Beam Me Up, Scotty!

I need a team of physicists to come to my house. They need to bring elaborate instruments and detection devices to study a mysterious wrinkle in the time-space continuum that takes place regularly in my home.

Here are the facts. I diligently record every event that I need to attend on a calendar. Every Sunday, I check that calendar to see what’s in store for the following week. Then, every night before I go to bed, I check it again to see what time I need to leave the house. I do this because I have a very irregular schedule depending on which part time job I’m working, or which exercise class I’m sweating in. I’ve always considered myself a well-organized, responsible person.

It doesn’t seem to matter how early I get up, or how much I’ve planned, during my routine, I will look up at the clock and have 45 minutes until I have to leave. Five minutes later, I will look at the same clock, and it’s time to leave, and I am not ready. There is some sort of bizarre time compression that occurs in that 45-minute window of time, and it happens 99% of the time that I’m trying to get out of the door.

Phones ring, and the person on the other end of the line has urgent business, but they’re talking at a leisurely pace. Dogs refuse to come back in after being let out. Car keys, and shoes that I just wore yesterday disappear. If I’m packing lunch, there’s no bread left. If there’s bread, then there are no more baggies. If I wash my hair, the blow dryer blows a fuse. Earrings fly across the room into a black hole. Then the traffic guy on TV announces that there’s a major backup on my route—no matter where I’m going.

My friend Carol has the same problem, so the team of physicists could study her house too. She picked me up this morning, and asked why the two of us consistently arrive at our destinations looking like we just parachuted in after being pushed out of a plane. I’ve shown up at work wearing two different shoes, which is even more embarrassing and harder to hide than when I wore mismatched socks.

A third friend we carpool with doesn’t have these problems. She finds our predicament humorous. The group that we work with seems to look forward to our frazzled, Kramer-like arrivals complete with tales of woe.

I’m glad that our “problem” is good for some laughs, but I just don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to “hit the ground running.” I’d like to schedule the physicist team to start studying and analyzing the data as soon as possible. I can pretty much guarantee I won’t be ready when they ring the doorbell, so they’ll be able to start studying time compression immediately.

Laura Keolanui Stark is searching for her brown watch that was just here. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com

Unplanned Pethood Scare

A few weeks ago on Facebook, my brother asked me to take one of those goofy tests, “What’s Your Mental Disorder?” I took the test. When I told my husband the result, we both had a good laugh. But judging by how my day went yesterday, it may not be that funny.

I’ve told my family repeatedly that we’re not getting anymore pets. In my anti-pet speech, I’ve pointed out that of our five pets, I only wanted two of them. Now that our nest is kid-empty, I’d like to travel with Dad more often, and pets make that more difficult. Plus, I’m allergic to cats and dogs. So, the family was as surprised as I was, that I almost took in another pet. What led to this lapse in my sanity?

When I started the day, my errand-running plan included returning some boots to Sports Authority. I successfully did this. Then, on the way out of the store, I saw a clearance rack, and found a Burton ski jacket at 25% off of $29.95. It would be perfect to wear snowshoeing with the snow shoes we got for Christmas. On the way to the register with the jacket, and now with Christmas on my mind, I spotted a clearance table. I ended up buying four items that will be Christmas presents next December, if I remember that I bought them, and where I put them.

Driving home, it popped into my head that I needed stop at PetSmart to buy crickets to feed my son’s frog. It’s complicated. Johnny’s at college, but the frog is here because Kermit (my name for him) wouldn’t have survived by himself over winter break. He started “ribbiting” in our dining room at Thanksgiving because Johnny was flying home at Christmas and obviously couldn’t take the frog on the plane. The next time he drives home, he’ll take Kermit. In the meantime, I buy the crickets and lobby hard to get my husband, the biologist, to feed unwanted Kermit because even though I can feed him, it creeps me out.

With the crickets hopping around in their plastic bag, I started driving the last mile home. The next thing I knew, I was taking a right turn into Metro Animal Services.

At the start of the day, when I was eating my breakfast, I had opened the newspaper and there was a photo of a dapper looking dachshund up for adoption. One of our “wanted pets” is a dachshund that we have partial custody of (more about that in another blog). I’d called John and read him the orphan dachshund’s description. He told me we’d talk about it when he got home.

As I walked up to the shelter’s door, I convinced myself that I wasn’t even going to look at the dachshund, I just wanted to ask if he got along with cats and other dogs, and since it was on my way home this would be easier than calling.

The woman at the counter got right to the point, and asked if I’d like to adopt a dog. I blurted out maybe, that I already had two dogs, but that I’d seen a dachshund up for adoption in the paper. Before I could finish my shaky explanation, she told me that he’d already been adopted, so I was safe. Boy, did she have my number!

My kids’ reactions to this story were along the lines of “what were you thinking?” The girl who we share partial dachshund custody with understood perfectly. My husband was a little disappointed.

Later that night I went to open my Facebook, and while I waited for it to come up, I reviewed my day. Uh-oh, maybe that Mental Disorder test wasn’t so goofy. It said that my mental disorder was ADHD.

The Simple Life

Christmas decorations are slowly being crammed back into storage at my house. The kids are home and it’s been fun running around with them again, and having the house full of their friends. One of the kids caught a cold. The dishwasher, washer and dryer have been going full tilt. And here it is, a new year!

This year, once again, my New Year’s resolution is to simplify my life, by clearing out more of the clutter in my house, around my waistline, and in my schedule. This seems like a straightforward, attainable goal. My kids are in college, so the nest is empty most of the year. I don’t have a full-time job, so I should have plenty of free time to simplify, and create a zen-like, quiet life.

It is the fifth day of 2010 and so far in this brand new decade I have already been to a wedding, a birthday party, and a memorial procession.

My friend’s afternoon wedding was beautiful, and intimate--just for immediate family and a few friends, a celebration of two lives joining together. The bride and groom are close to my age, so they were comfortable planning the wedding just the way they wanted it. The bride wore an elegant beaded wedding gown. The groom wore a black, leather Harley-Davidson jacket.

The birthday party was for a younger friend, to celebrate 25 years at the beginning of her adult life. The party was at a Salsa club -- loud and a little rowdy, with non-stop dancing until the club closed at two in the morning. The birthday girl was grinning all night, happy to be out on the town with her friends.

The memorial procession was for another friend, 44 years old, a police officer, shot down senselessly in the line of duty. My husband and I met Kent at Puyallup Athletic Club. He was always working out on the machines: stair stepper or elliptical runner, but he was also always willing to stop and shoot the breeze, quick to tell a story, or kid around. John and I were tearfully among the thousands with heavy hearts who lined the rainy streets from Puyallup to the Tacoma Dome where thousands more gathered to celebrate a life well-spent that touched so many. We came together to say good-bye to a man who I’ll always remember with a smile on his face, a man who believed that “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.”

A wedding, a birthday party, a memorial service: three events and five days later, I think I made the wrong resolution. Maybe it’s impossible to simplify. Maybe it’s stupid to simplify. Maybe I should celebrate the fact that my life isn’t simple. It’s filled with people who I love, whose lives intertwine with mine, and fill my life up and over the brim. Sometimes it’s noisy, sometimes there are tears, but my life is rarely boring. Maybe my resolution should be to hang on and enjoy the ride. Maybe it’s that simple.

Laura Keolanui Stark is a freelance writer who can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.