The Swan House Lions

Across the street and kitty corner from us is the Swan House, a big beautiful yellow Queen Anne built in 1899. The residents leave small candle lights in all the windows, and all year long it looks festive and reminds me of Christmas. I've heard that tours are occasionally offered, although I've never been. The house is enormous, and the third floor is rumored to be a ball room. It stands proudly near the top of the hill on the main street into town just before reaching downtown, surrounded by the historic well kept old homes.

As a girl, I visited my cousins in Beaver Dam often, and have always loved the Swan house. When I moved to town with my daughters, they fell in love with something else about the Swan house. The lions.

Out in front of the Swan house, lining the walkway to the front door as if they're protecting the front porch are two large concrete lions. Even set against the large three story Queen Anne, the lions looks massive. They stand on all four, muscles rippling, facing the street as if they are ready to pounce. I have to admit that I love the lions too. They look just as home in the snow as they do now, with bright red tulips growing in front of them. For reasons I can't explain, I want to pet them. If the Swan house were my house, I would name each of them, for sure.

The other day I was out running errands around town with Holly and her friend Catie. On our way home from the pet store, we took a back street home that I don’t often take, and drove past the side of the Swan House. As we came near the stop sign, I noticed that on the outside of the picket fence near a side door is another set of lions. These lions are significantly smaller, and they're sitting down less imposingly. I was shocked, mostly at their existence, and the fact that I didn’t know about them.



"Holly! There are more lions! Did you know this?"



Duh. Of course she knew this. She's 11 and in 6th grade, so she knows almost everything. Plus, this is the way she walks to school, and to her friend Laurins house. She was not nearly so surprised or impressed.



"These lions are really small though," she tells me.

"They are small. Way smaller than the ones up front. And scrawny. I don’t think they feed them as well as they do the ones up front," I tell her.



"Yeah. These probably just get scraps and stuff. The ones up front are all muscle. I bet they feed those steaks everyday. They wouldn't be so big otherwise."



"Probably because the ones up front are their favorites. The side lions are probably like Cinderella. They keep them around but they obviously don’t take very good care of them. They almost look sick..." I tell her, somewhat concerned.

We're home now, parked in the driveway but still sitting in the car, talking about the lions, when Holly's little friend Catie finally chimes in.



"Umm...Excuse me. What are you guys talking about?"



At first Holly and I are confused, wondering why she couldn't keep up. Then we realize that most people probably don't spend much time contemplating the well being and care of the neighbors’ concrete lions. Holly fills Catie in, who does not seem any less confused once she's informed.



I call my mom later and tell her about the set of lions that I discovered, as well as how Holly and I think that they aren't very well fed or cared for. My mom doesn’t question our sanity at all. In fact, she jumps right into the conversation that Holly and I were having earlier, and offers a reason we hadn't thought of.



"Maybe they aren’t malnourished, Michelle. Maybe they’re just younger."



Younger. Yes, I like that a lot better.



Photos provided by Holly Roth

Sushi

I baked the new fish that we just bought for the fish tank. Well, not baked like on a pan in the oven for dinner. It happened in the tank, so I guess the appropriate term for what I did to him would be “poached.” I feel really badly about this. I’ve wanted and waited for this fish for a while. The tank was set up and ready for so long that regular visitors finally stopped asking “You still don’t have a fish in that tank?!?”






Green Spotted Puffer fish are my favorite fish, the only ones I’ve kept for years. I stumbled across them years ago when I was working part-time in our local pet store. They seemed so friendly and fun, so I did a little research. What I found is that they are brackish fish, meaning that they live in partial salt water. The fish originate in estuaries off of rivers that feed into the ocean, and gradually migrate to the sea.



Unfortunately, many stores sell these cute little fish as non-aggressive freshwater fish. They can survive for a while in fresh water, especially when they’re small, but they don’t thrive. And though they don’t look it, they aren’t friendly. I know of one man who bought a puffer thinking it would be great for his community tank. He woke the next morning to find all 20 of his fish lying at the bottom of his 50 gallon tank, with their fins all chewed off. The puffer fish was swimming by his owner’s face, happy as can be to see him. I used to stick my fingers in the tank to say hello until I got a chunk bit off one day. They are just weird fish, which is actually why I like them.



I started out with two, and they lived together peacefully for a year and a half, until one started to get possessive over food and got larger than the other. Then he knew he could dominate and started to take bites out of his tank mate. I immediately created a new tank for him, a “timeout tank” is what I called it, thinking it might make him feel bad. It didn’t work. And he was pissed. He didn’t like the new tank, or being alone, or something. He took to beating himself against the filter. A few weeks later I found him lodged behind the filter, blown up to nearly three times his normal size. It was incredible, and really icky. My brother asked my why I didn’t dry him out and keep him, hang him up somewhere in the house. I told him I flushed him, because I don’t dry out and keep my dead pets, fish or not.



Incidentally, the beat up little fish lasted another year, scars and all. He ended up getting into it with the filter, too. Puffers are jumpers, and somehow he figured out how to jump into the filter. He came back out in pieces. His name, ironically, was Flips.



