When I was a little girl I had a gap in my front teeth and freckles.  I could have easily passed for Alfred E. Neuman’s little sister.  I was the front man in the group of kids that wandered through our housing development.  I was the youngest and the smallest and I looked like a cartoon.  When I opened my mouth I had the vocabulary of a thirty-year old and that totally threw people.  The other kids would send me as the advance scout to feel out the possibility of a snack or some Kool-Aid.  I was hard to say no to or I didn’t take no for an answer…it just depended on which door I knocked on.

The sun was usually setting when we pedaled our bikes into our driveways.  I never remember my parents asking me where I’d been or what I had been up to.  Never.  They didn’t have to because there was an underground system of tattle-tales…a kind of neighborhood behavior watch…everybody’s business was everybody’s business…and it worked.

Most of our neighborhood was under construction…”little boxes on a hilltop”.    I can’t say we were poor because none of us knew any better.  I thought everyone lived in tiny houses, had four kids to a bedroom and one bathroom the size of a closet for eight people.  I had a rude awakening when they started building two story Cape Cod style houses nearby. They looked like mansions to us.  One of my friends had her own bedroom and bathroom.  I thought she was rich.  And that was when I figured out that I wasn’t.

The paved road ended two houses past us, where it dropped off about a foot onto a dirt road that led to the rest of the new houses under construction.

The construction sites were our playground…we climbed up into the rafters of the framed out houses and jumped down into the dirt piles filled with nails and tin pieces and insulation.  With the exception of a campfire or two gone wrong, we never did anything really bad, because somehow it always got back to our mothers.

Our mothers didn’t have to keep a tight rein on us because there was always someone watching the herd.  No one’s mother took offense to having their child ratted out because they knew reciprocation was right around the corner.  It didn’t matter that each home had at least one kid with their arm in a cast or on crutches for most of the summer.  They kept an open file in the emergency room just for our family alone.

We were let loose and it was paradise…a fool’s paradise maybe…but a paradise all the same.  I remember one summer in particular.  We were in trouble because we unscrewed the knobs from the oak dresser drawers in our bedroom and stuck them to the bottom of our shoes with gum and pretended we had high heels.  We thought we got away with it until my neck broke out in a rash from the fiberglass curtains we pulled down from the windows to make capes.  We had to sit on the curb and watch everyone else ride off on their bikes.  They were planning to climb the fence near the Water Works and pick cattails.  It wasn’t long before they were sitting on the curb too, turned in by some unseen force that we later came to know as the old lady in the green house on the corner.  She was just one link in the chain of tattle-tales, but to us, for years she was THE one.

And that was when the caper I like to call The Summer of the Car Trap took form.

I was a…charming…child.  I would always follow a statement with one of my tooth-gapped grins and I pretty much got what I wanted.  When I asked my mother for a shovel, she asked me what I was going to do with it. I told her, straight up that I was going to dig a car trap.  The shovel was bigger than me.  She didn’t give it a second thought.

The bigger kids across the street brought their shovels too, and before long we had a pretty good sized hole where the pavement ended and the dirt road began.  One of the boys got a hose and we filled it with water, then we sat down on the curb and waited.

It wasn’t long before the man that lived right next to us came driving up the street.  He always drove to the end of the pavement and backed his car into his driveway.  I can still see his face…slow motion…nodding to us as he drove by, the front end of his car dropping off the end of the pavement… and right into our water-filled car trap.

I can’t say for sure what brought all the mothers running…it might have been our cheering…more likely his yelling.  I was still holding the shovel when my mother caught up with me.  All the gap-toothed charm in the world wasn’t going to dig me out of that hole.

And digging holes is what brings me to today’s observation.  It’s the tale of two wealthy women…and the choices they made.

Elin Nordegren, ex-wife of Tiger Woods, bulldozed the 12.3 million dollar Palm Beach house that she purchased after their divorce, to the ground…a costly decision and not just monetarily.  It is none of anyone’s business what she chooses do do with her money.  But this has thrown a little ice water on the empathy she garnered after what she went through under the glare of the spotlight.  So much for living privately.  A psychologist could have a field day with this one.

