a boat for what ails you

My best friend and I went on a little canoe outing ths weekend, an evening adventure on still waters. I love boats, and it seems outrageous that I hadn't been canoeing in so long. (I learned to canoe many years ago at Challengers Day Camp. My number one favorite thing at camp was the horses. Number two was the canoe trips. And number three was making sassafras tea from actual baby sassafras tree roots.)

The water was so calm Sunday evening, and the air was light and cool. A group of friendly strangers gathered, trying on life jackets and standing around quietly, holding their heavy green plastic paddles like staffs, waiting to be told what to do.

When everyone was set, we started clambering into our chosen canoes, and although I thought that I knew exactly what I was doing, my body told me to chill out and pay attention... I pretty much only like to sit in the back, but this time I had to give up and let someone else steer. (There's something to ponder a bit more...) My kinked out neck was still complaining, and I wanted to be sure that we'd make it back to shore without too much trouble if my neck threw a giant tantrum in the middle of the lake. And I discovered that the other big benefit to sitting in front is the really great photos that can be captured!

Once we were gliding over the water, I felt right at home. The ripples on the surface of the lake, the sounds of bugs and frogs and birds, the changing colors and patterns in the darkening sky, the bats swooping silently overhead~ everything was just nice. A few times, I did think that a bat was going to have sonar failure and run into my paddle, but they can correct their angle of swoop with impressive speed and accuracy. It took everything in me to not start singing the Count's bat batty batty bat song from Sesame Street, but I decided that the rest of the boaters probably wouldn't have loved being subjected to it as much as I love singing it.

Here's something else that came up during this little excursion: I don't think of myself as a competitive person. But then, at random moments, I realize that I'm being completely competitive! I want to be the first boat under the bridge! The first ones to greet the gaggle of geese on the far bank! This has been happening more and more. I need to win the board game and to be the only person in town to have a business like mine, and blah blah honk. What's it all about, I wonder? Fodder for a future post, perhaps...

In any case, I think that there will be more water-top adventures in the near future. And I recommend it to really everyone! Ah, boats, such a good idea...

meow

I miss my cat. (That's him over there.)

Jasper was the cat who renewed my faith in the potential goodness of the feline race. I loved cats once, many years ago, until I became convinced at the age of 14 that my black cat, Cricket, was possessed. He was under my bed, playing with a tiny mouse. I pushed a book at him in an attempt to distract him long enough that I could save the mouse, and he looked right at me and PUSHED IT BACK.

In the years that followed, many experiences proved to me that cats were not nice. I was afraid of them, and just plain didn't like them. There was the cat where I often house-sat, the old-lady one who sat on my lap wanting me to pet her... until she was suddenly and inexplicably so done with the petting that she would jump up and hiss at me with her claws all sticking out and then run off to feel royally victimized and plan her next ambush.

Then there was the declawed Garfield look-alike. Huge and fat and orange and cranky. He lived with some people I babysat for. When the adults of the house were around, he would honey-double around my feet and pretend to be a lump of love, simple and benign. But when they left, OH, look out. He was the Gigantic Clawless Hallway Prowler, Protector of Babies and Empty Rooms. One night I cowered by the baby's doorway after putting him to bed, paralyzed with fear. The cat stood in the Very Narrow Hallway, growling and totally ready to pounce. In a moment of brilliance, I backed up and grabbed a towel from the bathroom, and then dashed past the beast with the towel held up between us. He yowled in anger and tried to leap at me and scratch me with his non-existent claws. He was too fat to leap very high, and I ran past him and down the stairs and planted myself next to the monitor, praying feverishly that the baby wouldn't wake up...

Fast-forward to Jasper. I didn't really mean to get a cat. I meant to get a dog. For my dog. I was feeling badly about the time that she spent alone while I was in classes, so I did in fact get her a dog. But it went sour, as the new dog proved to be extremely neurotic and pushy and extremely good at getting out of the yard and extremely prone to stealing things from neighbors' yards. Like juicy bits of garbage, and inserts from inline skates. She went to live with a nice couple on a hundred-acre cattle farm, where she could run and run and catch varmints and eat them and then run some more.