I haven’t had a puffer in a while. I had to clean out the tank completely, and then get it set up again. I finally did that, and then I couldn’t find a puffer anywhere. I ordered them and they didn’t come in. The tank has been up and running for months, waiting. A puffer finally came in last week.



He seemed to like his new home. He swam in front when we came by, ate all his blood worms, nudged the hydrometer/thermometer around the tank for fun. I posted a picture on Facebook and asked for name suggestions, and the girls and I tossed them around. Then he died. I figured he was sick when I got him, since the tank was healthy and everything seemed fine.



I found him floating near the back of the tank, looking less colorful. I went and got a plastic sandwich bag and opened the tank and noticed the heat. Not 78 degree fish tank heat, but hot tub heat. I pulled the thermometer out of the tank. It read 110 degrees. I didn’t even know the thermometer went that high. I used the thermometer to pull the very warm dead fish toward me and put him in the Ziploc baggie.



Maybe its pregnancy, but poaching my new pet makes me question my abilities at care taking. The poor little guy got cooked on my watch, in a tank I’ve spent months perfecting the salinity and bacteria levels. I’ve had the tank heater for years, but thought it worked fine, mostly because it’s never baked anyone before.



The ironic part of all of this is that the name we finally decided on for the little guy was Sushi. Raw fish. Yeah, right. Not even close. Poor little guy even had a burn mark on his belly…



I probably will order another puffer, after I buy a new heater. I’m sure by the time the fish actually comes in, I’ll be over the guilt.

Smart Kid, No Common Sense

I’m having computer woes. This is not fun, especially because I am not at all computer savvy and I have officially used up all of my knowledge on fixing the problem. I am enlisting re-enforcements, and will hopefully be up and running soon. In the meantime, I’m using other people’s computers, and my phone, hence the lack of blogging. But I had a few minutes on this beautiful afternoon and thought I’d give everyone a quick peek into our lives.

I was sitting on the couch this week with the girls. I didn’t used to sit down much at all, but my disproportionate belly has changed that. Resting is not an option anymore, it’s a requirement. So were sitting on the couch watching the Disney channel. Both girls are dividing their attention between the TV and the constant stream of text messages that keep ringing into their phones. Some kid on a commercial says “Is it possible for a human being to lick its own armpit?”

Not even two seconds go by and I hear Georgia say “Ewwwww. I just tasted my deodorant!” I turn to look at her beside me and notice that she still has her arm straight up in the air. Her face is wrinkled in disgust, almost as if she isn’t the one who just licked her own freaking armpit. Both Holly and I move away from her on the couch, and I tell her that she should never try drugs or drinking. Ever. I mean, this armpit licking thing was a sober decision. Can you imagine her on mind-altering substances?

Did I mention that Georgia is THIRTEEN? Or that she’s been a straight-A student all through middle school? Or that she’s president of the Student Council? Or that she can use Microsoft Excel better than I can?

Smart kid. No common sense.

60 seconds

My friend Elizabeth writes in her blog, Boy Crazy, that she is going to try to make each minute last 60 seconds. I like this, because I often let life fly by me, and then I turn around and realize that I’ve been missing out on so much of it. I don’t sit in the moment and let it be what it is. Instead I think about how I got there, or what I could’ve done differently. Or I think about what I’m going to be doing, or should be doing, and I miss the moments that I’m living in. I’ve been doing this a lot lately, and I live less peacefully because of it.




I’ve been feeling like life is going on without me. Part of it is that this particular space in my life is not what I thought it was going to be. My daughters are growing up, and are so very, very busy. They bury their no-longer-little noses down into homework, and continually stay after school for meetings and practices. They have practices for sports, or they are with friends at movies or just goofing off. They are texting on their phones. As middle school students, this is how it should be. And being that they are both honor roll students and so responsible with their time and commitments, I give them the freedom to text and hang out with friends. What amazes me is that they keep track of their own schedules; they are prepared for school and extracurricular activities without my nagging. They go to Valentine's Day Dances in fancy dresses and dance with boys. They run student council meetings without even needing my input. They are growing up, making their own way in the world for themselves. And they’re doing all of this successfully. This is all as it should be. I am blessed to be their mother.



What I thought this meant, however, was that I was going to be able to take some of this time for myself, and explore things for me that time didn’t allow when their needs were more hands on. Instead, in the process of trying to do just that, I feel like I ended up back at the start of it all. Only I’m not even at the start of it yet. There is no baby here yet,  in need of constant nursing and wiping and rocking. I am in a holding pattern, feeling very much like life is merely going on without me, and as if I might have been left behind.



I had a talk with an old friend in Colorado many years ago, when the girls were very little and my life revolved around the constant daily work that raising small children entails. I told him then that I missed my life. He looked at me strangely and said “But this is your life.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot, about how regardless of what I had imagined or perceived my life would be at this juncture, right here is where I am. This is my life.



So rather than think about what I thought my life would be right now, or what my life will be in July once this baby is here to hold and kiss and touch, I will let the minutes now last 60 seconds. And when I started to adopt this philosophy and stopped living in the past or the future, something miraculous happened. This baby started to move. There were little kicks and taps before, but now the baby is squirming and stretching and moving. It reminded me that this part, this holding pattern, is part of this child’s life too. It’s an everyday miracle, I know this. Still, it’s all mine. And it’s happening now, right in the 60 seconds I’m living in. I just needed to slow down and stay in the moment long enough to notice.