Philanthropist Herta von Stiegel decided that just writing a check to a charity for the disabled wasn’t enough.  She wanted to call attention to how much people with physical and mental disabilities can achieve if they are given the challenge and the chance.

Herta had failed in her first attempt to reach the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.   Refusing to fail a second time, she decided to take seven disabled people with her who never imagined that they could succeed.  They trained for two years and she chronicled the story in her memoir The Mountain Within.  

Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest summit in Africa and the climb is not for the faint of heart, with only about 30% of the climbers making it to the Uhuru summit.

All seven of the disabled people stepped out of their comfort zones, faced their limitations and climbed.  Three of them made it to the summit with Herta.

Two women with endless means and possibilities, both in the news on the same day…

One dug a hole and found herself in it…and the other, well…she filled in a bunch of holes, and when she found herself on the top of the mountain, she wasn’t alone.

Funny word…wealthy…just depends on how you carry the weight of it.

As for holes…I’ve dug myself a few…and I’ve usually found myself standing next to them holding the shovel.  I’m sure I’ll dig a few more…

Day Three Hundred and Fifty One…stars are out…peace.

Cynthia Neilson

Most Saturday mornings during the past seven months you could find me in the plumbing aisle at Lowe’s.  It wasn’t a ritual.  It was a necessity…for I am the proud owner of a pet water leak.  It’s high maintenance and very demanding…preferring to play in the scorching sun or the freezing rain.  My leak is really good at tag, but its’ best game is hide and seek.

I have over a mile and a half of water line.  I’ve managed to find all of my leak’s hiding places…so far.  I’d like to think it’s a gift, but it’s really dumb luck.  I try to keep a supply of pvc pipe and fittings and blue mystery glue and if I can’t fix it myself, I have a short list of friends that I turn to for reinforcements. It used to be a long list.

My leak played long and hard this summer.  The lower field of my farm looked like the green in Caddyshack, holes from one end to the other.  I marked them with colored flags and the pasture took on a jaunty festive feel.

I finally found the last leak and thought I’d caught a break…until yesterday.  I have a water meter at my front gate.  I can turn the water on and off for the entire farm at that meter.  Once in a while I check it just to make sure the little arrow showing water consumption isn’t moving.  I was driving out of the gate when the hair stood up on the back of my neck like a divining rod and I decided to check the meter.  The little arrow was spinning merrily along and I wasn’t in my house using any water.  Great…just great.

After a summer of hide and seek with my darling little leak, I had “consulted” with one of my plumbing pals and he decided to install a series of shut-off valves to make it easier to pinpoint any leaks.  I could just shut off the lines, field by field, and by process of elimination, determine the likely area of the leak.  He put the valves in and put pipes over them with lids so I could  reach down to turn the valves on or off.  We buried in the holes.  The system was foolproof.

Enter the fool.

Yesterday I stood watching the little arrow spinning on the meter and smugly shook my head…gotcha!  I strode confidently across the field to the pipe that covers the first shut-off valve.  Piece of cake.  Ahahahahahahaha…right.

I took the lid off of the pipe covering the valve and reached down inside to shut it off.  My arm was about six inches too short.  I couldn’t reach it.  What???  I pulled that arm out and tried the other arm…like that would make a difference.  Nope.  O M G.  If I wanted to get to the valve I was going to have to dig up the pipe…again.  I trudged up the hill to the barn where I keep my shovel collection.  About half way through the field I passed Dill…one of my pot-bellied pig rescues.  Her sister Boo was right behind her.  They had tunneled out of their enclosure again and they were on a mission.  They were the last of a family of four I had named after characters in To Kill A Mockingbird.  Atticus and Scout had both been on the losing end of a run in with some coyotes a couple of years before.

The pigs came to me after someone let them loose outside the Parthenon in downtown Nashville.  Baby pot-bellied pigs are adorable.  We built them an enclosure with a lovely little cottage, complete with a tin roof and a front porch.  They grew into very large pigs with an unexplained hostility toward men.  I had nothing to do with that.  It was an instinct.