And then a friend, who happens to be the president of all cat lovers, mentioned that a really special kitty had appeared at her house, and that he needed a home. I went to visit him. He wasn't scary. He came to live with us. And he was so completely wonderful. He loved my dog passionately, and would grab her giant head with both arms and shove his little face into her ears while she looked at me in resignation with big, patient eyes.

When I sold my house last year, I looked for people to take my sweet pets. Jasper had been going on outdoor adventures for a few months, simply because I was tired of fighting with him about it and because he was happier that way. (I know, maybe you think I'm a bit of a blasphemer right now, on two counts.) Well, the worst did happen, and one day Jasper had plumb disappeared. Maybe he knew I was leaving. Maybe not. But I have missed him ever since.

Lately, I've been having to talk myself out of getting another cat on at least a weekly basis. My apartment is so tiny, and I can't afford the extra monthly fee, but OH THE PANGS. I really just want my Jasper back. Next year, I plan to move into a bigger place again, and will get my sweetie pie dog back from my sweetie pie friends who have been taking such good care of her. And we'll find another angel kitty to be our friend... Until then, I'll ride the waves of missing and meouching and practice that good old patience thing.

One

Starting something new always feels a bit scary, but then there's the sparkle, the excitement and possibility that makes us jump in, in spite if our fears. (Not in spite of ourselves, oh no. Just in spite of the fear.)

I'm a cautious jumper. I nose around and hem and haw and think and think and think. And THEN. Then I get tired of all that, and I stick a toe in. And eventually, a wave comes along and I'm just swept into the current. It takes a while, but it's good. Here I am.

I figure a proper introduction is in order.

As the column to your left will tell you, I'm Anna~ a 30-year-old someone, dabbling along, trying to shape a sweet life. This can mean different things on different days... (Today it means, in large part, trying to be productive without making myself squawk out in pain. I think I may have danced too crazily this weekend, and my neck was very kinked and ouchy when I woke up this morning.)

What else can I tell you? I have a tiny little apartment, which I squeezed nestily into after selling my much larger house last year so that I could travel for a few months and have some much-needed adventures. I have a wonderful family~ both parents are remarried to astonishingly wonderful people. I have a 26-year-old sister and a two-year-old nephew and a 13-year-old brother. I have a sweetheart with a very sweet heart, and my circle of friends is wider and richer than ever before. I'm lucky and grateful.

I got my degree a few years back in Human Development and Family Studies, mostly because I'm passionate about parenting and early childhood. I adore pregnant mamas and new families and babies, and have considered becoming a doula over the years. Being on call, though, I'm not sure that would agree with me!

I've been nannying for quite some time and currently have a four-and-a-half-year-old and a seventeen-month-old, sisters. They are so much work and so much fun, and YES, it's because I get to go home at the end of the day that I sound so happy and patient with them in the grocery store! (Someone recently made a comment after hearing me in the store with the girls... I could tell that she was being hard on herself, saying "I never sound like that with my kids in the bulk section!" and I said, "That's because I'm the nanny and I get to go home at the end of the day!" She was so relieved. Ha!)

I've always loved to create, but I've only recently started to experiment with saying OUT LOUD that I am a writer and a photographer. It feels good. :) It's such fun to play with different materials... as long as I can curb my perfectionism and let go of my redonkulous concerns about wasting things! Squishing the inner critic is a constant project...

In the midst of what already feels like a full life, I'm in the process of starting a business called The Happy House. (Oh boy!) It's the biggest and newest and scariest thing of the moment, and I really want to make it fly. I've found during these years of working in people's homes, that I really enjoy caring for the spaces themselves. I love to clean and organize other people's stuff! And I love to design and decorate spaces. So that's the idea... (Another oh boy! For effect!)

Signing off, feeling fresh and ouchy and hopeful for a magical disappearance of this wonky neck pain come morning~