SWIMMING WITH THE DOLPHINS

March 10th, 2010 by Quinn Reed

 

            Last week my husband and I participated in an interactive dolphin program in Cozumel, Mexico.  I learned a lot about dolphins, myself, and my fellow humans.  The day was overcast and the wind was blowing so hard that the organizers offered to give us our money back, but none of the ten people in our group backed out.  Two people in our group could not swim and spent the time clinging to the fence that was our cage in the ocean.  There were other dolphin encounters that were far less strenuous and we swimmers were amazed that anyone in their right mind would shell out big bucks to cling to the cage.  Go figure. 

            Our dolphin, Regina, kissed me, let me shake her fins and lay in my arms.  Next, I swam through the choppy waves with a boogie board and waited until Regina came up behind me and pushed me (her nose on my feet) what  seemed near the speed of light through the water, creating a huge wake.  Lastly, I swam out in the water and Regina came under me with her belly facing upwards and let me take hold of her fins and gave me an unforgettable ride. After that, we humans went into a pen and petted a manatee.  I, who once lived in Africa, was amazed that his fins and toe tails looked remarkably like an elephant’s foot as did his mouth and his hide.  The trainer said the closet relative to the vegetarian Manatee is the elephant.  This amazing mammal is in grave danger of extinction due to motor boat collisions. 

            I swam next to Marie, a seventy-eight year old, from New York. She had come to Cozumel with 11 other women; all who elected to stay behind on the cruise ship.  Marie was spirited and fearless.  When I jokingly commented that 78 must be the new 65, she responded, “Whatever.”  It was striking that this woman was in the water, living it up, while the much younger Pakistani women sat on the dock and watched their men folk have all the fun.

            The dolphin encounter was an emotional experience for most of us and a delight.  As I age, I am following Maria’s example.  I zip-line, swim with Dolphins – experience whatever comes my way.  We can’t change the number of our age, but we can avoid being paralyzed by it.  So much of aging and life is colored by one’s attitude.

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Eating Soup with A Fork

March 6th, 2010 by Cheryl Courtney

My son is a tweener; and his favorite after school snack is Ramen noodles. He steeps them carefully in a bowl of boiling water under a saucer, then eats them with a fork, with  much slurping and flipping around of bits of noodles and sauce.

(Yes– I have had to chisel them off the armchair and the floor by the tv.)

Yesterday, I said,  “Logan, please find a soup spoon.” He replied, “Mom, what’s the big deal? People in China eat them with sticks!”

He’s right, of course. In approaching any problem or task, it is really a matter of personal choice which tool or utensil one uses. But as  a mother, I thought I knew best. Being a parent of older kids has taught me that everything  I say is up for question, debate, resistance, even ridicule. It’s their individuation process.

I might not like how he eats his noodles but experience has taught me that he has a reason that makes sense to him. So,  I asked him why he eats them with a fork.

Guess what he said?

“Mom, its because the water is boiling hot and if I wind the noodles around a fork, I can eat them quickly while the juice is cooling down.”

So, there. All I have to do now is consider how  to convince him to slow down when he eats. Til then, I have the consolation of knowing that at least he can cook something that will keep him from starvation.

As a graduate student, I lived on Ramen noodles.  But I ate mine with a spoon, slowly.

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Dating the Dog

March 1st, 2010 by Shelley Widhalm

I’d rather date my dog.

I’ve never been married, and I think I know why. I loved animals first. As a child, my teddy bears where top of the list, maybe because I was shy and found them to be safe companions. I played with them, held tea parties and gave them homework.

In high school, I started dating, but in college and after was when I had the boyfriends. Some were not so nice, or they were kind of boring, but they all were handsome. I went out with men for their looks – now, I know there’s more than the surface, but then I have a dog.

Her name’s Zoey, and if you read this, you need to pronounce it Zoo-eey with lots of affection. She weighs 8.8 pounds, is 1.2 years old and is 0.5 feet tall.

My miniature daschund greets me when I come home from work with wiggles starting with her tail that move her whole body into alarcity. She leaps off the chair and says, hi, hi, hi, as she runs circles around the coffee table. I really doubt a man would do that for me.

Zoey kisses me when she’s naughty or in the morning or when she runs by me. She wants to play all of the time, I mean all of the time, meaning that her attitude is all about fun.

She is my sleeping buddy, but if I toss and turn too much or hog the sheets, she doesn’t say anything about it. She snuggles smack against me leaning into my stomach – I’m a side sleeper – giving me a nightlong cuddle. What more could a girl want.

She doesn’t care how I look or what I wear, unless it’s socks, and then she wants to take them off, run around with them a bit and drop them on the floor. But if I put them back on, she has to take them off and run around, so that it becomes a battle of the sole.

Last of all, I can say I love you over and over and not wear out the words. She doesn’t have to say anything but I know in her dog language, she says I love you back. I’ve got it all, a best friend and a cuddle buddy in a nearly 9-pound package.