Shortly after I took them in I got a call about another piglet named Hermie.  None of the other pigs at the rescue farm liked him.  “Of course I’ll take him…what’s one more?”

Turned out my Mockingpiglets were particular about other pigs too.  They hated Hermie and wouldn’t let him into their enclave.  He had to have his own hut.  He chose to sleep on my porch with the dogs most of the time.

Hermie ate everything in sight…dog food, pig food, cat food, horse feed, shoes, plants, matchbox cars…there wasn’t anything off limits for his palate. He grew truly as fat as a pig.

One really hot summer day I looked out and saw Hermie’s feet sticking out of his little hut.  I banged the screen door a few times because that usually brought him waddling.  He didn’t budge.  Uh oh.  Hermie had eaten his last shoe.

I went over to the hut.  He had blown up in the heat and was wedged inside.  I pulled on his legs.  There was no way I could pull him out.  He was stuck in it and to it.  Ugh.

I called my daughter outside to help me.  “What if I get the Bobcat and shake him out?”  She thought it sounded like a plan…she was twelve. What happened next is one of the reasons she eventually ended up in therapy.

When I moved to my farm I had to learn how to handle a lot of heavy equipment, including a skidloader called a Bobcat.  They are very powerful machines and kind of difficult to maneuver.  If you swing the bucket wrong you can knock down a shed with it…don’t ask me how I know.

A graduate of the School of Hard Knockdowns, I pride myself on my Bobcat handling skills.  I started it up and drove over to Hermie’s shed.  My plan was to pick the edge of it up with the front bucket and “bounce” it up and down with the controls until Hermie popped out.

Three tries later…nothing.  He was stuck like he had been glued to the floor.

I pushed the hut out into the field where I thought I could get a better angle. Did I mention that we live on a hill?

I lifted the hut up a little too much and it started to roll down the hill, gaining speed as it went…hut pig, hut pig, hut pig, hut pig…and then, eureka…Hermie popped out.  The hut rolled to a stop against a tree.

I triumphantly instructed my daughter to use the handle of a rake to help guide poor Hermie’s body into the bucket of the Bobcat.  He was about half way in and I started to lift him up.  He was…gooey.  He slipped off the edge of the bucket and fell on top of my child.  She was knocked to the ground by this very squishy, very dead pig.

“Get him off me! Get him off me!”  She was hollering so I knew she was okay.  I jumped out of the Bobcat, laughing…hey, you would have too…and managed to drag him off of her.  She stormed off into the house.  She says it took a week to get the smell out of her hair.  I think she was exaggerating.

Yesterday as the two surviving pigs and I passed each other on the hill I thought about how resourceful I’d become since moving from New York City to this farm in the middle of nowhere.  My farm and I came to an agreement a long time ago…I don’t own the land…it owns me.

I knew I’d get the pipe glitch sorted out and I figured I’d operate better if fueled by some gingerbread marshmallows so I headed to the house before going to get the shovel to start digging.

I went into the house, and there, leaning against the kitchen wall, was the answer to my problem.  One time when my kids and I were in line at the register in Lowe’s my son pointed out a display of those grabber reachers…you know the ones I mean…with a picture of an old lady trying to reach something in the cupboard.  He put his hand on my shoulder, assuring me that if I didn’t need it now, it wouldn’t be long before I did.  He got me one for Christmas that year.  Very funny.  I caught him using it himself a few times…reaching for his soda when he was playing video games.

Well, ha ha…what started out as an aid for my antiquity turned out to fit perfectly down the valve shut-off pipe.  I turned the water off and determined that the leak is somewhere past my house.  It can stay there for the rest of the winter until the ground gets softer and I find some new plumbing interns.

The water leak is benched for now.  Day three hundred and fifty…ovah.

I took Sunday off…had breakfast with my daughter…watched The Parent Trap…the good one with Hayley Mills playing the twins…talked to my son in Los Angeles…uneventful but so…nice…

I did have to jiggle the handle on my toilet all day…uh oh….

