An End And A Standing Invite

This is my last post here at The Take Home Blog.

Thanks for stopping by this blog, which was a part of my graduate journalism class in blogging, taught at the Harvard University Extension School, instructed by Elizabeth Soutter.  It has been a great semester.  I loved this class, I learned so much. Too, I loved my professor, she is top quality.

If you like this blog, come over to I've Got My Best Shoes On, its where you usually can find me.
If you don't like this blog, come over to I've Got My Best Shoes On.  I'll try to improve.

Hope to see you over there.

Love The One You're With

Hubby devolved into an obsessive IKEA website devotee, rearranging and designing virtual kitchens well into the wee hours of the night.  I did not pick up on this warning sign, naively going about my day, using my kitchen sink with abandon, washing pots and produce willy-nilly without a care in the world.

A few weeks later, watching as brown cardboard box after brown cardboard box was carted into my basement by two wiry men in identical dark blue clothing like Thing 1 and Thing 2, I broke out in a cold sweat.  Hubby’s hobby was becoming my reality and I wasn't fully prepared. 

We are now 4 weeks into the kitchen rehabilitation and we have had a few adventures, like when an unsupported, seven-foot tall cabinet went into severe tilt while Hubby was trying to load it with groceries.

As I looked over the remnants of my former kitchen, the circa 1990's slate grey countertops sawed in pieces, the carcasses of mangled cabinets ripped from their berths, I said, “We are really in this now.”

"No turning back," he confirms.

I realize that we are deep - really, irrevocably deep - in the club of IKEA.

I am reminded of that song that goes, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you are with."

I remember that in times of stress, a good strategy is to Find Your People.

I took a trip to ikeafans.com and it did not disappoint.

If you are chin high in furniture and furnishings with funky spelling and questionable pronunciation, this is the site for you.  This site contains forums that explicitly explain what Swedish-tinged, vague illustrations do not.  There are blogs detailing kitchen renovations day by day, making my current situation feel so much less catastrophic. Here you can find those long lost instructions on how to install shelves and posts like "Top Five Things To Do With Flat Pack Boxes."

As any IKEA customer knows, flat pack cardboard boxes are part of the IKEA lifestyle.  Not to brag, but bullet #3, Make Cardboard Castles, has been thoroughly mastered by the two princesses-in-waiting in our house. We now make giant treasure maps and dance floors.

I then took a trip over to positivefanatics.com, also for IKEA clients.  Here you can commiserate with somebody who has tried to retrofit the very same VARDE cabinet that is making your knuckles and brain bleed.  You can find the exact location of those missing 1'4" wooden dowels that are packed in a different box, taped, inside an unmarked flap.  You can even get a jumpstart on your next IKEA project courtesy of this scoop, "IKEA Fans Score Coveted 2011 IKEA Catalogs Two Weeks In Advance."

It is nice to know that when you are in the trenches, you are not alone.  Those days when you think you might lose your mind from the hammering and your back is stiff  from washing dishes and strawberries in the bathtub because the kitchen sink is not hooked up, you can always Tweet to Your People, those @IKEAfans who have gone before you on this adventure of 50 boxes of kitchen.

How To Get Back In The Saddle

Photo by D Medeiros

I injured my back almost two years ago, effectively putting my running shoes on ice. I have since healed and my running has resumed. But two years after my initial injury, I still hadn't run a race. Why the avoidance? In my mind, a less-than-stellar official performance would confirm my fear: I am not be the runner I used to be.

But really, who is the runner any of us used to be?

We had a tête-à-tête and my internal naysayer quieted. I laced up my big girl shoes, determined to get a race under my newly rehabilitated belt and reclaim the tag, "runner."

If you are also looking to get back in competitive mode after a hiatus, and you are not Lance Armstrong or Michael Phelps, please learn from me, a runner who runs like the rest of us.

