Diane Mierzwik

October 25, 2009

This week while sewing a button on my favorite sweater, I stuck myself at exactly the same time some mayor from Oregon on NPR was touting catch and release. Synchronicity, you ask. More like an attack of empathy, I answer.

As I sucked on my bleeding thumb, I listened to how catch and release is a way of not over fishing our streams and lakes. Too bad that as high as 35% of those fish who are caught and released die from the stress.

When I was a kid, my dad took me fishing. We fished at Perris Lake and Silverwood Lake, usually catching blue gill. Blue gill was easy to catch from shore with worms we had dug up from our own yard. As I got older, I had my own tackle box, fishing pole and my dad even spent the money for fish eggs and stinky cheese you wrapped hard around the hook. With the newfangled gear I had earned as a veteran fisherman, I had also the the responsibility of cleaning anything I caught. Now, this is a good argument for catch and release.

 As if the fish isn’t stinky enough, you get to also pullout of all its entrails, taking a knife and gutting it. Oh, what fun. But then the dirty, sticky job of rubbing the outside of the fish to get as many of the scales off as possible is next. Of course, this is the exact moment your nose itches, a bug decides to crawl on your cheek, and that one stray hair falls into your eyes.

But we were not allowed to catch and release. We catch, we eat. Well, the rest of the family ate; I avoided the fish at dinner, preferring the OreIda french fries baked in our oven. I came from a family of waste not. Fishing was a not a sport, but a means of providing for a few meals.

Can you imagine catch and release hunting? Just shoot that deer in the leg, maim it a little so you can stand next to it and take a picture to show your friends, then let it go. Sure, it might die from the stress, not to mention that bullet wound in its hind quarters, but at least you didn’t kill it and eat it. No, you just wounded the poor thing, perhaps provided a slow death to it and then didn’t have the respect to eat it.

So, I cleaned my catch once then surprisingly found better things to do when my dad went fishing, my nails for example.

To this day, my dad does not catch and release. If he is going fishing it’s because he’s hoping for a fish dinner. And I should be more careful while sewing. Nothing stings like being stuck by a needle, having the needle pulled out and then bleeding for awhile.

This week I will catch and keep or not catch at all.

October 18, 2009

Suddenly I heard loud glomping behind me,  so I moved to the side of the trail and wondered what idiot would be riding his horse at such a pace on a public trail.

But, I get ahead of myself, as usual.

Bill, my husband of 24 plus years, and I decided to go for our Saturday run through the park below our house. The trail begins in a State park, moves to Federal Forest then lets out on a road above our house. We got the dog leashed up to go (the older dogs were taken on a walk previously, don’t worry!), put on our head phones and headed out.

Bill, as usual, was ahead of me and I wanted to enter the trail from one place and he was heading for another. I yelled out to him, but he just went on his merry way because his headphones were so loud he couldn’t hear a thing. Yes, we both wear headphones when we run together. There are many reasons for this: he talks non-stop without the headphones and though this should make him tired, not me since I don’t have to answer, it exhausts me and wearing headphones keeps him quiet; we’ve been married for 24 years, really, how much is there to say to each other after that many years, no, really!

So I stopped in the middle of the road and waited for him to notice I wasn’t behind him and come back, which he did eventually. I needed the break anyway so I didn’t care, but I did mention to him that wearing his headphones at such a loud setting was dangerous. He, of course, took heed and turned down … no, wait, we’ve been married for 24 years so he ignored me and told me to keep up.

About two miles into the run, suddenly I heard loud glomping behind me,  so I moved to the side of the trail and wondered what idiot would be riding his horse at such a pace on a public trail. Once I was safely out of harm’s way, I turned just in time to watch a beautiful horse race past me, without a rider. The horse was headed for Bill, who was quite a bit ahead of me because I did not “keep up” as instructed despite my best intentions.

I yelled out to Bill to warn him but my headphones-turned-up -too-loud-deaf husband had no clue. The horse was headed right for him and the pooch. I sent him a message telepahtically and he turned just in time to let go of the dog’s leash and jump out of the way. Telepathic, you inquire, well, it was that or he felt the heavy glomping behind him – one of those.

The horse sideswiped him, leaving an abrasion on his wrist and arm and the back of his shirt brown and dirty with horse sweat.

Wow, what a close one. You might be thinking I took this opportunity to run ahead so he would have to worry about keeping up with me, but instead, I took the opportunity to remind him how I had warned him about his headphones. Repeatedly, until he did catch his breath and we began running again. As soon as he began to pull aways again I asked, “Bill, can you hear me?”

He continued to run, increasing his lead with every foot step while I wondered what I was doing married to a man who almost gets run over by a horse because his headphones are too loud, then refuses to turn them down.

Bill waited for me at the creek crossing (dry this time of year, come on, El Nino!). I asked him without the slightest hint of exasperation and only concern in my voice if he thought he might want to turn down his headphones.

“It’s not like I’m going to be hit by a car,” he replied. I know, women readers, I am a lucky lady!

A bit up the trail we found the horse stuck in a raven surrounded by bushes. Bill took off his headphones, traversed the steep hillside, grabbed the horse’s reins, and got her out of the mess she had gotten herself into and returned to her frantic owners. He was the hero!

He was also a bit hurt so I was able to keep up with him for the rest of the run, though he may have let me. Which makes him my hero too.

And with his bragging about how he was the horse’s hero and my bragging about how I was actually able to keep up with him during the run, we had quite a bit to talk about the rest of the day.

This week I will see the heroic in even the most basic gestures.