Day three hundred and fifty and three hundred and forty nine…done…insert big smile here.

Cynthia Neilson

I’m a runner.  I try to run almost every day.  I didn’t start running until after my marriage hit the skids.  I liked the feeling it gave me again.  It was forward motion that I could control even when life as I knew it was grinding to a halt behind me.  It’s cheap therapy.

Running is free.

I run with my friend Patricia.  We didn’t just lace up our sneakers and take off.  We started slowly…walking a telephone pole, running a pole…and then we started connecting them together.  It wasn’t long before we were running a mile…then two…and finally an entire 5k.  Of course, to a marathon runner, a little over three miles isn’t that much.  If you’re reading this and don’t run, go out tomorrow and give a 5k a try.  It ain’t easy.  We’ve upped the ante and we combine weight lifting and interval training with our run.  We’re pretty fit for two oldish broads.  Ibuprofen is our friend.

We’d like to think we’re athletic, but most of the time we look like the frayed ends of a bad rope.  None of that matters come racetime when we are running up the hill on Highway 53 past some of the high school kids who are WALKING.  You know who you are.

I am a baby boomer…born between 1946 and 1964…the special generation that is going to eat up all of what’s left of social security, which is only fair, because we’ve built most of it.

Pat just misses being a baby boomer… but she’s one of us by her sheer tenacity.  If I asked Pat to jump off of a bridge with me she would already have one leg over the rail.  How lucky am I?

We are also middle-aged.  I know some of you cringe and refuse to think of yourself that way…but in truth, if you were born before 1972, then so are you.  Get over it.  Once you do, you’ll find it’s pretty cool…if you’re doing it right.

Here’s my theory on middle-age…a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.

If you look at life like a human pregnancy…then the first thirty years, the age between birth and 39, is the first trimester.  You are just a little flitter, all your cells coming together to become the person you will grow into.  The first trimester is filled with excitement and drama and uncertainty.  There are many ups and downs.  You are nauseous a lot of the time and tend to want to sleep way too much or you can’t sleep at all.  You eat everything, or you eat nothing…whether you should or shouldn’t.  You push yourself too much, or not enough…and you are anxious and impatient to see where this is all going.  Toward the end of the first trimester you experience some life lessons that wake you up and make you realize that you could have paced yourself better…you suspect that the best years might be falling behind you.  In your thirties you begin to see that time is flying much faster than it did in your twenties. You develop regrets…about things you did or didn’t get to do and you worry…about everything.

And then something wonderful happens.  You enter the second trimester…from 40-69…and suddenly all the things that made you feel insecure and unsure of yourself just don’t matter anymore.

Your car has finally climbed to the top of the first hill on the rollercoaster and as you drop off the crest, your eyes are wide open and your hands are up in the air…if you’re riding it right.

It is the trimester where you feel the best…you have energy to spare and you glow.  You are almost fully formed now and you begin to assert yourself…make your presence known.  It is the BEST time of your life if you want it to be.  You are aware of life’s limitations but you find yourself brave enough to push those limits and try things that you’ve always wanted to…be someone you’ve always wanted to be.  You welcome challenge and change.

In the second trimester, you stop wasting time fixing things to fit into your life.   You no longer want to accept your cup as half-full or half empty…if the glass isn’t full you’d rather drink from the faucet.   You understand that this is the time to take chances.

It is also the trimester when life starts to throw some curves into the ride and you come to face how fragile life can be and how short it is for some and loss becomes part of what drives you forward and makes you sip the wine a little slower.

Toward the end of the second trimester, just when you think it can’t get any better…it can.  Think about 69 year old Harrison Ford…and one of the sexiest women alive…Helen Mirren…an incredible 67.

Middle age can be the time of your life if you run toward it and around it and in it…not away from it.  Instead of yearning to make yourself over…consider that you can have a do-over…a chance at a totally different you.  It’s not about age…it’s about attitude.  It’s like a second childhood and it’s totally up to you.  Your age is just a number.  And while it doesn’t define or limit your life, remember that it is a privilege and should be honored as such.

