About gretchenwing

A high school English and History teacher for 20 years, Gretchen now lives, writes, and bakes on Lopez Island, Washington.

Happy Independence Day! Boom! Crash! Hold Me…

Posted on July 3, 2013 by gretchenwing

(courtesy Melissa Bowersock, WANA Creative Commons)

July 4 is the one day of the year our little island suffers from traffic jams. For some reason, even with a year-round population of under 2,500, we boast a fireworks display that rivals that of Seattle. Seriously. It lasts for 30 minutes, with a finale that sucks the breath out of you. An extra ferry runs on the 4th, just to accommodate all the onlookers…who then get stuck in traffic trying to negotiate our single road along the bay.

Me? All that traffic gives me the perfect excuse to stay away. I’ll be watching from a distance of about six miles, as the raven flies. From our roof, we can see the fireworks just fine.

They’ll still be gorgeous. And even better…they’ll be QUIET.

I am one of those people who hates loud noises. Let me give you some examples:

As a kid, running track races, I used to plug my ears at the starting line. If I were in the lead heading for the “gun lap,” I used to dread speeding by the starter who would obligingly shoot that gun one more time, just for me.

Invited to birthday parties, I would do a quick surveillance. Any balloons? Hmmm, a few. Any rowdy boys who looked like they’d consider stomping on those balloons to be fun times? Uh-oh…stomach-knots.

(original image courtesy Lynn Kelley Author, WANA creative commons)

Holding a board for my dad to hammer, I’d wince at each blow.

1812 Overture? Getoutahere!

And don’t even talk to me about thunderstorms. Please. Even now, my stomach clenches a little, remembering how I’d do a little pre-bedtime sky-check. Stars out? Phew–dreamland, here I come. Cloudy? Uh-oh. Can I fall asleep before the storm and maybe sleep through it? Too late…best turn the fan up to its loudest setting, fight with my sister about closing the window, and get ready to suffocate beneath my blanket, eyes squeezed shut against the lightning which only ratcheted up the dread. Oh man. How old is too old to crawl into bed with Mom and Dad?

(original photo courtesy Melissa Bowersock, WANA creative commons)

(Did I mention that I grew up in North Carolina? Where summer thunderstorms are as common as beer cans on roadsides?)

So you might have figured out by now why Independence Day wasn’t my favorite holiday as a kid.

Over the years, I’ve learned to adjust. When people invite me to fireworks-viewings, I counter-invite them to MY place, where I know in advance just how loud–or NOT loud–those beautiful, scary explosions will be.

I don’t run races very often any more, but when I do, I clench my fists on the starting line and don’t let my fingers anywhere near my ears, much as they want to go there. Who’s a big girl now?

I’m proud to say hammers don’t make me wince any more. Baby steps!

Oh, and since I moved to the Pacific Northwest 23 years ago, thunderstorms are a distant ~~nightmare~~ memory.

You might wonder why I’m so willing to share this humiliating weakness of mine. It’s because, somewhere along the way, I decided that I suffer from a PHOBIA.

I’m not “scared” of loud noises: I’m PHOBIC! In fact, I’m PHONOPHOBIC.

Phobias are cool. I have a lot of company being phobic. I can even be proud of all the common phobias I DON’T happen to suffer from, like spiders and heights, all while proudly maintaining my spot in the phobic sisterhood.

Why does this make me feel better? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with that nice, big word. PHONOPHOBIC. Yup. THAT I will proudly own. I will celebrate! I will have a party.

Just please don’t bring balloons.

YOU’RE INVITED…not only to my phonophobia party, but to share some phobias of your own. Or are they just fears? Is there a difference? What do you think? What’s the weirdest phobia you will admit to? I love hearing from you, and I promise I won’t make fun. No fingers crossed.

What’s Your Cooler Self Up To?

Posted on July 1, 2013 by gretchenwing

What if the person you might have been, given a few different choices in school, job, partner or lifestyle, is out there right now, living your once-potential life?

What if s/he is WAY COOLER than you are?

That’s the question posed by Eric Puchner in this thought-provoking article from, of all places, GQ. (What’s even weirder is that the friend who sent me this article is the kind of guy who doesn’t even know what GQ stands for.)

