Frazzled Reflections

As a kid I always had an overactive imagination. I loved dressing up, I would play games on my own that were often inspired by movies and television shows I had seen, and I had many conversations with people who were very real to me but could not be seen by the naked eye. I remember making up songs and picking flowers/weeds out of the grass in our Detroit backyard after watching Rumpelstiltskin with my family. For awhile my imaginary friends were Michael, John, and Wendy after watching Peter Pan . For years I was scared of our basement because my parents thought it was a brilliant idea to take their 3-year-old to a re-release of Snow White (sorry, but the Wicked Queen is SCARY). And many of my games for several years were inspired by my love for She-Ra . It should be no surprise that my little girl, my little clone, operates much the same way, but her adult mother still finds herself confused, amused, flustered, and occasionally frustrated by the imagination that occupies my daught

We were living in Wyoming when OJ Simpson drove his white Bronco through southern California in a televised police chase that riveted the country. I was a teenage girl more interested in music, theatre, and boys than in football, so I was clueless as to the identity of the panicked driver. My parents, however, were shocked. Most of America was shocked. Here was a likable football player, loved and respected by his peers and fans, who was being chased down and arrested for the murder of his ex-wife and her male companion. The whole country watched the case unfold in an age before the Internet explosion, before Twitter and Facebook, before everyone with a computer or cell phone believed they had to the right to publicly comment on a case about which they knew nothing. And I sat in chemistry in a classroom full of my white classmates as we watched in shock and awe at the "not guilty" verdict that was announced in real time. It didn't seem right. It didn't seem real. All

I remember when I was three or four. I know it had to be then because there were only two of us girls and my sister was really young. My parents, still young 20-somethings, decided it would be an awesome idea to drive to Windsor to watch the fireworks. And why not? We lived in Detroit and the Canadian border was still easily accessible to American citizens. No passport necessary. Just state your business (watching the fireworks and then returning home) and cross the bridge or tunnel to get to the other side. I don't remember much about the fireworks, but then I've seen many displays in my lifetime so it probably makes sense that this event doesn't stick out to me. But I do remember sleeping, or trying to sleep, in the car while my parents slowly made their way back across the border. I know we got home LATE, but I don't believe that I was any the worse for wear for the event. I'm sure I caught up on the sleep I missed and was back to myself in no time. Yeah, I can

The first indication that I am a true introvert probably came when I was a sophomore in high school. I remember my parents coming home from parent/teacher conferences and telling me that I was doing great (I figured my straight As were evidence of that but whatever). However, my English teacher had commented that while I turned in great work, I didn't talk much in class. This shocked my parents. After all, at home I wouldn't shut up. I had something to say to anyone in our family of six who would listen to me. And actually, I've always been talkative. I have a lot to say, when I'm comfortable in my surroundings. And there's the rub. Personality tests in both high school and college continued to confirm a diagnosis that I have spent years working to understand and accept: I am an introvert. While I am more borderline than hardcore, I gravitate towards more introverted tendencies than extroverted. I prefer having a close group of friends, I don't like large crow

It was supposed to be a fairly easy and productive day. On the unwritten to-do list for the day: workout, clean house some, fold laundry, work on small pieces of drywall in mudroom. Most of that went out the window with a single trip to Lowes. The workout was complete and laundry was in the washer waiting to be dried. We headed to Lowes after our nearly daily trip to the Y. I had made sure that this morning we had snacks to hold off hunger until we got home from our "quick" trip. My first mistake had been an hour and a half earlier when I dropped the kids off at Childwatch. Several kids were already down at the indoor playground (it consists of a slide and some climbing nets but our kid love it in there) and my daughter wanted to go down there. I was initially going to take her, but then decided that since there was a group going down at the same time, she could just go with them. Oops! She wanted me to take her and instead of willingly going down (she cried the whole way t

