Not at bedtime, though.

The other night I had this horrible dream.  I was walking through a deserted neighborhood (always a bad idea in dreams) and I saw a polar bear.  That’s not funny—polar bears are scary.  I steered clear and tried to avoid being seen, but kept walking down the street.  Then I saw a Pit Bull and hoped he wouldn’t see me, but I timed my escape poorly and we met at the corner.  I had some kind of metal stake in my hands (Chris has been doing some gardening) and I waved it to deter him.  It did not.  He came towards me and I responded in a decidedly un-Cesar-like fashion.  Somehow, I got away and the worst thing on earth happened: the Pit Bull and the polar bear (sounds like a children’s story) started to fight.  But Jenny, isn’t it better that they fight each other than you?  No, of course not.  I am ridiculous anyway, but I am especially ridiculous in regards to animals.  I’d rather have them maul me than each other.  And yes, I do love cheeseburgers, why do you ask?

So under the category of Trying to Fix Things Beyond My Control, I need to stop this fight.  I don’t want to see either of them hurt, Pit Bulls have a bad reputation, polar bears are on the endangered species list, no one else is around… my responsibilities are endless!  I know I have to do something, but what?  How do you separate a Pit Bull and a polar bear?  There is some advice about pouring water on fighting dogs, but that approach is lost on Pit Bulls, apparently— I imagine it has little effect on polar bears.

So I woke up somewhere around this point feeling sweaty and exhausted.  When I told Tracy about it, she said these dreams are a good indication of stress level and I had to laugh.  The Pit Bull and the polar bear, indeed!

Probably should have split this up a bit...

On Saturday, I went to a mindfulness retreat.  Towards the end of the mindfulness class last year, we had this all day retreat and I was invited back this year as an alumni.  This was a free class for UNR students, thank god, and I have been living off those lessons for the past year.  The class was called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, and was created in response to the rather unhelpful advice given by doctors to heart patients: “You need to lower your stress.”  Short of moving to a monastery, how are you supposed to do this?  MBSR is about teaching specific techniques and practicing them.  Mom had me read this book about allowing yourself to be imperfect and there was one part that really stood out.  It said that you clean off your desk not to keep it that way, but to mess it up again.  That was a little a-ha moment for me (Taaaaakke oooooooon meeeeeeee!) and it was confirmed early in the day at the retreat with a quote from some mindfulness expert to not look at it like a way to fix things or become a better person.  What it is is an act of self-love.  Or as I saw it, periodic maintenance.

The retreat was a day of meditations and silence, which is not the way today is going.  I am writing this a half sentence at a time.  Overall it was helpful, but it did not feel relaxing at the time.  In fact, the psychologist running the class congratulated us all for carving out time from our crazy lives.  That is no small feat, let me tell you.  Not only are there tons of other things that need to be done, this is an entire Saturday devoted to something that feels like it will be a waste of time.  People kept calling it “doing nothing,” but I think that’s because we don’t know what else to call it.  It felt like a selfish thing to take so much time and seemingly have nothing to show for it.

Of course, at the end of the day I felt SO calm.  I have been getting close to a state of panic and this retreat came at a really good time.  In addition to all the regular craziness, Chris has been informed that he has a spinal fluid blockage and needs surgery now.  They forbid him to lift anything or roughhouse- they don’t even want him to drive.  He’s understandably freaked out, as am I.  Chris was hoping to wait until January when work slows down, but it looks like it could be as soon as mid-summer.  Ugh.  I’m having sympathy pains.

