What Goes Up Must Come Down

I live in the Midwest. I've been here for 18 years. It's my husband's fault.

Tuesday, something happened that has never happened before in the history of our marriage and it was down-right sobering.

The automatic garage door broke.

Mark came home, zipped into the driveway with the music blaring, pressed the magic button and - nothing. He tried again. Nothing. He turned the music down and pressed the button. Nothing. Press. Press. Press. Press. Nothing. Doh!

I was in the house and heard the motor attempting to engage the garage door a gazillion times. So I headed to our mudroom (a Midwest fixture where all manner of ice, snow and melting snow from The Frozen Tundra is managed.) Sizing up the situation, I opened the door to the garage and stuck my head out. Each time Mark pressed the button, the door went up two measly inches only to crash back down. It was the little garage door engine that couldn't. Bummer.

Mark burst through the front door in complete disgust. I rarely see Mark walk through the front door (and rarely see him disgusted); it was a bit disconcerting. He grumbled a few choice words and pushed past me to the garage. He pressed the button in the garage a gazillion more times. Then he manually lifted the garage door, moved my car to the driveway and pulled the garage door behind him.

He came through the front door once again, ushered me into the garage and said, "I need to show you something."

"Geez, don't show me anything; just fix it," I thought.

Being the fine and focused engineer that he is, Mark pointed to the top of the garage door and said, "See those two springs? The one on the left is broken and that's why the door isn't working; it's not able to engage the mechanism to lift the door."

Okey dokey. Just fix it.

"I'll call the garage door people tomorrow," he said.

What? You're not going to fix it?

"What time will you be home?" he asked.

What? You're not going to fix it?

"Hopefully they can fix it in a few days," he added.

What? You're not going to fix it?

"What time are you going to be home?" he asked again.

I guess he's not going to fix it. Bummer.

We've been married 18 years. For the first 16, we lived in garage-free homes. We were used to it. It rained; we sprinted from the car to the house with the groceries and babies in tow. It snowed; we dug ourselves out and invested in remote car starters. We were used to it.

Then we moved to Wisconsin and to a home with a garage. From the moment we first drove into our garage, I knew I was going to love it. I envisioned dry grocery bags in the spring, snow-free vehicles in the winter and the perfect way to make people wonder all year long, "Are they home? Are they not home?" I was smitten with our garage. Now it was broken. Both cars were in the driveway in full view of everybody. Anything could happen. It could snow any minute!

Luckily, the garage door people came out Thursday and installed two shiny new springs. I press the magic button and the door goes up. I press it again and it goes down. Life is good. My groceries are safe and I am back to keeping people guessing as to whether anybody's home or not.

Yet, I'm still somewhat unsettled.

I know what happens when cars are parked outside the garage. They STAY there. That's what happened to our cars when I was growing up. Dad had an MG and various parts of it were spread throughout the garage. Then there were sailboat parts and paraphernalia. Dad would probably argue that technically, there was a car in the garage. It just didn't run (an "electrical problem" which is another story).

Lately, my son and husband have been looking at "project" cars. They want to buy some cheap pile of junk and turn it into America's Next Top (Car) Model. They pour over ads and spend hours on the internet looking for the "it" factor. So when the garage door broke, I couldn't help but wonder if it was part of some bigger plan to remove me and my vehicle from the garage. After all, we had spent 16 years without one; it wouldn't take long for me to get used to it again.

So Mark and Soren, if you're reading this: I AM NOT MOVING OUT OF THE GARAGE. I WILL NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.

Road Kill

I started running in January. Since there was a foot of snow on the ground, I began running on my treadmill. I had my IPod and a reasonably cool basement. Life was good.

When spring finally broke, I decided it was time to take my feet to the pavement. I wanted to run a 5K in May and needed to maybe-kind-of-sort-of run on - um - a road - since not many 5Ks take place on a treadmill.

Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for a lot of things (like how I clomped like a Clydesdale, or how my joints ached, or how my lungs felt as if they were going to explode rocket-like out of my chest). I wasn't prepared for how difficult the transition from treadmill to pavement would be.

Hence over the last six months I've worked on building my cardio capacity through intervals, stretching before and after runs and buying a cushy pair of running shoes (which still haven't helped with the clomping, unfortunately).

But there's one thing that still freaks me out about running on pavement and it is this: road kill.

Birds, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, turkeys, frogs, turtles, fish (yes, fish) and really really big bugs have all made an appearance during my runs. With birds, chipmunks and squirrels, my reaction is usually, "Oh, poor mushed thing. I hope it didn't suffer," while smashed frogs and turtles make me just plain sad.