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/mens-lives/201205/cooler-me-eric-puchner-gq-may-2012-doppelganger

After polling all his friends to see what line of work they think his cooler self might be in, the author ends up tracking down a musician named Kyle Field. They meet. Eric is rather hoping Kyle will be something of a jerk, a loser, a washout.

He’s not. He is–darn it all–really cool. Here he is, singing a duet with Feist, which is what drew Eric to him. (Eric’s a daddy, and his little daughter adores Feist’s “1234” song on Sesame Street.)

Even as this song got stuck in my head, the article got me thinking. What might my doppelganger be up to, if I had one? And…am I okay thinking about this?

I didn’t use to be. I can distinctly remember times in years past when I slammed that door in my imagination, the one that showed me a more fulfilling career, a more admirable lifestyle, photo albums filled with more thrilling adventures than I was destined for.

Wow–she MUST be cool. Wow--she MUST be cool.

After all, if my doppelganger’s so cool–what am I? If she’s off working in Haiti with Partners in Health and all I’m doing is teaching public school in the U.S., well, doesn’t that make me kind of…safe? Conventional? Boring?

Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health

What if I start second-guessing the choices that brought me to this life? What if I start questioning if what I do is really as much as I could be doing? Sounds like a whole lot of self-doubt rattling around behind that door. So–nope. Not gonna open that one.

So I was delighted, after finishing this article and discussing it with my friend, to find myself flinging that door wide open without even thinking about it. Because, that woman working in Haiti? That’s who I saw, right off. And she didn’t threaten my sense of self one little bit. I was happy for her, working her hard job without the comforts of family, but she was happy for me right back, including my choice to walk away from my 20-year teaching career to write and bake. My cool, admirable, brave doppelganger smiled at me.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a clearer signal that I’ve arrived at a good, healthy stage in my life. Who knew GQ could have reassured me so?

What about you? Ever think about who your cooler self might be and what s/he might be up to? Or do you not like to think about it? Why or why not? Let us hear!

Please DON’T Draw Me a Sheep

Posted on June 28, 2013 by gretchenwing

Little Prince, anyone? Le Petit Prince? I admit, I only read it because my 9th grade French teacher made me…but like a lot of folks, I learned to love that story with a sweet, painful nostalgia.

My favorite line: “Please, draw me a sheep.” (“S’il vous plait, dessine-moi un mouton.”)

The Little Prince wants the narrator’s help in doing something he cannot do himself. The narrator complies. The sheep is drawn and the story moves forward.

But the Little Prince has not learned how to draw his own sheep. Good thing he only needed the one.

Technology these days feels to me like a whole herd of sheep, each one of which needs to be drawn in some detail. And that, for me, is the problem. Here’s an example.

Me: I want to make my blog look cooler.

Friend: Oh, I just use ***app-of-the-month supplied by new company with a name that sounds like it was coined by four year-olds****. You should try it!

Me: Uh, sure, if it works for you…

Friend: Oh, it DOES. Get it.Try it. Use it. ***other assorted verbs that make technology seem as effortless and graceful as Fred Astaire tap-dancing***

Me [three hours later, after struggling to figure out how to download said app, walk my way through its steps, realize that the cool stuff isn’t free, give app-people my VISA number, then get welcomed to a home page telling me all the AMAZING stuff I can now do but not giving me the slightest bit of tutorial on HOW to do it so I have to figure it out for myself..].: Next time, can you just come over and do it for me?

Once more, technology has disempowered me, in the ironic guise of making it seem as though the world is at my fingertips.

Sometimes I think my friends are tired of my techno-stupidity… (courtesy someecards)

Problem is, my fingertips don’t know what to DO with all that possibility. I want someone to TEACH me.

Teaching–THAT I know. After 20 years in the classroom, I understand about step-by-step, repetition, guided practice, the sequence of I do it/we do it/you do it/you teach someone else.

Here’s a radical idea: why can’t website tutorials be more like teachers?

Friends are busy; I understand they don’t have the time to walk someone like me through every step of every new “thing” you can do with your computer. But if tech websites offered a page or two of practice sessions, I could quit bugging my friends.