Ant was asking me about the retreat and I told him all I would be doing was sitting, breathing, lying on the floor, walking in circles, and maybe eating lunch outside.  He looked horrified.  I said it was an effort to de-stress, and I wanted him to do his chores while I was gone so I could come home and not re-stress.  He has been sick and would likely be unsupervised, so I wasn’t horribly optimistic about what I would come home to.  When I got home at 5, Chris was at the grocery store and Ant was sleeping on the couch in a clean living room.  He cleaned the kitchen, swept the back porch, cleaned his room and his bathroom, cleared off his homework table, walked the dogs, and sent Chris to the store.  Chris gave me the list later on:



The most adorable grocery list ever



Chris said he woke up to a clean house.  He said Ant was funny, harassing him all day long to get his butt to the store so it would be done by the time I got home.  When I came in, Ant told me Chris was getting me flowers.  This family does not seem to understand surprises.  Ant admitted that he wanted me to know that the flowers were his idea.  Chris said he was already going to do that.  They both wanted credit, which was adorable.  The grocery shopping was pretty major too—as much as I love to go, I wanted to take Ant shopping for pants and we were headed for Topaz the next day, so it really helped to have that taken care of already.  I was not expecting anything for Mother’s Day and instead I got some very serious sentiments of love and appreciation- not to mention a clean house, time for myself, and flowers.

We had to drop Chris off at work, then Ant and I had a lovely dinner (with coupon) at Boston Market, then I bought him some much needed new pants.  He would only shop for bargains—gotta love that kid.  He also got a new pair of shoes ($15 at Ross) so he can alternate them out more often and not have smelly feet.  He was super excited and appreciative.  We kept gushing appreciation to each other every frickin two minutes.  It’s a good thing no one else was around; it would have been pretty obnoxious to witness. 

Yesterday was Topaz.  Chris made plans to go out there early and cook Eggs Benedict for his mom despite the fact that he would only have about 3 hours’ sleep.   He was a little grumpy, but he made us breakfast.  We ate on the porch and watched the dogs play in the water.  Jasmine and Nicky chase each other in and out of the water for hours, competing for the largest and most intact stick.  Turk bounds on and off the dock, sometimes chasing the girls, sometimes coming up to one of his humans for some love.  Riley stands on the edge of the dock, barking at the chaos.  If there isn’t enough chaos, she wades in and paws at the water to make splashes to bite at.

Ant was still on this amazing behavior kick, being perfectly lovely to everyone.  We brought Elaine a new floatie for the lake and Ant went to pump it up for her.  When he couldn’t get into the garage for the air pump, he blew it up himself.  “Oh jeez,” she said to me.  “Now I have to go.”  That’s right, Grandma.  She was pleased that it was the kind that kept you up and out of the water since it was still pretty cold.  It’s a good thing Chris vetoed me- I was leaning more towards the one where your butt was in the water.

In the afternoon, we herded all the dogs inside and watched Contraband, Mark Wahlberg’s latest ridiculous action movie.  We are fans of his, but we are amused by his choices.  I lost a little respect for him when he apologized for making The Happening.  Just because it was a little more abstract than usual and poor M. Night Shyamalan’s films are promoted wrongly as horror movies doesn’t mean it was a bad movie.  And really, you’re going to apologize for that when you make movies like Max Payne and Shooter?  He was pretty awesome in The Fighter and The Perfect Storm, but my personal favorite is I Heart Huckabees.  Remember him in Fear?  Ha ha ha ha, you’re welcome for that.  Anyway, we all kicked out our reclining sofas over a sea of sleeping dogs and watched a silly action movie. WARNING: NOT REALLY MUCH OF A SURPRISE SPOILER ALERT: He manages to save his wife in JUST THE NICK OF TIME!  Isn’t that amazing?  I bet you never saw that coming.

We came home and watched an Adam Sandler movie, or as I like to call them, Vehicles for Adam Sandler to Make Out with Ladies that are Otherwise Way Out of his League.  And really, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan because there are much better things to do with your time.  Ant, by the way, thinks this is a really good movie and wants to own it, but he also thought Real Steel was awesome.

You will be pleased to know that Ant is back to his normal ornery teenager self today.  I had to wake him up for school again and got an earful of mewing protests.  Welcome back to the weekday, kiddo!