Posted in Life Event, Shelley Widhalm, Writer | 1 Comment »

Life

February 28th, 2010 by Fay Ulanoff

Failure is a funky fact of nature’s law to try and make us perfect.

The longest distance between the beginning and end is the middle.

To make the best of it you have to do it.

Life is stagnant until the pot is stirred and comes to boil, then overflows.

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Childhood Books

February 21st, 2010 by Phyllis Kennemer

 

Reading Cindy’s piece sparked a period of reflection for me. I’ve always loved to read and would reach for anything in print, but my resources were limited. We lived in a small town with no library and our elementary school “libraries” consisted of donated books placed on short shelves in the back of classrooms. Even though I read voraciously, I remember few of those books. The only one that sticks in my mind is Little Women. I identified with Meg, but secretly wanted to be more like Jo. I cried both in shock and disbelief when Beth died. Up until that time, I did not know that book characters could die.

My favorite books did not come from libraries, however. They came as gifts. I have fond memories of many birthdays and Christmases spent curled up in an overstuffed chair reading my latest copy of a Nancy Drew book. What joy! Nancy Drew was elegant! She was smart. She was independent. She drove her own car. She had supportive girl friends (I was always intrigued by one of the names, because George should have been a boy’s name.). Her boyfriend was a romantic figure who played football at the college he attended nearby. Her lawyer father always responded to her requests. In the process of gathering clues and solving mysteries, she went to delightful tea rooms and had luscious picnic lunches prepared by a trusty housekeeper.

I have since read thousands of children’s books, including most of the award winners over many years, and I have seen critics’ criticisms of Nancy and her series. They say the plots were based on worn-out formulas; that Nancy was too independent, too adventurous, too upper-class. I say “Hogwash!” at least about the original books published before 1959. These were the books I read and loved. I am grateful to have had Nancy Drew in my life. She was a familiar and dependable friend during my preteen and early teen years.

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The Book Aunt

February 15th, 2010 by Cindy Strandvold

When I was a little girl, my Great-aunt Thelma always sent me books as gifts. Now I know to some kids this might rate up there with underwear for Christmas, but to me it was heaven. Aunt Thelma had no children of her own, but she had an uncanny knack of choosing books I loved. To this day I have the well-worn, first-edition copies of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach with her neat cursive inscription and the date of 1973. I was eight.

In my life I have read thousands of books, but Roald Dahl still heads the list as one of my favorite authors ever. As a children’s writer myself, I aspire to his extraordinary ability to invent completely ridiculous situations and characters that are somehow totally believable. What kid could resist this opening scene from James and the Giant Peach?

“Here is James Henry Trotter when he was about four years old. (illustration)

Up until this time, he had had a happy life, living peacefully with his mother and father in a beautiful house beside the sea. There were always plenty of other children for him to play with, and there was the sandy beach for him to run about on, and the ocean to paddle in. It was the perfect life for a small boy.

Then, one day, James’s mother and father went to London to do some shopping, and there a terrible thing happened. Both of them suddenly got eaten up (in full daylight, mind you, and on a crowded street) by an enormous angry rhinoceros which had escaped from the London Zoo.”

See what I mean? So, what books do you remember from your childhood?

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Love Letter to Holden Caulfield…..My tribute to J.D.Salinger

February 12th, 2010 by Heather Schichtel

It’s really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Oh Holden!

We meet in Mr. Stough’s English class. You were so real, so jaded, so naughty. You smoked, you drank, you flunked out of school.

And yet we were told to get to know you. It was an assignment! Who was Holden Caulfield? What were his dreams? His failures?

It was the happiest day of my young English Literature career.

So different from Huckleberry Finn, the sonnets of Shakespeare, you were tragic like Hamlet but so relatable! You Holden, would never wear tights and hold a conversation with a skull. You were way too cool.

Oh Holden! You were nestled in my book bag, with your dog-eared pages I circled quotes where your voice touched my inner teen-angst! I had found my soul mate. If only you had been here  as a senior at Bear Creek High School! We would sneak cigarettes in the parking lot, we would wear black, listen to the Smiths and comment that everyone else was a phony and that goddamn money….makes you blue as hell.

It would be perfect.

And then we moved onto Macbeth.

Sadly Holden, I am now older. Today if I sat with you out in the parking lot, I would tell you to stop smoking, call your parents, stop pissing away their money, buck up and go back to school.

Sadly.

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Good Posture and the mother-son duke it out.

February 8th, 2010 by Quinn Reed

When my son was thirteen he started to slouch.  His tailbone would be inches from the back of a chair and his shoulders rounded.   As his concerned mother, I went into action to get him to correct his poor posture.  I started with reminders to sit and stand straight which led to nagging which led to pleading which led to bribing which led to scare tactics which led to appealing to his vanity.  I told him he would develop painful back problems in later life, along with osteoarthritis and diminished lung capacity.  I told him slouching gave an impression of laziness and defeat.  I pulled out my big guns and told him that he was far too handsome to ruin his 5’11” with crappy posture.   Nothing I said worked.  I cut out posture improvement regimens from magazines and offered to pay for massages if he stood up straight.  But nothing I did worked either.  At some point, he told me to let it go so I decreased my posture comments to twice a year and then zipped my lips altogether.   I haven’t mentioned his posture to him in four years.