As we stood in line at the George Spangler Farm in Gettysburg National Battlefield Park we listened to a local volunteer talk about giving tours to buses of school children during the month of May. About these children he said: "Many of these kids don't even know when the Civil War happened. They think that it happened in the 20th century, not as long ago as the 19th century. But they leave here interested and asking questions." I guess this paraphrased comment brings up a couple important points. One, depending on their age, kids have no concept of time. But that's just something that I know and realize as both a mom of a four and two-year-old and as a teacher of high school students who are just starting to realize time. And for me it is hard to remember that the older I get, the more likely it is that my students were either not alive when something happened or don't remember when something happened because they were too young at the time. In fact, when we

My first real impression of reenactments came from Hollywood. Remember that scene in Sweet Home Alabama when Reese is walking across a chaotic field to find her father and then admit to her fiance who she really is and where she really came from? Yeah, that was my first impression. Keep that in mind as I tell you about yesterday. It was a mostly lazy morning, but much to my husband's chagrin, I was still up and making bacon and eggs (my favorite camping breakfast) at 8 AM. Yesterday I wanted to go shopping and walking downtown while I wasn't dead on my feet from a long, hot bike ride and then go to the Eisenhower National Historical Site. Jeff wanted to go to the super huge reenactment they have had going all week and had no interest in Eisenhower. We compromised. I gave up my stamp and he went shopping and walking with me. It was fun to talk up the main drag in Gettysburg. While the shops are definitely there with tourists in mind, they have worked to maintain

Sixteen years ago I was introduced to a boy who asked me to attend the fireworks with him on the Fourth of July. We went to the beach on that cold Fourth, got separated just in time for the fireworks, and spent the next two hours walking up and down the beach waiting for the traffic to disappear so that he could take me home. We listened to the Eagles, laughed, he frightened me a little with his ridiculous knowledge of fireworks, and we dated the rest of the summer until we both headed off for college. It took a year for me to fall in love with him despite my best intentions not to, and two more years before I decided that he was definitely the guy I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but after eleven and half years of marriage I can see no more fitting date for our first date anniversary than the Fourth of July. You see, my husband is a lot of things, and there are many things about him that lurk beneath the surface. Only those who really know him know how freaky smart he is,

There are some moments in a relationship that you don't forget. I especially remember one fight that my husband and I had four months before our wedding. I had just returned to Nebraska for my last semester of college and student teaching. I was several weeks into my first eight-week assignment and eagerly waiting to hear where I would be sent. The plan had always been to try to get an assignment close to home in Michigan so I could be near home as I finished the last of our wedding planning and we would be married a few weeks after I returned home. That was proving to be more difficult than imagined. "So, the last proposal has been sending me to Las Vegas." "But you're supposed to be coming closer to home, not farther away." "I don't know what you want me to do. I don't have much control over this. Apparently all of the spots close to Michigan have been taken by schools in the area." "Tell them that you are getting married and

Spring break of 2006 we decided to take a trip down to Kentucky to see Mammoth Cave National Park. It was our first trip to the national park and we chose to stay at the lodge instead of camping because we weren't sure what we would find. What we found was a fantastic series of cave tours, a knowledgeable staff, and that sealed it. We were sold on the National Park Service. I may have a variety of other issues with many other departments of the federal government, but I have a great deal of respect for the underfunded NPS. At that time we decided to finally cave and do the truly nerdy thing by purchasing a passport book which would allow us to track every visit to every national park we ever visited. We started kicking ourselves because of the number of stamps we missed on our trip out west two years before, but we figured we would be making that trip again. We collected stamp after stamp in the summer of 2006 when we made our first trip together to Washington D.C. (my first ever).

My early experiences with camping were ok, at best. As a Brownie in Detroit and then later as a Cadet in Wyoming, I had a couple experiences camping with my troops. In Detroit our "camping" consisted of cabins, in Wyoming we actually slept in tents. Church camp brought on more primitive cabins, and then there was the camping trip with my mom's side of the family when I was in middle school. I really don't remember much about the experience except my grandmother cooking outside and walking around the Michigan state campground with the only cousin I have who is my age. Then there was the trip back out east when I was in high school. Our family was visiting several places and my parents decided that we should go camping on our own for the first time ever. To my knowledge, my parents had never really camped in their whole marriage, unless you counted the time with my mom's family in Michigan. That particular trip included an awesome (and I mean that in the original se