I wonder if anyone else out there shares this frustration when someone airily tells them, “Oh, just get this. Try this. Use this.” I wonder if anyone else wants to LEARN to draw the damn sheep, rather than needing to ask each time for someone to draw it for us.

Anyone?

Coming of Age in the Land of What-everrr

Posted on June 23, 2013 by gretchenwing

Without a deliberate approach to adulthood, we’re kinda stuck learning the hard way.

The other day I made a birthday cake for a fictional character.

Well, it was an important one! The heroine of my novel was turning 21. On the 21st. Her Golden Birthday.

Only as I was mixing the batter did I realize I had very nearly made my character into my son’s twin. His 21st birthday was the day before. The age was NOT intentional; my character began her life a couple of years younger. I only aged her, using my ~~godlike powers~~ critical judgement, after realizing the plot worked better that way.

The DAY of her birth, however, was no accident. I chose Summer Solstice on purpose for its symbolic value to the story.

And that got me thinking. Because here on the island where I live, a small part of the community offers teenagers–16, 17, 18–the chance to have a real coming-of-age ceremony on the Summer Solstice. I don’t know much about it yet, since I moved here after my kids left for college, but from what I’ve heard, it’s serious stuff. The kids choose a mentor for themselves, a sort of sponsor, who spends time throughout the year having conversations about what it means to be a man or a woman. Then the teen writes his or her own part of the ceremony, and shares it with a group of 100 community members on the longest night of the year. (The number is strictly limited to 100.) The whole ceremony takes place on a smaller, remote island over the course of a few days, and involves community cooking, music-making, and soaking-up of nature.

To me that sounds WONDERFUL. More than that, it sounds like what so many kids in our society need.

If you’re Jewish, you can have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. If you’re Catholic, you can be Confirmed. If you’re a girl of Mexican heritage, there’s the Quinceanera. Most Native American tribes and bands have important rites, and I’m pretty sure Amish kids have something. But these ceremonies are limited by faith and/or ethnic membership–we can’t all participate. And we all know the faith-based ones are often (sorry, God) less meaningful to the kid than the community would hope. PLUS…they can be pretty darn EXPENSIVE.

Life requires important benchmarks.

What coming-of-age ceremony is there for that American kid who wasn’t raised in a religious or ethnic tradition, or doesn’t find that tradition meaningful?

Here’s what that kid is left with: Getting a drivers license. And…getting legally drunk.

When my husband called my son to wish him a Happy 21st Birthday, he jokingly said into the phone, “How many fingers am I holding up?” Of COURSE you go out drinking when you turn 21 in America, right? What other benchmarks of adulthood do we have?

(courtesy someecards)

So am I missing something? Graduation? First hunting trip? What do you think of when you think of Coming of Age in America? Do you think our society suffers as a result of not moving kids more deliberately into adulthood? What kind of ceremony might we adopt?

I love hearing from y’all!

Move Over, Avatar: The Reality of SlugSex

Posted on June 18, 2013 by gretchenwing

Get this: when Leopard Slugs mate, their organs unite to create a huge, bright blue…well, flower. A slime flower. David Cameron’s creations, thrilling as they were–and I saw Avatar in IMAX 3-D, ok?–got nothing on the Leopard Slug.

Squeamish? You still won’t be able to stop watching this. Even better: turn your volume up. SlugSex has its own deliciously creepy sound.

So why am I posting Slug Porn? Not out of parental pride because my younger son, who sent me this link, is a UC Santa Cruz Banana Slug. (But yeah, while I’m at it, Go Fighting Slugs!)

I’m posting this because it is REAL. Gross, mind-blowing, beautiful–and REAL. In this world of virtual wonders, it is so refreshing to find something so humble that, all by itself, can blow my little mind.

Sometimes I think if one more person tells me, “Hey, guess what you can do with your [fill in the name of any expensive and teeny electronic product here]!” I’m going to scream, or hurt somebody. I’m just trying to get through my day. Do I really NEED to know how to make all the photographs in my collection look like they were taken by professionals before I instantaneously woosh them off to friends in the far corners of the globe? Do I NEED to be able to mate my phone with someone else’s to acquire their photos too, or their music, or ~~the bar coded embedded in their forehead~~ their website?