Yesterday, he phones from Alaska where he is working as a petroleum engineer for Conaco Phillips.  He is now 25 years old.  “Mom, I have a second birthday present for you.”  (His first present was a mason jar filled with homemade bath salts wrapped with enough duct tape it to keep it safe for the three thousand mile journey from him to me.  By the way it was the best bath salts I’ve ever used.)  “Mom, today I bought a yoga mat and made a commitment to improve my posture.”

“We’ll that’s great, son.  Why did you do this again?”

“As a birthday present for you.”

We’ll I am way too smart to believe that one.  Perhaps it was because he is now 5”10” or maybe because his girlfriend and him are on a health regime.  They swim, work out, eat fish and bake their own biscuits with spelt flour.  “Scott, as a yoga teacher, an occupational therapist and your mother, I am delighted.”  And then I slipped in one last comment to seal the deal.  “I always thought that you are way too handsome to ruin the total package with bad posture.”    He shared my comment with his girlfriend and she agrees.

Quinn Reed

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Take a Stand—Be Courageous—Help Others

February 3rd, 2010 by Cheryl Courtney

 

His mother died when he was five and then the sister, who he counted on as a mother, died. He grew up on the streets of San Francisco, raised by the World War II veterans who managed the local YMCA. The speaker was Gus Lee, a first generation Chinese man who served in our Armed Forces.

I was hooked. See, he had already explained more than I have ever “lived” in his opening words. However, his next thoughts completely floored me as he continued to describe how the home village in China was taken over, the country swarmed by over a million invaders–all determined to commit genocide and re-establish a different government. So his parents began the ‘spectacular adventure’ of immigrating to the US.

He reminded the NoCoNet audience of over 250 job seekers that very few of us came here on a first class ticket. Most of our ancestors were fleeing impossible odds and running to the only place that would take them.

How true. My ancestors were Irish/Welsh immigrants, poor working class folks who settled in the South, along the Mississippi River Delta of LA. My grandfathers were iron workers. black smiths and mule skinners for the logging company. Every day my dad put on his uniform and went into the city to work; he hung glass in the skyscrapers and was proud of his job.

Gus Lee reminded me that I only need another job. Nothing more. Not a new country. I do not have to run for my life. My children do not go hungry every night; they have both parents and a warm, safe house to sleep in. Nothing about this economic downturn is anything like what any of these brave immigrant people endured.

I became keenly aware that all anyone in the room needed was the next job. I felt humbled, expanded, rejuvenated with a healthier perspective. And, then he explained that courage is part of character and you can let fear erode your character or stand up and be intentional about who you are and what you are all about. He said you can show your family fear or courage in the midst of travesty. It is a personal choice and a soul quest.

Upon reflection, few things really shake up in my blessed life in Loveland, CO.

But the earth did shake and broke open in Haiti and the world fell down on all those people. Till I get another job, I have a job to do. I am helping at the warehouse of H.E.L.P. International in Loveland, CO. check out http://www.helpint.org/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/You can help, too.

Stay courageous, persevere. Help others all you can. You can learn more about Gus Lee and Character.FtCollins athttp://www.characterfortcollins.org/

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I have this problem with books

January 31st, 2010 by Shelley Widhalm

I have this problem with books, but I do not think it merits an entry in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, I cannot be certain, because it is not like I have a copy and could easily look up a “category” to find out if I have a disorder beyond being a bibliophile.

Granted, I love books, both their physical attributes and the possibilities of what stories, along with the language in which they are told, could be secreted inside.

I have been a reader since elementary school, the intensity and frequency of my obsession following a wavy line on a bar graph. In college, for example, I read textbooks and novels for my English class and was too read-out for reading during my free time. Now, I read instead of watching television, to relax and to escape into a place other than Larimer County, Colorado.
So my problem is that I am very committed to my books, whether I buy them, borrow them from family or friends or check them out from the library.

I can start reading a book and not like it, or even hate it – I don’t like the style, the setting, the plot or the characters, for example – but I have to give it a chance. I figure 50 pages is fair, and then if I still do not like it, well, I’ve read 50 pages and that’s 1/6th the length of the average book I read. I think, oh, I put all this time into it, I’ll read some more. And when I still don’t like it, I have become committed to finish the book. I have to finish the book! Even though life is too short to read a book one does not care for, I end up reading in a race trying to finish the book to read something I like.

I’ve decided my problem is book-aty, or an excessive loyalty to books that causes one to make A Too-long Yowl of frustration.

Posted in Book, Shelley Widhalm, Writer | 2 Comments »

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