However, when it comes to raccoons, turkeys and really, really big bugs, my fight or flight response kicks in. Actually it's just the flight response. Those dead things require a very very W I D E berth.

Last week I saw a lumpy "thing" in the distance and the anxiety instantly creeped in. "Oh geez, don't tell me that's a dead animal. It's just garbage, right? Please, please, please don't be dead animal. No. No. No. Doh!" As I got closer, it was apparent that a rather large raccoon had mets its maker at the end of someone's driveway. It was tiped on one side with its front legs outstretched toward me. "Gah!"

I slowed down, looked over my shoulder (because I didn't want to be road kill) and then moved to the other side of the street just in case the raccoon suddenly came back to life, grew ten times its normal size, raised up on its hind legs and decided to chase me. While I have made progress in my running; I haven't made enough to outrun a rabid zombie raccoon (or deal with my insecurities).

Road kill kills my running times.

This summer we went to Michigan to visit friends. My son wanted to jump off a jetty in Frankfort because a group of older kids were doing it. As a parent my concern wasn't the sharp pointy rocks just below the surface or how high the jetty was from the water or that he might break his neck in spite of both those things. My concern was the huge ugly DEAD carp that was floating next to the ladder that my son needed to use to get back onto the jetty. "Gah!"

He jumped, headed toward the ladder and the fish didn't come back to life, turn into Jaws and eat him. But you can see where the dead fish (yes, a fish) I recently ran across (well, around) on the road led me.

You'd think that I'd be old enough now to NOT be scared by road kill. But something primal kicks in every time. It ain't pretty. And it's ruining my running times.

But alas, the snow will soon fly. I can already hear the happy hum of my treadmill.

Men are Dogs and Women are Cats

My friend remarked on Sunday how cats are the women of the domesticated animal world. Does that mean dogs are the men? Are men dogs and women cats?

Our cat runs the house. He always has. He's managed to terrify into submission every animal we've brought into our household during the past 13 years. Fish, guinae pigs, hamsters, other cats - they've all quickly learned to be very. afraid. of. the. cat. The cat doesn't hiss or let the claws fly. No, that would be too easy. Instead, he simply narrows his eyes and somehow manages to put the entire animal kingdom on notice with "the look."

When the cat discovered that he could tame the furry and finned ones, he figured he could take over the unfurry ones too. Most of our friends are now afraid of "the psycho cat." We don't help the situation because we are always saying, "He's really nice but watch it, he can turn on a dime." He can. And he does. Not many friends have seen the inside of our house.

The cat is no dummy. He's a perfect gentleman to the one who feeds him and who keeps his litter box clean and who lets him in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out.

We got our dog, Daisy, in 2004. She is the consummate black lab. She does everything at full speed. There's nothing subtle about her. That alone was reason enough for "pyscho cat" to pick her as his new terror-toy.

I think part of it is because the cat is completely overwhelmed by the dog. After all, she is big and bumbling and like a burst in that she's everywhere at once. That's so uncool. Clearly, the dog has to be stopped.

Meanwhile, Daisy tries everything within her little dog pea-brain to make friends with the cat. Much to the cat's dismay, "the look" does nothing to derail the dog. Daisy trots up to the cat with a toy, only to experience the usual charge, swipe, hiss. She tries to nuzzle the cat and it's charge, swipe, hiss. She walks in a room and it's charge, swipe, hiss. Poor Daisy.

So, are cats the women of the domesticated animal world? And are dogs the men? I'm not sayin'.

Stretchy Covers, Paper Bags and Debit Logs

Soren needs book covers. And he needs them by Friday. Or he'll get - pause - a debit.

You know those stretchy book covers that were on sale back in July? Well I knew about them and I dutifully purchased the two required by Soren's school (along with the gazillion other items that were on the supply list). He needed two. Just two. But on Wednesday, it was upgraded to five. What?!

"No problem," Soren said. "The teacher said to bring in wrapping paper and we can use that to cover the books."

I said, "Don't kids cover their books with paper bags anymore? When I was a kid, decorating them was so much fun and. . ."

"Mom, please."

Okey doke. Wrapping paper it is. Problem solved.

Guess who forgot to take the wrapping paper with him? And guess who delivered a roll of wrapping paper to school for him? And guess who came home with the same roll of wrapping paper because "it didn't work." What?!

Turns out that paper bags are the book cover of choice, second to stretchy covers of course (which don't exist in September because I looked).

So now we are down to the wire. The books are at school; the paper bags are at home; the stretchy covers have apparently flown south for winter. What to do. What to do. What to do.

Back to - pause - the debit. That's just not fair.

By the way, that's a stretchy book cover on Soren's head. If we only knew how difficult it would be to find them now, we wouldn't have turned this one into a doo-rag. But that's another story.