crazedparent

The pink session...

I'm always in awe of the photos Heather Armstrong shoots of her dogs, Chuck and Coco. Sure, they're adorable and hysterically funny. But sweet jesus, do you know how difficult it is to get your dog to allow you to do this? Or this? Or this? And for the love of pete, this? I keep wondering when the Armstrongs will share some of their dog training tips because it's pretty clear they carry the Dog Whisperer gene. 

Dog training can be tedious. It requires a level of consistency that, at times, makes parenting feel like a leisurely stroll around a 10-mile lake. The crate training. The barking. The digging and general pilfering of any toy, stuffed animal or piece of tissue. The "heel" and "stay" and "come" and "holy high hell, stop humping your dog bed."

Luna is a punky little diva. But she works for food. The above Halloween photo required half of her favorite bribe dog training treat, Natural Balance Lamb. And while I can get her to sit still just long enough to snap a string of photos, we still have a long training road ahead of us. She's lucky she's cute. And likes pink.

The heart of the matter...

The pain was so severe during an emergency root canal that my dentist told me she needed to use a sort of "speed" Novocaine to stop it. The mix included epinephrine -- adrenaline -- to to numb my jaw line completely.

"It will make your heart race for about a minute, but you are not having a heart attack. Just take deep breaths." (I, of course, immediately thought of this scene in Pulp Fiction.)

She drilled a tiny hole in my jawline, inserted the needle and completed the injection. I waited for my heart to race, breathing slowly to keep an even pace. It didn't speed up. Instead, it felt as though someone were squeezing my heart with clenched fingers. I reminded myself that the doctor said the injection wouldn't causing a heart attack. So why was I having chest pain?

A minute had passed before it stopped and when I notified my doctor, she sunk into her chair with a concerned look.

"You are too young to have chest pain. You are too young to have such stress in your life that is hurting your heart. You need to get it checked out. And you need to lose what is causing you strife."

She was right.

After a series of blood tests, a stress echo cardiogram that made me feel like the most unfit person on the planet, and more than a month of not being able to exercise, my results finally came back. My cholesterol level? Eh. It needs to be better. My heart? One hundred percent healthy. But it doesn't mean that I'm not at risk of developing heart disease...even though I'm active and eat really well.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women over 40. Not breast cancer. Not cervical cancer. Heart disease. For me and many of my friends, 40 is only a few years away.

If you haven't had your cholesterol levels checked since you were pregnant, do it. If you ever have chest pain (and trust me, you'll know the difference between heartburn and real, true chest pain), see your doctor as soon as you can. And if you're running around like your hair's on fire, stop. Take some time to figure out how you can slow down in life. Because stress can be just as damaging to your heart as poor eating habits or inactivity.

The chest pain I experienced in the dentist's chair was a large square of red fabric, floating fiercely in the wind. I needed to find a new pace in my little world and had weeks to think it through as I waited for test results. The exercise to determine the speed of those new steps has been nothing but goodness. I'm eternally grateful.

Smooth lines...

I learned cursive writing with a Shaeffer fountain pen. Instead of using the standard blue ink, I favored peacock blue because it made binder paper less boring. And it made writing fun. The knobby callus on the middle finger of my right hand was always a shade of turquoise, the result of ink splatters from homework and my own creative writing endeavors.

Earlier this year, an old high school boyfriend emailed me to let me know he'd found a stash of old love letters from when we dated during sophomore year. In his email, one detail stood out: he noted the color of the ink I wrote in. That same distinct peacock blue. While my class notes were always in ballpoint, love letters required a special writing instrument.

Fountain pens didn't really work as a young journalist in training. Companies aren't apt to stock their office supply cabinets with fancy ink refills or disposable fountain pens. I can't even remember when I stopped using those pens. They just left my bag.

A few weeks ago I was in an old-school stationary store looking for school supplies for a tv appearance. Along with my weakness for beautiful journals and paper, I'm always searching for pens. As I browsed the shelves with hundreds of ballpoint pens, a silver tip caught my eye. I couldn't believe I'd found a fountain pen. Then again, I'd stopped looking.

The simple pleasure of writing with a fountain pen is inspiring. The paper is crisp and its smoothness enhanced as the silver tip of the pen glides over each page, ink visibly flowing with each letter. At some point, it's as if the pen is moving on its own.

I'm making an effort to write every day, fountain pen to paper. To use that new pen (in, yes, peacock blue) and recapture the craft of writing. 

Come on...

The video for the song Come On by The Panderers shows exactly what you feel like doing the instant you hear the first few bars. Grab a drink and start shakin' it in a goofy, spirited sort of way. It also makes me want to throw a raging party.

The song is over a year old and I can't believe I heard it for the first time a week ago. I downloaded it immediately and it's been on heavy iPod rotation. And? Kids really dig it.

Things that keep me up at night v1.2...

Is Kelly living in Dylan's old house? Did Brenda look at that teacher, the one that digs Kelly, with a little "hmmm" in her eye? Dear god, not another love triangle. Since when did Rob Estes look so good? And how, how, could I get hooked on this show when I don't even own a television? Must hide face in shame (while looking at preview for next week's episode).

Minor league baseball and saving my kids' skulls...

It's common knowledge here at crazedparent that the family likes baseball. While a good major league game tickles my fancy, I'm also a fan of minor league ball. The kind that conjures up thoughts of Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins in Bull Durham, with wacky between-inning contests ("Smash for Cash"), ridiculous mascots (Gigante the washed-out orange-colored monkey) and small-town, old-fashioned fun.

Triple-A ball -- players just shy of the getting called up to the show -- is intense. You can see rookies before they become big names. And sometimes, when you're sitting in the first row at field level, a player might shamelessly flirt with you when he should be manning his base. Even when you're pregnant. With a big belly. And your husband is sitting right next to you. A few months later you might even see that player in the starting lineup of a top-notch major league team and you'll say, "Hey, isn' that..." and before you can finish your sentence, you're husband will answer, "Yep, that's him." And you sense a little machismo because his lady was eye candy to a now famous ball player.

I digress.

Triple-A ball in intense. Single-A teams are raw and the players are learning the ropes. They make brutal errors and are naively disrespectful to umpires. And it's sort of fun to watch the players figure it all out.

I'm particularly fond of Single-A ball because you get a behind-the-scenes view of the game. You see scouts tracking pitchers and signals and calls being made with no obstruction because you're so close to the field. And sweet jesus, the local color. It's like walking into the proverbial time warp.

Here's the thing. When you're soaking in every drop of detail, you sometimes miss a pop-fly heading over the net behind home plate. And it's only until you hear your husband yelling, "Heads up! Heads up!" that you realize a baseball is barreling towards you. And the skulls of your two kids seated right beside you. When you quickly look up, you realize that you don't have time to think.

With that, I threw my hand straight up in line of the falling baseball and as the crowd around me yelled, I could only hear the eery sound of leather pounding the palm of my hand, the drop of the ball on the ground and the people clamoring around us to catch it. Because, you know, who can pass up grabbing a foul ball. Even if it's only Single-A.

I stretched my arm out and tried to open and close my hand and fingers, scarlet red and aching from the impact of the baseball. An EMT quickly appeared along our row asking me if I needed assistance. I pondered his question for a few seconds since he was wearing gold Elvis sunglasses along with his navy blue jumpsuit. But I resisted. My hand -- and perhaps most important, my the skulls of my kids -- had escaped serious injury.

The boys had no idea what had just happened. Why? Because they were watching the game.