1. Find a race and course within your comfort zone.

There is no need to go for a marathon your first time back out in the field. Like Bob says in the movie, What About Bob?, “Baby steps, baby steps.” For most of us, a 5 kilometer race should suffice. I found such a race, held on a Sunday, that went right through my neighborhood, which means I train that particular course frequently. Any more in my comfort zone and I’d be running in my pajamas in my living room.

To find local races in your area, try coolrunning.com or active.com.

2. Do not look up your previous splits and race times.

Times are not that important. The goal here is to get your running legs back and remind those muscles fibers, including those in your brain, what running a race feels like. The twitching nerves at the start, the jostling for position, the calm when you settle in your rhythm, the self talk, these are the components of racing with which you should get reacquainted.

3. Look the part.

Update your gear. Shoes, helmets, tires, they all lose their essential properties and break down over time.  Same as your knees and hips if you use old, worn gear.

You are a clean slate. Running on sneakers from 2002 in your favorite Frankie Goes To Hollywood t-shirt does not say "clean slate." Temper current fashion with comfort. However, you don’t necessarily need to buy Vibram Five Fingers or whatever shiny new toy has hit the market, which leads my to the next point:

4. Now is not the time to experiment.

No new training regimens or diets. Go with what has worked in the past.

Trying new foods and new nutritional supplements risks stomach and intestinal upset. A port-a-potty crawl is not the way to enjoy your first race back. I eat easily digested carbohydrates and proteins, i.e., scrambled eggs, yogurt and a banana. It’s what I know works for me.

5. Stop about the splits already!

My first race back, I ran the first mile in 7:50. I was pumped. Then, during the second mile, a fellow runner collapsed, about 5 people ahead of me. Several runners stopped to help him. I heard somebody shout, “Call 911!” Since I run with my phone I call "iphriend" and follow orders well, I leaped into action and called for medical assistance. Once proper medical attention was secured, most of continued on to finish the race, though our times for the race were now shot. Why? Because times and splits are not that important.

I run because I can.

Maybe because I am female and have battled numbers my whole life - weight, height, GPA, BMI, bra size, all of it limiting and depersonalizing, I feel strongly that numbers are not that important in the grand scheme of things. Get over it and move forward.

6. Commit

If you sign up and pay for a bib number, you are more likely to follow through to your goal. If you tell your neighbor or friend to meet you on the corner so you can walk to the race start together, you are more compelled to do it . If you tell you family and friends about the race and they make a little cheering section for you and you alone, you are going to want to show them how strong and fast you look, even running up that hellacious hill on Hunting Ave., the Heartbreak Hill of my race. This is about pride and whatever it takes to get thee to the finish line.

I didn’t win this race, but I didn’t come in last either. It’s good to be back. Like I suspected, I am not the runner I was before.

I am happy to report, I am not that runner at all anymore.

Sweet Sweet Jane

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I think my hairdresser is in the wrong business.

I think she should do my taxes.

We hardly speak, which is why I keep going back. Because what I really, really love about my hairdresser is that she doesn’t talk to me.

My last hairdresser was a peach of a guy, very friendly and chatty. But early on in our relationship I made the mistake of admitting I keep current on politics and news. So every time I was in his chair he would pepper me with questions and then describe – verbosely – his opinions. What do I think of Biden's latest gaffe? Is Palin a wingnut or what? What about that guy, what's his name, who wrote that book, what's it called? I had to get myself psyched up, anticipate what he would want to talk about and read the latest Time magazine just to get a haircut.

The haircut was fine but the chatter almost did me in.

But then I found Jane, sweet, sweet Jane. She is great with hair. And as quiet as a church at midnight.

Early in the appointment, we exchange the niceties: How are the kids? Are your parents back in Europe? How was Halloween? Did you have a good conference day? I like your shoes. That sort of thing.

Then we are all done. I browse People and OK! magazines, I check my email and text on my iphriend. I daydream and overthink to my heart’s content, while Jane studies hairs numbers 6 and 334, matches them up and coordinates them like long-lost identical twins.

I hear the soft snips, like a distant halo around my head, old, dry ends falling away. Jane is a like a ballerina, her face intently serious, her slim limbs gracefully arching with gentle, soundless steps around my chair. Snip, snip, pirouette, snip.

Just like marriage, when you find your match, it’s best to settle in. In my current follicular situation, I settle in for 2 hours and fork over $135 dollars plus tip when we are done. This is a fair price for a good haircut and some silence, better than a therapist’s couch.

If you like quiet, too, know that you are not alone, although you might want to be. Here is a list of top ten careers for quiet people from careerbuilder.com. #10 is writers. Hairdressers do not even make the list. Nor do tax preparers.

The Crazy Lady Stays Alive

In the middle of the week, in the middle of the day, I was in such need of endorphins, I went out for a run.

And it was indeed beauteous.

Photo by L McWilliams

The crisp crunch of rice crispy treat-like leaves in day-glow colors, the bright sun, the invigorating air, it was all wonderful, just what I needed.

I forgot about the hunters.

About half-way through my run, mile 2.5, I came upon this sign:

Since it is now officially hunting season, a run through these woods is fraught. Fraught with freedom, fraught with natural beauty, true that. It's also fraught with hunting folk that may or may not notice I am a human and thus, non-huntable according to law.

This sign says people should wear hunter's orange as a precaution. 

I look down at myself.  I am wearing not one scintilla of orange. I am wearing grey, black and white.

Like a white-tailed deer.

www.how-to-draw-funny-cartoons.com

I decide:

1. I will run, wee, wee, wee, all the way back to my car.

2. I will sing while running because deer do not sing.

I take off, singing loudly enough, I reason, to alert people. Possibly I am alerting them to a crazy lady singing by herself in the woods, but no matter. The crazy lady stays alive.

I imagine hunters whispering in the woods:

Shhhh....Henry, I hear something.

Oscar, I hear it too.

Wait...it sounds familiar. I can't place it.

Me, too. I know this call. Is it a yellow-bellied warbler?

I don't know. Does a yellow-bellied warbler sound like ABBA?

Hmmmmmm....you are right, that's no warbler. That's "Dancing Queen."

Here is the new hunter's orange shirt I will now wear when I feel the need to take a gamble and run in the woods, which is never:

That was my fastest 2.5 mile run ever, a personal best of sorts.

UPDATE:
Just a few weeks later I found this article from the dailyGrafton how a recent jogger on the same trail was not so lucky and got injured from buckshot.

Hunter's orange is the new black, apparently.

Ketchup Is A Condiment, Not My Friend

Photo by L McWilliams

That I can "friend" my ketchup is confusing and even jarring. Ketchup is a condiment, not a friend. I consume ketchup in a way that is neither reciprocal nor friendly. Nonetheless, I see from the label that I can follow my ketchup brand on Facebook.

Facebook has been called many things, like a huge waste of time (said Betty White hilariously on "Saturday Night Live"), a piece of marketing genius, this generation's pet rock. After a bit of experimentation, I declared Facebook not for me. I'll take my email, my iphriend and my blog. I am too old for the web 2.0 wizardry.

Then I went on Twitter.

I thought Twitter users simply answered the question of What Are You Doing Now?

My life is not interesting enough to tweet that kind of information. I cut grapes for the kids at breakfast. I get dressed, cut some grapes for snack. Throw in a load of laundry, contemplate existential questions like "Is ketchup my friend?" and cut some grapes for lunch.

I certainly don't want to read anybody's grape-cutting Tweets. I don't necessarily care to get up-to-the-minute updates on some starlet's latest failed drug test or Mel Gibson's most recent rant.

My hand was forced. As per class instructions, I opened up a Twitter account. I browsed through feeds. Whatever.

But oh, there is McSweeney's. I love that online magazine. That's pretty cool. Oh wait, National Public Radio has an account? Awesome, I'll follow that one, too.

Then I found a running list of the Best Tweets of the Day and included was the Dalai Lama's tweet, "An authentic attitude of compassion doesn't change, even faced with another person's negative behavior."

The Dalai Lama tweets.

It was just what I needed. Because the Queen Bee of the neighborhood let her dog poop on the sidewalk and she talks around me, still, after 5 years of living in the same neighborhood. I needed a refresher on why compassionate thinking is worthwhile. If Twitter is good enough for the Dalai Lama then surely it is good enough for me.

Now, instead of existential questions around ketchup, I have Twitter on the brain: If I tweet on Twitter, does that make me a twat? Or just a twit? If I can't understand Twitterspeak, am I a twidiot? Am I twilliterate?

Questions to be answered on another day, I suppose.

You Tell Me

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They might have told us that timing and delivery are key.

When my husband and I were first engaged, close friends revealed a tactic that helped diffuse their squabbles. When presented with an annoyance of the marital variety, one would say to the other, “Who cares?” Seemingly, the tension then dissolved, highlighting how trivial some issues can be.

We were relative newbies to coupledom and vulnerable to well-meaning advice-givers. We wanted that elixir, the mysterious superglue that keeps partners together no matter what.

One early morning, getting out of bed and blindly treading to the bathroom in the darkness, I tripped on a large speed bump in the bedroom. I stumbled, stubbed my toe, my ankle turned in at an angle it shouldn’t. Cursing and then opening my eyes fully now rudely ripped from the twilight of just waking up, I saw the speed bump was discarded shoes, dirty clothes and socks from the day before, a common occurrence we had discussed previously. I oh so delicately crafted my request with a loud, “Could you pick up your shi** please!?”

From underneath the safety of warm blankets and a bed a few steps away, a muffled voice said, “Who cares?”

There was a pause. I blinked and then gathered a large breath, like that behemoth monster face in "The Mummy" who blew up that tremendous windstorm…

This incident taught us some things. For one, it affirmed that I am humorless in the morning. I might have been more receptive after a few cups of coffee. Also, we learned that this little catchall phrase didn’t work for us. Because obviously I CARE THAT’S WHY I AM SAYING SOMETHING. SHITHEAD.

I think of this incident now when I browse the parenting magazines that stand at attention at the gym and when I hear couples “experts” on He Said/She Said segments on the “Today Show.” “A woman really wants…,” says one. “What men hear is…,” counters the other. Who are these people anyway?

Ten years into our marriage, Hubby or I will now sometimes say, “Who cares?” but only in jest. “Who cares?” is our nuptial hot sauce, to be used sparingly, with forethought. I’d like to report that Hubby now puts his clothes in the hamper but alas, that would be an untruth. I’d like to say that I can let little things slide in the wee hours before my coffee, but nay.

I’d like to say that I can let things slide period. I’m a work in progress, too.

That friendly couple with the marital advice? They got divorced a few years ago.

"The Mummy" trailer, circa 1999:

Acting On Impulse

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I have an impulse on the deserted playground. A lunge, left hand, right hand, foot, foot, stick the landing, finish. A cartwheel.

Tulip bulbs and crocuses stay buried in their muddy holds, they know better than to rise above just because the sun is shining. The bright sunlight fooled me into thinking we could spend time outside, though the wind and temperature reminiscent of March now convince me of otherwise.

We have come to this playground for a little uninterrupted family time, hiding out from phone calls, email and folding laundry. Dates, medicines, factoids and prognosis statistics pop to the forefront of my attention, almost to say, “Don’t forget about me! Wait, and me! Don’t forget about me!”

The day before, Hubby and I scheduled his thyroid removal operation, after weeks of inconclusive tests and biopsies, consultations with doctors and late night Google searches.

Back at the playground, Hubby is now pushing Youngest Daughter, the four year-old Princess Golden Curls, on the swings. Her calls of, “Higher! Higher, Daddy!” sound across the playground while Eldest Daughter climbs up and slides down the winding, yellow plastic slide. 

I have an impulse though I haven’t done a cartwheel in years. But the muscle trace is practically hard-wired. In the days when I was a cartwheeling girl in love with Wonder Woman and Judy Blume books, I was also an avid gymnast and on my hands as much as I was on my feet.

A lunge, left hand, right hand, foot, foot, stick the landing, finish.

“Wow!”

The kids are impressed. This is a rarity.

“Do it again!”

I am cool, another rarity.

I pop out another cartwheel, this one better than the last.

Before I know it, we three are doing cartwheels and handstands, shirts untucked and slipping towards our chins with each tip. We are laughing, our hands and fingers cold from the barely thawed ground. Some landings are harder than others; Eldest Daughter favors the flat back landing with a chin-banging thud. Youngest Daughter’s feet flit off the ground, little donkey kicks and lands on her knees.

I want to be this mother, somebody fun and present, not preoccupied with worry, stern with obligation. If this is how my children remember me on this day on this barren playground then I have succeeded.

When The Mundane Becomes Something Else Altogether

“Mom? Does this place have a bathroom? I’m just asking.”

Because it can never be a quick run to Target.

My personal Greek chorus I call daughters follow behind me pawing, commenting, and as per usual, requesting water or a bathroom break. Today, it is the bathroom detour that derails our "quick trip".

After a few minutes of standing outside of the bathroom, I set down my red basket of goods and go in to investigate or accelerate the situation.

“How are you doing?” I call.

“Fine!” calls one from her stall.

“Fine! repeats the other, their voices echoing and loud, bouncing off the red and white tiled bathroom.

The stink, soap and artificial vanilla, sprayed at frequent intervals, wafts. Voices bounce and overlap, careen into each other and amplify. I hear a mother behind a closed stall door, talking to her charge. I know all too well how cramped and small these stalls are with another little person and feel sympathy for this nameless, faceless stranger.

I call to the daughters, ” How are we doing? Need help?”

Two teenagers similar in denim and slouch, exit. The bathroom is slightly quieter now, less crowded.  I hear that audible mother still talking, her stream of chatter an octave below my calls into the stalls.

I exchange a smile and nod with another woman as she heads for the door, a blue overall-wearing boy resting on her hip, his fat fist holding tight in her hair.

Mothers in bathrooms, we have camaraderie. We spend a lot of time in these trenches.

“How we doing now?” I call. “Youngest Daughter, almost done?”

There is fluttering and thumping behind the door, a flush, and Eldest Daughter emerges.

“Done!” she announces.

We commence our dance of hand washing in a public bathroom. Finally, a paper towel levered, a flourish of ripping the towel off the roll and drying, then Youngest Daughter joins the dance, which involves a lift because of her short stature.

The door behind me swings open and the woman who has been presumably talking to her child non-stop stands behind me.

There is no child.

There is a black shoulder bag, a neat and current haircut shaped to her jawline and a cell phone held to her ear.

A cell phone.

This woman I had assumed was my comrade, for whom I felt sympathy and sisterhood, is not who I thought she was. Instead of being someone trapped in a tiny bathroom stall with a little, dependent person, she is someone who has been talking her way through a most intimate act, in the most intimate of spaces.

Without a pause or eye contact, she continues talking ( Who is she talking to?). Her long strides on fashionable shoes clickity-clack her swiftly out of the bathroom. She does not stop to wash her hands.

Eldest Daughter starts to comment, “Mom, why did that lady…”

I give my daughter the small but firm head shake. She receives the message and stops. I know we will probably rehash this scene later, in the car or at dinner, somewhere else but not in this red and white tiled, echoing bathroom. I don’t want to do it here. I don’t want the woman or anybody else to hear us talk about her.

Because that would be rude.

For a different take on bathroom interruptus and cell phone usage, read

this piece by Bruce Feiler in The New York Times. I don't know where I will have to move to if talking on the cell phone while in the loo becomes an acceptable form of multi-tasking.

Adventures in Hyperlocal News

In my quiet little hamlet in Central Massachusetts, a battle is brewing.

This battle is not about property lines,  It’s not about the Thanksgiving Day football game rivalry.

This battle is about local news.

It’s called hyperlocal news, and it’s happening on a computer near you.

While the big newspaper conglomerates are drying up and laying off reporters, local newspapers are thriving. In particular, online hyperlocal news sources are multiplying and taking root where the larger newspapers have pulled up their stakes.

Residents in my Central Massachusetts town of 33,000 used to get the news from three newspapers,  The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, and the smaller Worcester Telegram and Gazette. As blogging and online news feeds bloomed, traditional newspaper revenue shriveled. So too did news personnel head counts and the ability to go out and gather local news.

Currently, The Boston Globe has a WestWeekly section that comes out once a week, lumping my town in with about ten other local communities.  We're hardly ever mentioned by name, save for a notice of the next Selectmens' Hearing or an upcoming bake sale. There might be a blurb about a local collegiate athlete who made honor roll as a sophomore at Oberlin College. This kind of coverage is not very encompassing or interesting, unless you know a particular someone paying tuition at Oberlin.

The Worcester Telegram and Gazette has more local coverage, but again, my town is one of more than a dozen communities served by this newspaper. We get scant attention and we have to pay for it thanks to a newly implemented online subscription fee. This ship is sinking all the faster I fear.

The vacancy left by the Big Guns abandonment has resulted in multiple online, hyperlocal outfits clamoring for attention and local advertisements (and revenue! Actual revenue!). In my town we now have a wickedlocal site, an online newspaper run entirely by the local real estate agent extraordinaire, a topix site, (a clearinghouse for articles pulled from the web), a weekly Community Advocate online paper and an online daily, a subsidiary of the CentralMassNews.com.

Now Patch.com is coming for a slice of the Central Massachusetts pie.

Patch.com, which is owned by America On Line, is infiltrating Massachusetts, looking to start hyperlocal, online newspapers in multiple communities, including mine and several surrounding towns. Patch just announced it has over 100 sites nationwide and hopes to have 200 within the next year.

Robert Niles, contributing writer to the blog Online Journalism Review, is skeptical about Patch.com and whether a large, national outfit can be profitable in the small, hyperlocal arena. “Beat The Press," moderated by Emily Rooney, recently had a segment about hyperlocal coverage and the implications for journalists, including questionable reporting quality, low wages for the workers and the impossibly high demand for practically instantaneous output. Take a look:

It remains to be seen whether one town can support this many online news outlets. As a resident, I'd rather have more coverage than no coverage. As a writer, I'll hop along for the ride.

But is it quality coverage?

A popular local blog, run by a politically active resident, abruptly shuttered recently, for vague reasons. News can be hyperlocal, and so too can be neighborly grievances and gossip, apparently. The word around town is that an incident occurred at an area coffee shop. The said incident reportedly involved the blog writer, the real estate agent extraordinaire and an anonymous comment posted somewhere in the blogosphere.

I’ll have more information about this incident as soon as I check in with my hyperlocal news sources.

The Take Home:

Hyperlocal is here! Hyperlocal is here! Extra! Extra! Read all about it here! And here! And here!

For those who want a little more hyperlocal discussion, check out this blog that is devoted entirely to online journalism, The Online Journalism Review:

http://www.ojr.org/

Disclosure: This author is currently employed by Patch.com. Nothing was exchanged, no money, gifts or warm fuzzies, with regard to this post.

Weighted

On the way to the hospital, after dropping the kids off at their respective schools, I call my mother. Our conversation is short.

I am going over to the hospital.

OK.

I’ll call you when he is out.

OK.

The hands on the clock above the doorway move slowly, like those melting clocks in Salvador Dali's paintings.

It is unnaturally quiet, almost like church before Mass starts. Feet shuffle, papers crinkle, eye contact is fleeting. We are all waiting for our personal conferences with the doctors immediately following a surgery. We are the worriers who wait for word of how our loved one fared. 

The room is light and airy, but the mood is unmistakeably weighted. Is this a waiting room or a weighted room?

Nobody says, “So what brings you here?”

Nobody wears high heels.

Nobody guffaws, or tries to be a comedian to the captive audience.

After a while, a man wearing blue hospital scrubs comes in and calls out, “Mr. Samuels?” He has been working on Suduko puzzles with a blue ballpoint pen. He looks up, stands and wordlessly follows the scrub-wearing man out the door.

Although Mr. Samuels is the first to leave, it’s tough to know if he is lucky of not. At this minute, he knows more about his loved one than anybody else waiting in the weighted room. It is safe to assume that most are here for less than fortunate reasons.

It is the luck of the draw, when your number comes up.

I have now finished today’s edition of The Boston Globe and The Telegram and Gazette. I unzip my backpack and take out the People magazine, a toothy Kate Gosselin on the cover. I save the teenage vampire book for later, a special purchase for today. It is thick and fat, far more than I can read in a single day. I need to read, to keep occupied; I am easily distracted. I must keep my mind and spirits on light material. I sense my emotions - all of them, however inappropriate - are just below the surface, like bubbles, and can pop at the slightest provocation. People magazine and sparkling vampires seem like wise choices.

I need a clear head for when I get to conference with the doctor.

I try to not notice that it is now 10:30, past the time I had estimated needed for this “simple” procedure. When scrub clad people stand at the door and announce the next family that gets to leave, I try to be nonchalant.

Today, there is a lot I don't know. I don't know that cancer will be excised from my husband.  I don't know about the treatments, the follow-up appointments, the strained voice that escapes my lips when trying to discuss this situation.  I’ll never know what news these fellow waiters will receive today. I don't know the story as to how they find themselves here at the weighted room of waiting. I don't know because I can’t bring myself to ask, not today.

They don't ask me either.

Today, we are all just waiting.

It is 11:15 when I hear, “Mrs. Medeiros?” This is not my name, but I answer to it. I quickly gather my things and follow the surgeon out to the hallway.

Assignment #1

The blinking “1” means an unheard message waits.

I press the play button.

“Hi Lorette, this is Mum.”

Oh.

This is going to take awhile.

“It’s Saturday, um, around, I don’t know, 11:00 or so. Dad and I are up in Maine, we just had lunch, Dad just got back from golf…"

In person, my Mother is quiet and polite. She knows and follows the give and take of social conversation, pausing, nodding, asking questions, limiting responses to three or so sentences. On the end of an unmanned telephone, however, she loses her way. The answering machine doesn’t interrupt or interject, so she just keep talking.

Her messages can be epic.

“…and Kathie told me how her grandson, Davie, well his full name is John David but he goes by Davie, but he’s still little so that’s ok, he started soccer too…” That’s her, still talking.

I press the fast forward button one last time, hopeful there is a particular question or bit of information that will be revealed, something - anything - that is for me.

“…and that’s how that goes. Long story, right honey? How are my girls doing? It’s been so long since we’ve seen them, and Dad, well Dad thinks it’s been…”

Then I find it, the bit that is for me.

I realize that this lengthy voicemail of unrelenting chatter is like a bad blog.

This message is just like the blogs that I briefly alight upon, never to return. The ones who talk at me, not with me. As a reader, I need something, anything that makes me personally hitch myself to the post or writer.

In my previous life as a School Psychologist, a wise mentor once told me to always give parents a "take home" after a meeting. By this she meant a pamphlet, a phone number, a website or some other tangible for consideration after the meeting.

According to my blogging course instructor, blogs are similar. People need to come away with something after reading a post, like a laugh, advice or a link.

This blog, The Take Home Blog, will highlight a "take home" lesson for you, something I have learned. It is your doggy bag after my lunch. You can choose to take it or leave it.

The Take Home this week:

I love my Mom. She is the best.

Brevity can be a successful blogger's best friend.