The third trimester…ages 70 and up are referred to as the golden years…you are fully formed and will start to slow down.  If you’ve taken advantage of your middle years, the ones where you are the strongest and can be the happiest and healthiest, then the golden years should be just that…golden.

Sit back and buff the trophy you’ve become to a shine.  If you’ve lived your life, your trophy will have some tarnish and scratches and dents.  The third trimester is just as much about the marks that others have left on you as the marks you’ve left on them.

I met a man who had a hard life.  He grew up in a family that was poor, not only by things they couldn’t afford…but also by what they didn’t give to each other.

One day their father came home with a bicycle.  It was such a rare thing for him to waste money especially on the kids.  There were five of them and only one bike.  They all had to take turns.  He was the youngest one and got to ride the bike last.  It was almost dark and they told him to ride down to the end of the road and come back.

He got on the bike and when he got to the end of the road he kept going…never looked over his shoulder to see his brothers and sisters running after him as he turned the corner and rode out of sight.

He ended up miles away.  He got tired and finally knocked on a farmer’s door and they called his father who came and got him.  His father threw the bike in the back of the truck and drove him home.  His father didn’t have to punish him.  He knew his brothers and sisters would never let him have a chance to ride the bike again.

Over forty years have passed…and he still wonders what would have happened if he hadn’t stopped…and had just kept going on that bike.

I like the feeling when I run.  It doesn’t matter where I’m going.  I won’t ever stop.

I’m a runner.  Running is free.

Day three hundred and forty eight…time for a shower and some Ibuprofen…

Cynthia Neilson

I wasn’t much of a birdwatcher until I moved to the country from New York City.  There, the bird that seems to get all of the attention…mostly negative… is the pigeon.   To New Yorkers, they are scavengers…swooping down like flying sanitation workers…picking up the garbage that the two-footed evolved creatures have left behind…and leaving their calling cards all over the sidewalk.

Here in Tennessee, I would have to say the country equivalent is the wild turkey.  When I first moved here I was told they were elusive and I would never see them, but they seem to be everywhere.  I used to think they weren’t very smart because if I drive up on a flock of them they run into each other and can’t figure out how to get out of the way even though THEY CAN FLY.

But I’m thinking I underestimated them.  What they lack in common sense, they make up for in instinct.  The day turkey hunting season starts they are nowhere to be found.  Some mysterious inner calendar kicks in and they disappear back into the woods before the first turkey call sounds.   You won’t see them again until the day after season closes.  When you really get down to it…calling someone a “turkey” might not be such an insult after all.

I’ve been watching two pairings of birds for the last couple of years.  I don’t know for sure if they’re the same ones…but I’m thinking so.  One is a brilliant red cardinal and his mousy brown cardinal girlfriend.  The two of them land on my porch rail and sit in the sun.  She hangs back and makes herself as small as possible and he stands puffed up and gorgeous…all perfect red color.

Another bright red handsome cardinal started showing up and sitting in the tree next to the porch.  He has a girlfriend too.  They are a mixed race couple…she is a tiny brown sparrow.  Apparently birds of a feather don’t necessarily flock together.

Every once in a while the two Red Boys fly at each other, squawking and carrying on.  They head off in the same direction…diving at one another until they disappear into the trees.  The two females just sit where they are.  If birds can have a disgusted expression, then these two do.  After a while the men return and take their places on the porch rail and the tree branch, grumbling about each other to their respective mates.  Come on…those girls know better… their men barely flew out of sight before they started patting each other on the back and flying off to look for wherever other guy birds hang out.

The male cardinals are bright red to up their mating potential.  A flashier feather will get you the girl of your dreams.  In the case of my mixed race cardinal couple…obviously the mousy brown cardinal girls just weren’t cutting it for him…so he chose a saucy little sparrow.  He seems dedicated.  This is the second year I’ve seen them together and in bird relationship years…that’s probably their silver anniversary.

The females of the species homo sapien…or human beings…are historically the pretty ones, though the species is continually evolving and there seems to be as many pretty men now as there are women.

