport about it, and about the round of pass-the-baby that followed. Then he sat with me in the back and we watched a very good presentation from Stephanie Queen on indie publishing of multi-author boxed sets. Then there was lunch and another presentation on the docket, and I could have stayed for hours, enjoying my friends. However I felt the little trainer's time clock ticking down in the back of my mind, and I heard that old trainer's instinct whisper, "Get out while the getting's good." So instead of lunch and another talk, I loaded up the Giant Stroller and we hit the road with the baby still in his happy place. 

And you know what? It was a far better experience for all concerned, I think, than if I had pushed him to trot one more twenty-meter circle or do another haunches-in. 

So now, as I sit down to attack a new scene in a new book today (the concept of 'attack' being entirely predicated on the quality of nap time, mind you), I'm reminded that all of this applies to writing, too. Which is more interesting, the scene where the author describes the weather, the setting, the cop arriving at the station house for the day, grabbing her coffee, saying 'hey' to a few other cops, and then sitting in on a task-force meeting, getting her day's assignment and leaving the building to go question a witness … or the one where her boss slaps a new crime scene photo onto the murder board, skewers a finger in her direction, and tells her not to come back until she has a solid lead?

Yeah, I'd rather read option B any day. Rather write it, too. So I guess that's my mantra for the week: Get out while the getting's good! 

Things that Remind Me of Other Things (Even if they're Spelled Wrong)

How's that for a vague-book-ish title? Well, vague-ish is probably going to be the theme for this blog entry, as I'm working on about four hours sleep this morning. Not because the baby was keeping me up, but because he'd been waking hourly-ish for the past ten nights, in what I'm guessing is a slightly early version of a lovely thing Google tells me is called the Four Month Sleep Regression. Or something. Anyway, Wallaby slept pretty well last night, but I was wide awake, waiting for him to wake up, and doing my best not to poke him too many times to make sure he was still breathing.

Yeah. Gonna need a nap. Arizona is already on notice that I'm not fit for human consumption. 

Anyway, things and other things. You see, Arizona is on the couch here with me, setting up his new GeigerRig, which is a SEAL-designed backpack hydration system that outdoes our other biking rigs because: 1) you can pressurize it, so you're not trying to suck anything liquid whilst also trying to suck in oxygen to make it up a big hill (BTDT, didn't work well); and 2) the water bladder and tubing all can go in the dishwasher. (Woot!) 

Thing is, when I see Geiger anything, I don't immediately think about hydration rigs. Or, for that matter, the devices we used to use to sweep the lab (and our persons) after using radioisotopes. Nope, I think about the guy who came up with this:

More here.

Granted, HR Giger didn't have an 'e' in that there name, but it's stuck in my head that way. Not to mention the number of times Arizona made reference to the famous 'alien bursting out of the guy's stomach' scene during my pregnancy. 'Nuff said.

And, yeah, pretty random as blog posts go. But the other week I left us all with an ear worm in the form of the narwhal song. So now I'll leave you with a mind worm: 

Pride Goeth Before ...

Go ahead, folks, say it with me: THE FALL!

Yes, it's true--I routinely feel the need to prove gravity. (Though Arizona likes to remind me that  gravity can't actually be proven. I'm just providing more evidence that argues in favor of its existence. Geek.) So you might wince when you hear (as did several friends when I mentioned the plan) that this weekend was my first time back on my mountain bike in roughly a year. But with good weather and a grandma lined up to walk Wallaby on the pedestrian trail while Arizona and I took the bikes up onto the gnarly stuff, I was raring to go!

Some couples (okay, most of 'em) probably use that first official babysitting opportunity for a nice dinner out where they can both sit down at the same time, use two hands to eat, and spend more than five minutes on the process of shoveling ye olde food into ye olde mouth. Which (at least at chez Doc Jess) is a rarity these days. But Arizona and I don't really do fancy restaurants as romance--he proposed to me on the side of a bike trail overlooking a local reservoir and I told him he was going to be a daddy at the gun range. 'Nuff said. 

So it was this past Sunday that my mom headed off with the jogging stroller and the baby, while Arizona and I wheeled off on our bikes. And I refused to admit, even to myself, that I was nervous. Not of falling so much as being different on the bike. Feeling different about something that had been a central part of our time together pre-baby. 

A few years ago, I took a chunk of time away from my bike to rehab a dislocated elbow (see above re: proving gravity), and it wasn't easy to get back into the swing of things after--I was slow and tentative, and that's not a recipe for success on a downhill bike. And that was before I had things in my head like "I'm a mom" and "I don't have time to be hurt right now" … The latter of which I knew from my days competing horses in the jumper ring was guaranteed to invoke the law (theory?) of gravity. 

So, yeah. Mild butterflies--not just because falling hurts, but because after all the happy changes Arizona and I have been through recently, I wanted this one thing to stay more or less the same.

As we started out I wobbled a little, feeling the adjustments we had made to my bike in the early weeks of pregnancy. A few quick changes--lose the gel seat cover, lower the seat, let a little air out of the rear shock--and we were back on the go, turning onto the trail leading to the first climb.

And, suddenly, I got why "just like riding a bike" is a cliche. As we powered up the hill and then gravity (hello again!) sent us boinging down the rocky backside, my body remembered where everything was--how to shift, how to balance, when to tap the brakes and when to power through. Even better, suddenly the idea of staying back in the saddle made more sense than it ever had before--why lean forward and rush to an obstacle when I can sit back, lighten the front end, and let the tires carry me up and over?

