Flashback Friday: Hyphen? No thanks.

It has been nearly a year since my last "Flashback Friday."  It was the honeymoon episode in the romantic series which began with Gary proposing on a Las Vegas stage. So although it is belated, I'll continue this trajectory by telling of the derivation of our family surname.

As happy couples often do, Gary and I would occasionally muse about the possibility of marriage long before we were engaged. Even then, we discussed our mutual preference for choosing a new name for the newly-formed family of our future. Many people are surprised to learn that it was my future husband who originated the concept; I did not persuade him to stray from masculine tradition simply to suit my wishes.

Gary never felt a strong connection to his last name. He was not close to his father, who left when he was a child and is now presumed deceased (this is something I'll always wonder about).  Gary's mother remarried while we were dating and took a new last name herself.  The last name Gary grew up with is nearly meaningless to him, and the notion of carrying on that family "legacy" simply doesn't matter.

In addition, Gary opposed the accepted convention where the wife assumes her husband's name because the implication is that she becomes his property, or the way I viewed it: leaves her own personal identity to become part of his. Of course, we both understand that this is not the way marriage and the name change is generally viewed today, and we don't criticize anybody's choice to follow the established norm.

One common rebellion against taking the husband's name is to hyphenate with both names. Personally, I was adamantly against that option, and I don't think Gary liked it either. We both preferred the idea of creating a new name for our family. The early inspiration involved perusing foreign languages of influence in our lives to select a pleasant-sounding, easy-to-spell word with a meaningful translation. But as the far-off possibility of getting married transformed into a real plan with a date on the calendar, we began to consider the concept of combining our last names to create a new one.

WINkel + FosTER = WINTER

We are lucky that our two names happened to form a real English word, and even luckier that we like the word and it even held personal significance for us.  We embarked on our relationship in the winter.  I taught Gary how to snow ski, a hobby which we frequently enjoyed together. Both of us to an extent, but Gary especially, prefer the rainy, cold seasons to the sunny, hot ones. When we brought puppies home to join our family a few years prior, we chose Siberian Huskies--traditional sled dogs.  We chose to get married under the snow-capped peak of Mt. Hood. Our honeymoon cruise was booked--to Alaska. Once the official decision had been made, we had some fun with the concept and created a "Winter in July" wedding theme.

In addition to these kind of silly connotations, I do love the symbolism that the combination of names evokes. Neither of us rescinded our own identity in forming a marital union. We retained our own individuality, while also creating a new identity together.  The family created when we married was something entirely new, entirely our own. Yet instead of using a word picked out of a book, our new last name was formed using elements of our previous names, allowing the figurative histories within them to endure.

Gary signs his new last name for the first time 

(He had a much harder time with all of the name-change paperwork than I did--a lot more questions and requests for legal proof)

These days, the intrigue of our new name is old news to those who know about it, and no news to those who don't. The assumption is that I took my husband's last name, and the truth isn't unveiled unless there is a reason. Much like weddings themselves, and birth stories, every detail of which seem (and many are) of utmost importance at present, become relegated to the memories of the primary players and rarely discussed as time passes. Our adorable wedding theme plays no role in the day-to-day interactions of our marriage, and neither does the highly debated venue.  Few people know that I gave birth to my daughter at home, and she is certainly not noticeably different from other children because of that experience.

But on occasion, the intrigue of our family genealogy has proved to be a delightful dinner-table topic.  And if anybody hears my last name and begins to wonder aloud if I am related to So-and-so Winter, I can immediately interject my "no" without even listening to the name. Which is amusing.

The perfect diet

Recently I was forced to witness an exchange of emails between a couple of ladies sharing ideas about gluten intolerance in their children. I say forced because it was sent out as a Yahoo Group message, so reading their e-mails felt like unintended eavesdropping.  And this is where I restrain myself against launching a rant about the gluten-free fad.

I do have to mention, however, that several months ago a friend was confiding in me about her weight loss struggle, and said that she was going to try going gluten-free. Because this is not a very close friend, all I felt comfortable doing was nodding and smiling. What I wish I could have said is this: "Gluten is wheat protein. Protein is good for you. Unless you are have a diagnosable condition in which your body cannot tolerate the substance, then gluten is good for you." That is only part of what I wish I could have said, actually. But it's the most innocuous portion, safe for public consumption among friends.

Back to the email exchange mentioned previously. I didn't really want to read those messages, but it's hard for me to ignore words that are in front of my face. In the final response, the mother who asked for advice thanked the other woman for sharing her advice, and then wrote (read carefully):


I am going to start looking into a glutton free diet. 