Homo sapien is a Latin word for wise man.  That’s a real knee-slapper. Those Latins were such cut-ups.  Homo sapiens are bipedal animals meaning we walk upright on two legs…and yet since we’ve taken our first steps we’ve wanted to fly and swim and ride things…whether they have legs or wheels.

Humans like to identify with animals.  We smell a rat…something’s fishy…he’s a beast…she’s an old crow…he’s an animal…she’s as gentle as a lamb…we’re as hungry as a horse…she’s a cougar…he’s an old goat.

I don’t think the rest of the animal kingdom feels the same way about humans.  Putting a monkey in a tutu or a cowboy hat on a bull is only funny to us.

There is one comparison that I take umbrage with.  Yes, umbrage…a funny noun which can mean offense, displeasure or annoyance…or…leaves that afford shade in a tree….those crazy Latins….

Saying men are “dogs” and women are “cats” seems wrong to me.  It really should be the other way around and I can make a case for it.  Just hear me out.

Anyone who has ever owned a dog will tell you that they are the most loyal, intelligent, loving and forgiving creatures on the face of the earth.  What other animal can you leave alone for an entire day only to find them waiting eagerly by the door, tail wagging, happy to see you?

It’s true, some dogs do lash out and chew on things or pee where they shouldn’t.  You can yell at them, hit them, tie them up and ignore them and the next day when you come home they will still be excited to see you.

It takes very little to guarantee the devotion of a dog…a head pat, a “good dog”…a walk and a biscuit now and then…ten seconds of attention is the same as ten minutes in a dog’s mind.

Dogs can be trained to seek and fetch and will do it over and over again.   They generally answer to their name when called, but will pretty much answer to anything.  Dogs accept a leash and a collar and will even carry them to you to be put on if you teach them how to. This doesn’t sound like a lot of guys I know.

In all fairness…a lot of men have heard “get down” and “not now”.  This does not seem to be a habit that is easily broken, as they will continue that behavior over and over again until they get the response that they are looking for.

And male dogs will exhibit aggressive behavior around a bitch in heat, so a comparison can be made there.  However, once you neuter a dog, he tends to stop sniffing around and stays home.

Once again, that doesn’t translate to men.  The vasectomy has become the ticket to ride.  I should have known something was up when my ex-husband came home from working on a nine month movie and announced that he wanted to get snipped.  Ironically, he was getting his vasectomy on September 11th, 2001 when the towers fell.  I was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room while he was in having the procedure.  They had a television on and everyone was glued to it.  Talk about timing.

I’m not saying vasectomies are an indicator of infidelity…but it should have been a gigantic cardinal red flag for me.  I was oblivious.  I was also pretty much past child-bearing years. Duh.

To be honest, I think men exhibit more catlike behavior.  They are elusive and non-responsive, only showing attention and rubbing against you when THEY feel like it.

Cats will run off for days, only coming home when they are hungry.  When they make a mess, they cover it up.  They allow you to touch them when they want to be petted and then they walk away when they are tired of it.

My daughter’s two cats have been “visiting” me way past their expiration date.  I am not a cat person and don’t allow them in my bedroom.  They retaliate by going on a rave every night.  When I get up in the morning every cabinet door in my kitchen is open.  They use the hall runner like a toboggan and slide their paws under my bedroom door tugging on it.  I had to tie my Christmas tree to the window locks because they climbed up inside the branches and stuck their heads out like two furry ornaments and knocked it over.  They didn’t do it to be cute.  They did it to scare the living daylights out of me.  As I wrote this, Buster tried to get on my lap…I already knew “get down” and “not now” was a waste of time.  He then tried to wind himself around my left elbow and bite me.

I am also highly allergic to cats.  If men are cats then my dating history all makes perfect sense now.

I only know that when I walk outside my dogs are thrilled to see me simply because I made an appearance.

Cats have nine lives…they get to have way more chances to rebound and recover.

One year is seven in dog years…so an eight year old dog is actually fifty-six years old.  And we all know you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

If you asked most guys to draw a picture of a fifty-six year old woman she would be round and have short curly gray hair.  She would be dressed in bad polyester and wear sweaters with three dimensional snowmen on them. She would be sitting in a rocking chair reading a book.

Ask the same guys to draw a picture of a fifty-six year old man…you wouldn’t be seeing a lot of pants belted under the armpits or fringe hair and bifocals.  You would be seeing a lot of pecs and abs…motorcycles and sport cars…boats and bikinis.

While women are synonymous with catty behavior…even our genitalia has a feline moniker…we are often given canine descriptions…she’s a dog…she’s a bitch…she’s a hound…

I’m thinking women are more like dogs.  We sit by the door…waiting… jumping around and wagging our tails for a scrap of attention as soon as the men walk through the door.

We love to go for walks by the lake and take rides in the car and sit by the fireplace.  We adore treats and act all excited even if it really isn’t all that great.  We want to be a part of everything you do and when you leave us out we’ll  forgive you.  We’ll keep chasing the ball when you throw it…and we’ll keep bringing it back…even when you throw it as far away as possible just to get rid of us.  We will be your best friend when you need someone to be there and most of the time we won’t expect the same in return.

We will wait by the door because the one thing we never want to lose sight of is the belief that you are coming through it eventually…even if we want to kill you.

We can have a mean bark and a painful bite when provoked…but for the most part we are loyal and forgiving and loving and will accept the least amount of attention for total devotion.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule…just like my bright red cardinal and his little sparrow girlfriend.

When all is said and done…which must be another crazy joke on us coined by the Latins…because all never seems to be said and done…

The next time someone says “he’s a dog”…take a second look ladies.  He just might be a keeper.

Day Three Hundred and Forty Seven…meow…

Cynthia Neilson

We had torrential rain here last night and into early this morning.  For most it is just an inconvenience…dealing with umbrellas and traffic snarls.  For me, it can be problematic, because I am at the mercy of my creek.

My creek is an enigma.  Technically a creek is a stream that is smaller than a river.  You can’t get more ambiguous than that.  And depending on the weather, neither can my creek.

When you drive up the road leading into my farm, you have to cross the creek which is about fifteen feet wide.  Most days it is only a few inches deep and the bottom is slate so it is almost like driving over a puddle on wet pavement.  Really.  But sometimes when it rains hard…all bets are off….and here is where our island adventure begins.

I’m a Pisces…a water sign.  If you look at the astrological symbol for Pisces, it’s two fish swimming in opposite directions…one upstream, one downstream.  I’m one of the upstream swimming Pisces…but I’m all right with it.  I like swimming against the current…it’s challenging and I’ve got great arms because of it.

My relationship with water began at a young age.  We had a town pool where I grew up.  They offered swimming lessons at the beginning of the summer in the hope that it would lessen the number of kids the lifeguards had to rescue for the next two months.

Before the bigger kids would be allowed on the diving board they had to line up, dive in, and swim the length of the pool from the shallow end to the deep end. I would automatically line up with them, only to be plucked out at the last minute because I was in the “minnow” class and wasn’t allowed to swim yet.  Uh-huh.

There was always an abundance of pretty teenage girls who got to the pool early to get the good chairs by the lifeguards.

One morning when the lifeguard at the shallow end was…distracted…I found myself at the front of the line.  When the whistle blew…I dove in.  My Mother was sitting with the rest of the mothers.  When she saw all the commotion she knew immediately it had to have something to do with me.

She calmly walked over to the pool and watched as the lifeguards ran up the length of it trying to snag me with the rescue hook as I swam serpentine back and forth across the water until I finally made it to the far side of the deep end.

Back then…in the olden days as my son likes to call them…bathing suits were made out of cotton…not spandex like they are now.  When I got to the end, I stuck my hand up on the side of the pool and the lifeguard reached down and grabbed me by the back of my bathing suit.  I had to suffer the humiliation of an atomic wedgie while he dangled me like a wet rag and pulled me out of the water.

My Mother never even flinched.  And I know she wasn’t on Xanax because it wasn’t invented yet.  I’m sure the other mothers cringed and pulled their babies close as my Mother collected my brothers and sisters and me and took us over to the picnic tables where the non-swimmers were making lanyards.  My Mom invented diffusing a situation.

The good news…I wasn’t a “minnow” anymore and I could get in line to swim from the shallow end to the deep end as long as the lane ropes were up and I stayed in a straightish line.

As a Pisces, it is only fitting that I live near a challenging waterway.  I want to say, for the record, that I totally respect the power of water.  Sadly, I have always had issues with authority.

Let me share with you a precautionary tale.

Shortly after we bought this farm, we decided to fly down from New York to check on the progress of the road we were having put in.  We rented a car at the airport and drove out to the Ponderosa.  It was raining and when we drove up to the creek, it looked a little deeper than we last remembered it.

My ex-husband shrugged.  “Roll down the windows.”  Then he uttered the three little words that have since become my theme song…”just in case“.

“Roll down the windows just in case”?!?

We drove the rental car into the creek.  It died in the middle of it.  The water was up to the windows.

He was already cursing as he climbed out of the window, which luckily, was open.  He headed up the hill to the barn to get the old tractor that we had bought the summer before, so he could pull the car out of the creek.  I sat there thinking it was a good thing we took out that extra insurance at the rental counter…the one everyone says is a rip-off.

Let me interject here that at the time of this incident my ex was doing a t.v. show called “Rescue 911”.  The show hired stunt people like us to coordinate and re-enact mishaps and bizarre accidents, usually involving people in situations that they never should have been in.  In the words of the fabulous Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

In this case, “stupid” was still sitting in the car…hello…

So…I’m sitting there when suddenly a log came barreling down the creek right toward the car.  Oh no…

The log hit the side of the car, turned it backwards and I started moving downstream on our raging white-water creek headed toward the Cumberland River.  I remember thinking if I survived I could play myself in the re-enactment…always working the angle…gotta love that about me.

Miraculously the car got stuck on a downed tree and I was able to climb out of my window…which was also open…I listen when it counts.

When I stood up in the creek it was waist deep and really moving fast.   I trudged up the hill where I caught up with my ex.  He was putt-putting down the hill on LuLu (yes…I named the tractor).  She had two flat tires.

I told him the car got washed down the creek.

“Don’t @#$!ing exaggerate.”  As he said this the car swept by.  It got stuck again and we managed to pull it out with the tractor…onto the wrong side.

We were pretty much stuck there because the entire farm is surrounded by creeks, so it is sort of like living on an island.

While he was pulling the car up away from the water with the tractor with two flat tires, I volunteered to wade back out and call a tow truck.  This was a foolish thing to do, as moving water is extremely dangerous, and I know better…but it’s me…so there you go.

The water was up to my armpits.  Stupid thing to do, but I made it out.  The tow truck came after a while…I don’t have to tell you how pleasant that wait wasn’t…and they pulled the car to the street side of the creek.

Miraculously, the car started, but we weren’t taking any more chances.  With our extra rental car insurance in hand, I called the airport and they sent out another car on a flatbed to replace this one.  They said that if it didn’t look damaged we would not have to go back to the airport to fill out an accident report.  We bailed out all the water and crossed our fingers.

As the tow truck driver raised the car up onto the flatbed, water poured from everywhere.  We followed him back to the airport to fill out an accident report.  The sun came out…mocking us.

What they say about the weather in Tennessee is true…wait ten minutes and it will change.  It’s true about the creeks here too.

Life’s lessons continue to be remedial for me.  Right after my son got his driver’s license we bought him an older car.  “You can’t have a new car because you’re a new driver and there is a learning curve.”

One rainy morning I drove his car into the same creek EVEN THOUGH I KNEW BETTER.  It didn’t make it.  Enough said.

This morning I drove down to the creek.  The water was rushing merrily along.  There were whitecaps on it.  I backed up the road and came home.

There won’t be a third drive into the drink…not today anyway.

The moral of this story…if you ever ask me for advice don’t start with “What would you do in this situation?”  I’m just saying….

Day Three Hundred and Forty Six…take chances…just not stupid ones. ; )

Cynthia Neilson