Which is a little like my developing take on motherhood, come to think--take it slow, one thing at a time, and don't rush the fun stuff. And while there are going to be bumps and low points, there will be peaks and smooth spots, too. All of which we found on our ride together. 

So where does the pride part come in, you might ask? Well, after the first ten minutes or so, I realized I was getting sassy--showboating in the corners and taking tougher lines and bigger drops than I probably should be after a year out of the saddle. And I know from experience that for me, the "woo-hoo, look at me!" is usually closely followed by: CRASH! So I backed off. I slowed down a little and took a breath. And I didn't rush the fun stuff.

Nope, despite the title (and my history) I didn't fall--except back in love with biking, and always in love with Arizona. And later, as we pedaled for home and talked about the biking being an important two-of-us thing in a suddenly three-of-us world, he said, "Absolutely. But it's also awesome to know that Wallaby's waiting for us in the parking lot."

And, oh, it is.

Am I going to fall and hurt myself one of these days? Undoubtedly. But, like always, I'll get back up, assess my injuries, and go from there. And a few days later, Arizona will get a package in the mail and present me with a pad to protect whatever part of me I banged that time, wanting to keep me safe. And that, for me, is romance.

Bigger Than A …

You've probably seen the list of "I've lost a …" that floats around the interwebz and appears during about half the weight-loss discussions I've ever been part of. If not, check it out--it's good reading. Back when I was working on my weight, it amused me to say "I've lost 20 dozen large eggs." And when I was furiously gestating, it was daunting (yet still amusing) to say, "I've gained a mid-sized microwave and two guinea pigs, thankyouverymuch." 

I've come to realize, though, that different people have different lists. When I'm fleshing out a character in a book, one of my favorite things to do is figure out what's important to them, and how that's going to color their take on the world. An artist might see colors and patterns, a chef might see ingredients, and a cowboy might compare a woman's hair to his favorite horse's tail and consider it a compliment. It's all a matter of perspective.

Thus, while I might consider that Wallaby was equivalent to a chihuahua and three dozen Krispy Kreme donuts at birth and currently weighs slightly more than a sperm whale's brain, the other day Arizona was bouncing him around rather vigorously (as Daddies apparently do), and said, "You weigh about the same as a good road bike!" Which he does, though it'll be a while before he approaches the weight of my mountain bike, at 36 lbs.

In mountain biking parlance, Arizona is a "weight weenie"--meaning that he'll go to great expense to swap out this component or that, in order to shave a few ounces off the total weight of his bike. So his weight vocabulary is often in terms of hubs, rims and tires. Then there was the other day when, upon finding that Wallaby is over 26" long now, he channeled his inner fisherman and said, "Wow, you're almost legal!" (In CT waters, a striped sea bass has to be 28" to be a keeper.)

Which gets me thinking as I sit down to write today … my hero is a contractor who loves his high tech and my heroine runs the vintage clothing store near Mustang Ridge. How are their perspectives going to color their worlds and the comparisons they make? Is his phone named Hal, or maybe Jarvis? Does she compare the color of a customer's shirt to the Fiestaware serving dish she has upstairs? We'll have to see!

Boil Bottles, Not Bunnies

So the other day, it went like this:

Me (puttering around the kitchen, singing to Wallaby--to the tune of Row Your Boat): Boil, boil, boil your bottles; gently in the steam! Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily; life is but a dream … (back to talking voice) Remember, Wallaby, boil bottles, not bunnies, okay? Boiling bunnies is not recommended.

Arizona (coming into the kitchen to flip the bacon): Why?

Me: Why boil the bottles?

Arizona: No, why warn him against boiling bunnies in particular? Why not bleach or aerosol cans or something?

Me: You know. Boiling bunnies … from Fatal Attraction. (Getting a blank look.) With Michael Douglas? Did you see it?

Arizona: Yeah, but I don't remember the bunny boiling scene.

Me: Which goes to show that your exes have been generally sane. 

Back in the day, I remember reading a science fiction short story about a society in which certain things were given; they were called an 'everyone-knows thing' and treated as fact in the absence of evidence. Then along comes our main character, who manipulates a situation by saying that something is an everyone-knows thing when it isn't. The others around him, who can't conceive of a falsehood, assume they have forgotten this everyone-knows thing and accept it into their world view. And thus lying is born. 

(Google didn't provide much help in a search of 'everyone knows thing science fiction', although I found a few places where folks have used the term, so am pretty sure I'm not making up the story. It might have been in the Asimov or Analog magazines, or a short-story collection? Mad points to anyone who comes up with the title and author.)

Anyway, in my association with Arizona, I have come to find that certain things that I always took as everyone-knows things are more like 'things everyone in New England knows' or 'things me and my friends know' rather than absolutes. Like bowling with the little balls with no finger holes (candlepin, which is all I've ever known as 'bowling' and which Arizona finds entirely weird) or ordering jimmies on my ice cream.

What are some of your everyone-knows things that turned out to be 'things I know that I assume everyone else does'? For me, I'll add bunny boiling to the list, while Wallaby (in rock star mode with his hair and shades) laughs at us both.