I read that and immediately thought, "Now that's the diet for ME!"

Forgive me for being insensitive to her child's health challenges, but I found this typo to be laugh-out-loud funny. And seriously, purging my diet of gluttony would do just the trick for improved health and body composition. I have actually saved the conversation in my email box since it was received over 3 months ago, supposedly to remind myself to write a blog post about it, but perhaps also to serve as a frequent reminder of the perfect diet. 

Cause: unknown

The computer screen in front of me has finally stopped tilting slowly on its side.  I can now walk down the hall in nearly a straight line without bumping into any walls, which means that the floor also appears to have returned to a state of being level with the earth's surface. A slight pulsation in my frontal lobe remains, but the nausea has excused itself from all but the most extreme fringes of my consciousness.

At my first attempt to get out of bed this morning, I felt like I had been sleeping on a Merry-Go-Round in motion.  I made my way toward my daughter's voice by holding the edge of my bed and stumbling into walls--it reminded me of precisely the way my husband and I found our cruise ship cabin the night we traveled in open ocean. In addition to the dizzyness I felt generally ill, but thankfully was able to circumvent the wretched experience of vomiting.

After my brother-in-law picked up Madelyn for school, I promptly zig-zagged my way back down the hall and under my covers and slept almost the entire time she was gone. This is the kind of frivolous luxury I normally dream of indulging in--however under different circumstances. And even though it would not have been an option to forgo today's return to bed, I am still irritated at the loss of precious time to be productive.

I have never experienced malfunctioning equilibrium with a "sick" germ. It was not until I was swaying around the kitchen trying to throw together some leftovers for lunch that I made the eerie realization that I was suffering from a terrible hangover. The mystery emerges, then, in the fact that I didn't go near a drop of alcohol last night.

There is one possible culprit that I thought of almost immediately after my 6:45am forage into the dark, spinning carnival ride that is my house. I almost knocked the evidence off of my nightstand on my tipsy way out of the bedroom. An empty glass. It had been resting on that nightstand for several days. Many days. Perhaps even more than a week. Only it was not empty until last night, when I decided on a whim to gulp those two last swallows of water. The water that had been mocking me for days, having so long escaped my usual fixation with tidiness and order in my living quarters.

I drank it quickly, and regret filled my body before the glass parted with my lips. Such a vile, stale taste: pennies, cardboard, mushrooms, lysol. Yuck. And then, evidently, I didn't even give myself the satisfaction of putting the empty glass in the kitchen.

Do you think stagnant filtered water--or something flourishing inside it--could have made me sick?

Nablopomo 2010 is underway

Alright, alright. It's National Blog Posting Month. What better motivation to resurrect this decaying, lifeless pile of html that was once known as Beyond Mommy?

I don't know if I can do it this time. But I'll be damned if I'm not going to try. Amber likens part of the challenge for us inconsistent bloggers to the mixed emotions surrounding the desire to connect with an old friend. For me, there is also an oppressive weight of breathing life into something dead. The law of inertia requires that great force be applied to resume this blog's former momentum, and it feels overwhelming.  My confidence that I will be unable to maintain that momentum for long also undermines my motivation. It is simply a matter of logistics. Only so many hours in a day, priorities, yada yada.

But enough with the pity party over here. How about a little life update, since it's been about five months since we've talked.

• I am not pregnant.
• I don't work at Plato's Closet any more. 
• I am quite pleased with the state of affairs at Curves. 
• I have been reading quite a bit (instead of blogging--something has to give!) and hope you'll check out my goodreads shelf. 
• I celebrated my first of many 29th birthdays in August. 
• My family is healthy and happy.

Okay. Time to get back to work. I hope I can come up with something more delightfully interesting for tomorrow! 

They give Visas to 3-year-olds now?

Lately my 3.5-year old daughter asks many, many questions during bedtime stories. She wants to know all the why's and how's surrounding the illustrations and between the lines of the narrative. Sometimes the odd nature of her questions leaves me simultaneously baffled and impressed. 

Tonight we read "More Bugs in Boxes." It is a pop-up book, and admittedly not one of my personal favorites. On page 3: 

What kind of bug is in the shiny BLACK bandbox?

A SCARLET strawberry bug with a bunch of baby berry bugs.

I tried to suppress the rolling of my eyes when Madelyn caught my hand to prevent the page from turning. She asked why the baby bugs are under the mommy's wings. Before I could respond, she attempted to answer this query herself: "Is it because they are hiding from creditors?"

?? Cr--? Oh...

"Do you mean predators?" (Her favorite TV show is Dinosaur Train, so it's not a far leap to assume...)

"No, Mom. Creditors."

Riiiight. What else don't I know about you, Miss Madelyn?

Falling Down

I would rank falling down among the most humiliating of experiences.

Little ones seem to spend about as much time on the ground as they do upright--stumbling and tumbling regularly as they run and play.  Skinned knees and scraped palms are simply the marks of a joyful childhood.  When you think about it, the average adult human is approximately four times taller than wide, so the occasional misalignment of one's center of gravity should be anticipated and accepted.  But falling down seems to be universally and undeniably awkward, no matter the circumstances.

After receiving a big, concrete-flavored taste of humble pie yesterday morning, I realized that I can't even recall the last time I actually fell down. All the way to the ground. I felt childish and ashamed, and I don't even think anybody saw what happened. Although there's no way to be sure. Perhaps a YouTube search of "hilarious girl eating pavement" is in order.

I was running with Loki and Kezia, my two Siberian Huskies. My dogs are both pretty good running partners, by which I mean that once we are moving they tend to stay focused on forward momentum, usually obey voice commands to slow down or make turns, can run by another dog or human without much distraction, and refrain from pulling, criss-crossing, or other typical canine nonsense. I hold only one leash, which is connected at the far end to a coupler, which then connects to one dog's collar at each end. See figure A.

Fig. A (finishing a run at the beach November 2008)

Yesterday the male dog, Loki, decided that one particular tree could not exist any longer without his personal scent sprinkled upon it.  Occasionally he is unable to control this impulse, and my response is to continue running. Most of the time his business is so efficient that he has returned to his place in front of me before the leash ever pulls taut. Other times I am forced to slow down for a few moments and issue a stern command to keep moving.  But on this particular occasion the circumstances were intricately coordinated so that when he strayed left and I kept running, I basically ran straight through the horizontal coupler while Loki held his position (on three legs, I'm sure) when he felt the tug, and before I realized that a correction of balance was necessary, Kezia was under my ribcage and my elbow was skidding across the asphalt.  See figure B.

Fig. B (my scraped and bruised elbow)

Okay, so it's not really that bad. But the inherent humiliation of falling to which I pointed earlier caused a surprising sequence of emotions. After overcoming the initial shock of being suddenly horizontal, I shouted at Loki, brushed the gravel out of my wounds, and continued to run. I was soon overcome with anger at my poor pet, and actually gave him a little kick in the butt. As if Loki premeditated the event and tripped me on purpose. It was a very childish emotional outburst--attempted retaliation for having caused me harm, both physical and emotional. A few moments later, of course, the remorse settled in and I tried to pet Loki while we ran as penitence for my foolish behavior. 

There were no cars driving by, no people around, but who knows if someone happened to glance out their kitchen window right as my stride became a skid.  The other thing about falling down is that in the eyes of still-upright witnesses, it can be absolutely hysterical.  Common decency suggests that we bite our lips and suppress the guffaws, but come on: haven't you ever seen a falling-down sequence that made you burst into side-splitting laughter (or at least want to)?  For me, the falls that make sustaining common decency a real challenge are those ones that just. keep. going.  The person continues to trip over himself or other objects until you wonder if it's all a carefully orchestrated gag.  But then it's not. And you feel horrible for laughing. You should be ashamed of yourself. Ahem.

So anyway, I fell down. It hurt. But it could have been a lot worse. I wasn't hit by a car, for example, and thankfully the street did not gauge my nicest Nike performance pants.  Possibly because the heroic Kezia helped break my fall.  Hopefully experiences like these will continue to be rare for me. I guess I was due for a good fall--to keep my pride in check.  And now I'll always carry the memory of my intimate encounter with the corner of 13th and Maple. 

When was the last time you had--or witnessed--a good fall? (Sarah, your list of recent falls is limited to 350 words or less. Just kidding!)

Mini Movie Reviews: Hot firefighter, Strange puff ball

Much like that book I read last year, I had no idea going in that the central theme of Fireproof was built on a religious message.  I'd overheard a lot of positive buzz about the film, and hadn't considered that those buzzing were probably so enamored with the idea of an "inspirational" movie being on the big screen that they could easily forgive the cheesy dialogue and poor acting from every single actor besides Kirk Cameron, who really held the entire piece together. The "love dare" concept is interesting in itself, however, and I find I'm able to interpret a story like this in a way that is relevant to my frame of reference. 

Surprisingly very funny. We actually laughed out loud a few times, especially pretty much every instance in which Katie appears:

Delightfully odd, if a little creepy.