Nope. What I do need is my daily dose of natural wonder. And thanks to the Leopard Slug and its…umm…interesting sex life, I now have enough doses to last me well into next weekend.

How ’bout y’all? What is your favorite natural wonder that goes unnoticed? Or tell us about a new one we need to know us! Post a video if you’d like! Just try not to make it grosser than mine.

Dumbledore to the Rescue!

Posted on June 15, 2013 by gretchenwing

It’s Grad Season.

Forgive me if I don’t get all choked up at the sound of Pomp & Circumstance. I am truly happy for everyone who has recently gone through or is about to go through this hallowed ceremony. For you it MEANS SOMETHING. For me, well…as a former teacher, let’s just say, including my own and those of family, I’ve probably sat through at least 35 graduation ceremonies in my time.

That’s at least 35 graduation speeches. Actually, more like 135, since every grad ceremony I’ve ever attended included AT LEAST three speeches.

So when my husband and I prepared to attend our older son’s graduation from college last weekend, I was looking forward to feeling proud, I was looking forward to having our far-flung family back together, and I was looking forward to the hugs and the post-grad dinner.

I was NOT looking forward to the speeches. This is what I expected:

“You’re special. But you’re not THAT special.” (courtesty Pinterest, sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net)

Instead, this is what we got: Dean Bruce Tiffany, of the U.C. Santa Barbara College of Creative Studies (bless its creative little heart), dressed up as Dumbledore to give his speech.

Having grabbed our attention, Dean Tiffany/Dumbledore then proceeded to give a speech saying the opposite of most grad speeches. Instead of “You are part of the blah blah blah generation, and your mandate is thus to blah blah blah,” he told our son and his classmates how none of them had ever existed before and never would again. Each was, indeed, special. And because it was a guy who dared to wear a wizard hat saying it–I believed him. This was the effect:

(courtesty Pinterest, sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net)

See, “quirky” is just another word for “individual.” As in, You ARE one. There has never been, and will never be, another You. I see you. I respect you. You ROCK.

And that got me thinking. What can I do in my life to “quirk up” something humdrum and make someone feel special as a result? My husband used to make “flower arrangements” out of pieces of fruit when our boys were little. My bakery colleague Diana makes people cards with their own faces cartooned. My other colleague Ty likes to make baguettes that look like sea snakes.

What about you? What do you do to “quirk up” boring old routines for people in your life? Share! I love hearing from y’all!

I Believe! Who Doesn’t Want to be a Garden Fairy?

Posted on June 11, 2013 by gretchenwing

Stephen Colbert, Got a New Word for Ya: Cutiful

Posted on June 7, 2013 by gretchenwing

bringin’ back that classic bandanna look

“Truthiness.” “Grippy.” Those are just two of my favorite Colbert coinings. The man has a talent for creating words that make us wonder how we ever got along without them.

Well, I have one of my own, Stephen: Cutiful. It describes my dog, Juniper. OK, here she is with our other dog, Molly, who just passed away three weeks ago.

Classic beauties, aren’t they? In fact, whenever we walked in public, “beautiful” was the adjective I heard most often. (“BIG!” and “furry” tied for second.)

But look closer. Where Molly maintains that dark, malamute beauty, under scrutiny Juni dissolves into a sea of CUTE:

Why is this? Is it something basic, like fluffiness?

: Fluffiness: Check.

Or is it something more sophisticated, like the ratio of eye size: face size? (OK, I admit I stole that idea from the late biologist Stephen J. Gould.)

(plus more fluff)

Or is it something else entirely? Something I’m missing? Help me figure this out! Give me your best explanation of what makes fluff-bucket Juniper “cutiful.” OR…give me your own favorite made-up word!

My Dad, the 82 Year-old Jailbird

Posted on June 4, 2013 by gretchenwing

Phone call from my sister two weeks ago:

Me: Well, hi, thanks for calling back! I just wanted to say Happy Birthday.
Sister: Yeah, well, thanks, but Mom wanted me to tell you Dad’s in jail.

But maybe I’m conveying the wrong message here. My dad was only in jail for about 7 hours. And he was quite happy to be there. And my mom and my sisters and I were all very proud of him.