October 11, 2009

This morning I made a list of food items to purchase at the grocery store, you know that piece of paper you leave in your car with your canvas bags but you are too lazy to walk back out to your car to retrieve – okay, I’m too lazy to retrieve.  Still, each week, I make a list and hope that by the act of writing down these items, even if I don’t have the list I will remember what I need (Chinese proverb – if I think about it, I forget it; if I hear it, I ignore it; if I write it down, I might remember it – I paraphrased a bit).

So after throwing away the science experiments in mold, I spied my virgin six pack of jello, as they have yet to be removed from their cardboard packaging though they are about four weeks old. Are they old maids by this time, I wonder.

I also wonder how I talked myself into purchasing jello. It’s not like I’m usually a sucker for slippery things. I don’t own a snake as a pet though the salesman at PetCo spent twenty minutes trying to convince me that given my lifestyle, a snake is a good pet.

What lifestyle is that, you ask. The middle-aged-too-busy-to-take-care-of-myself-let-alone-someone-or-something-else lifestyle. He kept telling me all I had to do was feed the snake a mouse once a month.

Which bring us back to that jello in my fridge. I was a sucker for that durned advertising – “Only 10 Calories” and the sense of relative ease a package of jello would bring to my life. I created this scene in my head how when I got home from work, I would be hungry and eating 10 calories of jello would do the trick. Because I barely have time to take care of myself, jello would make a great snack and I would be skinny eating it.

Which brings us back to that snake. Another selling point was how many calories I would burn handling the snake.

“When your body is on high alert, you burn more calories,” PetCo saleman responded when I mused that perhaps a dog would better suit me, since I could take it for walks and burn calories at the same time.

Which brings us back to my lifestyle … I left off part of it. Here it is again – the middle-aged-too-busy-to-take-care-of-myself-let-alone-someone-or-something-else-so-I’m-pudgy lifestyle. I thought, hey if I get a dog, I might force myself to take care of it, and also take care of myself while I was at it.

Which bring us back to that jello. Did you know that in that 10 calories is fruit? Okay, fruit juice. Okay, fruit coloring. That has to be good for me – right?

Still the jello sits in my fridge. When I get home from work and search through my kitchen for a snack, I mostly just wish I had stopped at the vending machines at work before leaving and drink a glass of water. Even water is better than jello to me.

Despite the “Only 10 Calories” I can’t bring myself to eat something that slips and slides in my mouth, that I can’t bite into and – if I’m not careful – will slip from my spoon onto who knows what. Too stressful for not enough reward.

Though I wonder, do snakes eat jello? I know dogs will. They’ll eat anything. They’ll love anything, even a middle-aged-too-busy-to-take-care-of-myself-let-alone-someone-or-something-else-so-I’m-pudgy woman.

So I added chocolate pudding to my grocery list. It has only 60 calories. I might actually eat it, enjoy it and my pudginess.

October 4, 2009

I am the first to admit that I am emotionally stunted - as in laughing at poop jokes, feeling hurt over someone’s not gushing when she sees me, and wallowing in self-reflection emotional maturity. But, you have to admit, admitting it is rather mature of me.

Anyway, lately I’ve been really working on becoming a mature emotional person. At least that is what my sponsor keeps telling me I’m working on, and I guess if you’re told something enough times, you begin to believe it.

So, as these really wonderful challenges have come into my life, I have been putting them into wonderful perspective.

Isn’t it wonderful I left a job where I could shut my door and run my own ship and have two weeks off at Christmas and eight weeks off during the summer to work for a lunatic? It is so wonderful that I am learning to play with others and creating healthy boundaries and even talking to a workman comp lawyer because without this wonderful choice, I may not have met this slightly pudgy man who has my back, for a small fee.

And isn’t it wonderful that I decided to begin a business when I have no business sense at all. Actually I’m the type of person who would rather get an F on an assignment in speech class rather than pretend to ask how much a haircut is because if you have to ask, you shouldn’t be getting your haircut in the first place. That is my motto so having a business and collecting money from people who don’t want to give it to me out of the goodness of their hearts has presented a problem for me and my business. But it is wonderful that I have learned this about myself and will not venture into any more businesses until excitement amnesia sets in again and I decide that this time I will be able to charge people for my services.

And isn’t it wonderful that I have once again committed to a half-marathon because the last one was so wonderful getting up at 4 am to catch a bus to wait an hour and a half to dodge people for 13.2 miles, but I did get a gorgeous medal that I think I want buried with me. Actually, yes, I want all my Cross Country and track and 5K and 10K and my new collection of half-marathon (It’s not a collection yet but it is so wonderful that I believe it will be some day) medals buried with me when I die. The children can have the jewelry. It’s so wonderful that I have my medals to look forward to in the afterlife.

You see, I know I am learning a great deal about myself in all these wonderful events. So last night’s dream made perfect sense.

I was standing on a beach watching the waves. One wave crested and I saw a school of fish and thought, there is something to be learned in that. The next wave crested and I saw a big glob of seaweed and thought, there is something to be learned in that. The next wave crested and I saw a crusty piece of fried chicken floating in it and thought, there is something to be learned in that. I admit, I felt a bit perplexed by the mammoth wing of fried chicken floating in that wave, but my faith in the lessons of the waves held firm.

The next wave, though, didn’t so much crest as it loomed, being a tidal wave. I stood on the beach and peered up into it. I did not think there was something to be learned in that wave. Instead, I contemplated how long I was going to need to hold my breath to come out the other side of it.

So that is what I’m doing – holding my breath and waiting for blue skies and seagulls to greet me on the other side. Perhaps there, I will find emotional maturity.

How wonderful!

This week I will admit when I am overwhelmed, hold my breath and survive.