Looking for Love...

Life always surprises me. I try to map it out in front of me, but it seems that there is more often than not a detour, or road block, something requiring an alteration in my plan.

I don’t think that this is just my life. I think that everyone has this. The circumstances come in different shapes and sizes, but they come for all of us. Maybe God is up there, giving us only what we can handle. Or maybe fate hands us what we need, even when we think that we don’t need it at all. I’m not sure. I just know that wrenches get tossed in to the workings of our lives, just when we thought it was all running so smoothly.



On October 25th, I was just finishing a weekend in Kenosha with my best friend Holly, her husband Neal, and their daughter Riley. I got up early to run along Lake Michigan, which I always want to do when I visit and have never taken the initiative to get out of bed early and do. It was cool and windy, the lake full of white caps. The sun kept trying to peek out among the clouds, casting spectacular rays out over the water. I ran along the sand, and then the path.. The morning felt magical, as if there was some answer looming in the sun’s rays, the miniscule sand pieces, and the water worn rocks. I had no idea what was to come. I just kept running until I finished my 4 mile route, pausing to take pictures, as if the feeling could be captured.



Riley is a busy bee, but took some time out of her day to cuddle me. She climbed up onto the couch with me, toting her favorite blanket, and snuggled up on my lap for half an hour. We watched Barney. I was thinking about how long it had been since I had lived in the Land Of Barney, with sticky, chubby little fingers, constant milk refills and sweet toddler babbling. I kissed the fine hairs on her head, rubbed her back and bird like shoulder blades and listened to the songs I still knew by heart, but hadn’t heard in years.



So far removed it all is from my own life with my children. My daughters don’t even need to be reminded to shower. They crack intelligent, funny jokes, and we talk about concepts and ideas that the school teaches them, as well as the things about life that I feel they need to know. At 11 and 13, the girls share my books and can discuss them with me. I sat there that morning thinking how strange it was to be back in the Land of Barney, and about how far away it seemed, but that it must not be if I still knew all the songs by heart.



I was invited by a good friend to have dinner at my cousin’s church. A group of us sat together, eating and laughing. I was happy to be there; acutely aware of how full my life is of family and friends. I was thinking that I didn’t want anything more, didn’t need anything more. That I live a blessed life.



After dinner, a man I’d been dating for a couple months invited me to come over and watch Sunday Night Football. We never did watch the end of that game…

I found out two weeks later that I’m pregnant. Yep, that’s right, pregnant. This is not something I was expecting, not even a little bit. My first reaction to the first of three pregnancy tests I took was laughter, the sort that comes from “Are you FREAKING kidding me?!?” But I knew. Somewhere inside I knew. I’d been hungry for the first time since April, and though its been quite a few years, I’ve been pregnant before. A strange side ache a week before left me lying on my couch wondering why it was vaguely familiar, until I remembered that I had only had this side ache just before I found out I was pregnant with each of the girls. Still, the tests knocked me back. Made it all real and true, I guess.

I wish I could write everyone some encouraging words about the guy I was dating. All I can really say is that it is not the sunny days of summer that define our character, it is the storms of life. It’s easy to be a good person when days are primed for barbeques, but it’s a different story when we are forced to stumble blindly through an unforeseen storm without a clear path. What I also know is that by the times we hit these storms of life with someone, were usually “in it.” I have learned a lot the past couple months about my own ability to weather storms, as well as the fact that it’s an amazing measure of the people who will remain with you, riding it out, and still be standing by your side when the sun comes out. Everyone of consequence in my life, with the exception of that man who helped me set this storm into motion, is still standing by my side. I’m not very mathematically minded, but those are fabulous statistics. I am grateful for all of the support that I do have.



If you have faith - as I do- that things truly do work out the way they are supposed to, then you have to believe that all the time. Not just when life is easy and going your way, but when surprises come in and knock you back for a bit. All the things in my life, good and bad, have been a path of stepping stones, one leading to the next, inevitably leading me to this amazing life I live, that I wouldn’t change or trade for anything. Plus, I don’t think we get to choose the shape or timing of our blessings. And I, for one, do not piss on my blessings.



My daughters are ecstatic. They think this is the best thing ever. They have been letting me nap, making me dinner when I wake up, walking the dog and letting me be emotional and hormonal without complaint. They have shown me how grown up they are in all of this. They act as if this is the most natural and obvious thing to have happen. I couldn’t be prouder of them, because they aren’t just good kids, they’re good people.

As soon as I found out, I called my best friend. And in true best friend fashion, she immediately packed up her daughter and drove the nearly two hours to my house. We sat on my porch overlooking my backyard and talked. I think that even then, just hours into knowing, she wrapped the whole thing up best…

“Well, you were looking for love,” she told me. “I guarantee you that you found it…And who knows? Maybe it’ll even have a penis…”


The newest member of our family will be joining us somewhere around July 15th, 2010...