Long story short: In North Carolina (my home state where I haven’t lived for 23 years), the NAACP has teamed up with some Triangle-area churches and concerned individuals to protest the state legislature’s passage of a whole raft of bills threatening public education and anti-poverty programs. I won’t go into details here, but this video should give you the general idea:

May 20 was the third “Moral Monday” that the protest group met to call fellow North Carolinians to “Wake Up.” The first Monday, 12 folks got themselves arrested for not leaving the legislature when the police said to. Second Monday–28 people. Then came the 20th: 57 people arrested, including my dad, proudly re-living his sit-in days from 50 years ago.

He got bailed out at 2 in the morning. All is well; he’s retired, so this “blemish” on his record can’t hurt his career. But this episode serves me as a reminder that for many, if not most, in history, standing up for what’s right has been a dangerous business. It’s easy to see civil disobedience through the lense of time as something noble, creating inevitable change–and easy to forget how terrifying, chaotic, and destructive such action could be for the participants and their families.

How about you? Do any particular examples of civil disobedience give you goose bumps? Tell me about it.

Thrift Shops: Havens of Ultimate Cool,Macklemore Says So

Posted on May 31, 2013 by gretchenwing

You know those license plate frames you see, “I’d Rather Be Shopping at Nordstrom’s”? I need one that says, “I’d Rather Be Doing Almost Anything Rather Than Shopping at Nordstrom’s, Except Maybe Shopping at Macy’s.” I’d need a really big license plate frame. But at least I’d be expressing my deepest self, and that’s what license plate frames are for, right?

Something about those giant department stores just creeps me out. All those piles of handbags and acres of makeup counter…they make me question my feminity. Just how strong is my ol’ X chromosome anyway, when I want to go screaming out of here just minutes after I wander in? And it’s not the canned music–heck, Nordstrom’s has a piano player! Or used to. It’s the size, the shininess, that feeling of being trapped inside a magazine. Let’s just say department stores were not built for women like me.

But thrift shops? They can make me double-park and run across traffic.

I LOVE thrift shops, especially for clothing, although I have a nice collection of thrifty dishes too. Now that I no longer have to wear professional work clothes, I’m slowly “laundering” my old wardrobe through our local thrift shop. Every time I make a new purchase, I make myself donate something. The rate I’m going, there should be nothing tailored left in my closet by November.

My proudest purchase, though, came in 1978, when I bought my wedding dress. Understand, though–I did not get married until 1987. I’m just thrifty…and lucky.

Juniors in high school, my friend Mimi and I were sifting through items at the Nearly New Shoppe in my hometown in North Carolina, when we found a box of unpriced clothing in the back of the store. Mim pulled out something in ivory satin that just kept coming…and coming…and…holy cow! A wedding gown with a 10-foot train. One LONG, uninterrupted swath of silky sheen. Leg-o’-mutton sleeves with satin-covered buttons. A heart-shaped neckline.

“How much for this dress?” I called to the woman up front.

Without looking up, she replied, “Oh, everything in that box back there’s a dollar.”

Mimi and I looked at each other. “Fifty cents each?” she proposed. For that price, we didn’t even bother to try it on.

During that school year I wore it to a costume party, and I’m pretty sure Mimi put it to a similar use. Otherwise it hung in my closet, or hers, occasionally brought out to brag on, but mostly forgotten. Until 1987.

I said Yes to the Dress

When I decided to use the dress for its Ultimate Purpose, I consulted with Mimi. OK if I had it altered a little, to get rid of some age stains and shorten up that crazy train? It was an outdoor wedding, after all, and we have some serious red clay in NC. Mimi was fine with it.

The alterations cost me $10. So, with the original purchase price, that came to $10.50. I’ve heard of people buying wedding dresses for “ten-fifty,” but there are usually more zeroes attached to that.

Can you tell how ridiculously proud of myself I am for that find? But it’s not just about the money.

There is something inspiring to me about wearing the clothes of some anonymous woman. So much to wonder about! Did she really get married in that dress? Is she happily married still, or did it end badly? Perhaps the wedding fell through, and she never even had the chance to wear that dress. Was she relieved? Heartbroken? Is she still alive?

And NOW, come to find out I’m completely trendy! Macklemore’s video “Thrift Shop” has language a little more raunchy than what I want to post here, but check out this video of teenagers watching it: