Robinswetz's Blog

My husband doesn’t know how to handle the cutlery in the drawer. Let me explain. Today I found a beautiful shell shaped spoon laying in the sink with coffee and creamer residue on it. Yes, he used it to simply stir his coffee and carelessly discarded it in the sink. A beautiful spoon like this is meant for so much more than a quick dip and spin in his coffee cup. I imagine someone eating a small cup of custard, or perhaps ambrosia. Here, the spoon is the spotlight, it’s beautiful form on display as you eat with it. Then, you can feel the shell ridges as you slowly and delicately eat your special food. This shell spoon is a little too special to be relegated to a coffee stirrer. I have already discussed this with my husband to avoid this misstep in the future.

I went to the beach after my son’s baseball game tonight. Heck, they won, and it was only a 4 minute drive from the field. Why not?

The people that come to the beach for the remians of the day are much different than the daytime folks. A quieter reflective folk.

As I look around, I see some daytime folks packing up. And there is lots of sand shaking- shaking it out of clothes, blankets, towels, their hair. Shake shake shake. Wait, there is a woman doing a yoga pose in the sand- straight up standing on her head. Now that’s going to take some shaking to get the sand out. I am struck for a moment about all that sand- how intrusive and sticky it is. It gets everywhere. Yet, a shake or two or three really flicks it off. It’s kind of a euphemism for problems in life. All these problems or issues or worries can really stick to us, really annoy us or downright hurt (hot sand under your feet or a sharp shell or rock). But, if we can just shake it loose, not a ton of effort, but a few swings of the towel or shirt, it gets rid of most of the sand, enough so that it’s not a bother anymore. And the rest finds its way off as we head back to the car. So, if I shrug off some of my problems and worry, give them a firm shake, they’re not quite as bothersome. I’ll remember that the next time I’m anxious over something. I’ll visualize shaking my towel and all of the sand coming off.

Oh look out of the corner of my eye-a sweet couple cuddling. It only took about six minutes before they went on their phones. Who knows, maybe they are getting sand off their screens.

A co-worker and I were talking about flowers. I was complaining that during my son’s senior night baseball game, I got a single rose instead of what my husband got- a baseball with a special note on it written by my son. I said I didn’t want flowers, I wanted my own baseball like he gave his dad at the ceremony. I said flowers die. My coworker told me he still has the single red rose from his first love. It’s in a vase in his home. It’s perfectly dried and just there. He told me a little about the back story. It was from his first love. He himself was selling roses out of the van on the side of the road, and this gentleman bought a dozen roses from him and in the end gave them back to him. I told him it was a neat story. I then told him about the three roses on my dad‘s lapel for his funeral. My brother took all three roses off before the casket was closed and gave them to my sister and I and himself. My rose stayed on the floor of my car for several months. At some point, in it’s dried out state, I couldn’t take it anymore. Just before going into IHOP to meet my girlfriend for breakfast, I threw it out of my truck. I felt I should at least make sure it was in the grass. So, now I wait for this new rose to wither and die, and then I can throw it away. I like to enjoy flowers still attached to Mother Earth. And, about the baseball. My son heard my complaints and told me if I get him a baseball, he’ll write me a special message, too. I’ll be looking for a spare one in the basement this weekend.

Petite plastic princess potty perched on the side of the road. I am classically trained to be on the look out for “curb alerts”. So, my eyes often still scan for this. And, here it is. It is meant to invite presumably a girlie girl who is into pink and princess gear to come sit on it. Well, there is the proverbial “sitting on the throne”. I don’t want to judge, and I’m not a germ-a-phobe, but….. it’s a used toilet left out for someone to have. Enough said.

I have two glove compartments, a bottom one that has my vehicle manual and an envelope with years of insurance and registration paperwork, and a top one that has glove compartment type stuff in it. Today I’m going to go through my glove compartment and talk about each item in there.

Floral cloth facemask. This was sewn by one of my colleagues. When Covid shut the world down, she kept sewing and sewing them for all of us to use. Good thing, too. Disposable face masks of all kind of became inaccessible , and when you could hunt them down, they cost you an arm and a leg.

A pair of scissors with green and pink handles like the colors of a watermelon. You never know when you are going to need to cut something.

A plastic rain bonnet, the kind your grandmother wore in the ‘50’s. This one is white and I added black polkadots with a Sharpie marker. The bonnet is tucked neatly inside of a plastic Ziploc bag.

A green zip case with a sloth on the outside containing binoculars. These were used at high school football and baseball games to see the action more closely, although sometimes in particular for the football I didn’t want to see too closely as my son was tackled.

Black nylon cord wrapped up and tied in a knot.

Hand warmers that activate when you open the package and rub them vigorously. They stay warm for 12 hours. I still don’t know the science behind it, but I do know they work for the football games, keeping your hands incredibly warm.

A sheet of plastic folded up into a small rectangle. I know what this is as I have several in my house. When the cereal bag is empty, I carefully tear it apart at the seams, cleaning any food residue off with a wet paper towel. These are great to use to wrap sandwiches and reuse with gentle cleanings in between use. I’m just not sure why it is in my glove compartment.

A Mobile Oil rebate offer all ready to go in the envelope with the receipt as well as the mail in coupon for it. Had I sent this in six years ago, I would be $9 richer today.

A package of croutons, the kind that come with a takeout salad. Those were put in there should I cascade down some type of hill, leaving me trapped for days on end. As I’m looking at them now I realize a source of water would be more important in a situation like that. Eating one salty croutons a day certainly would intensify my thirst to an untenable level.

A small piece of an M&M package.

A metal from completing the Stratton Faxon Fairfield half marathon in 2011 which was worn that entire day. When all the cars were broken into on our street several years ago, I recall being so worried that the thieves took my metal out of the glove compartment. They had ransacked the glove compartment, but fortunately left that there. It certainly has much more value to me than to them. I’m unsure why I still haven’t brought it into the house yet.

Two little glass marbles in a purple mesh satchel tied with a purple ribbon. A small slip of paper inside reads In Memory of Patricia Fappiano. I don’t remember if this was given out at her wake, funeral, or the memorial event we did for her at work. She wasn’t feeling well, went to the emergency room, and passed just a few weeks later. She was a pretty cool colleague. She once borrowed a basket from my office to rescue a kitten. I’m not sure why these marbles are tucked away in my glove compartment, though. Perhaps it was too painful of the time to keep them out, and I literally put them out of sight.

Glove compartments can be such a treasure trove. I am curious what items other people keep in their glove compartments. It is an interesting trip down memory lane.

Today, I decided to relieve one of my front lawn gnomes of his duty of holding a front pathway light. Because his arms are molded to his sides, I provided him support with this job by using a black hair elastic. My youngest son awoke me in the middle of the night looking for a black hair elastic, so here I am at a more reasonable hour getting it back for him.

While removing the elastic, the lawn gnome slipped through my fingers and crashed onto the ground. He was knocked clear out of his ceramic boots, and his watering can was rendered useless, having been split in two. I collected the pieces, his pieces. I arranged the boots against the side of the house and balanced him on top of them. Then I balanced the watering can shard back onto the other piece still attached to him. As I walked away, I looked at him and heard “What a bad mother I am” slip from my mouth. It is because of me he is in pieces. Oh, I did my best to put him back together, and I am even thinking about gluing him so his healing is more complete and long lasting and true. 

For a moment, I linger in the sentence that escaped from me. I immediately think of my mothering, the mothering I received, and the drastic divide between the two. I make a conscious choice to not revisit the past. The very reason I am home today is to support my youngest son in checking out a new school. And, the reason I was tending to the lawn gnome was to get a hair elastic off of him for my son to use. 

Being a mother has taught me so many different things. It has truly transformed me, and it continues to be my most cherished role, something I do with absolute love in my heart. And, my two sons and my husband are my biggest gift and blessing. I have all the pieces I need. 

My son got me a spider plant, a cactus, and another plant for Mother’s Day. Ironically, he got me things I need to take care of on the day that recognizes all the caretaking that mothers do. I must admit, I was overwhelmed at first. The cactus made me smile because we awarded him The Prickliest Family Member some years back, and gave him a cactus statue to commemorate this. It’s one of the few things he didn’t clean out of his room one weekend when he ushered his childhood out with 10 plus storage bins. Plus, cactuses are pretty resilient I’ve heard. So, not too much of a commitment from me for that one. The other two plants, though. Now I have to remember to water them every week. And what if they get too big for their pots and aren’t comfortable anymore? Then I’ll need to figure out how to safely transplant them.

A few years back, a coworker that I shared a bathroom with had thrown away one of her spider plant clippings. When I saw it in the garbage, I took it out and put it in a cup of water, hoping there was some life still within it. I watched it, day after day on the windowsill, getting more and more brown and withered. The day I finally decided to throw it away, I actually had a pang of sadness. It was dead.

So, now I have three new family members I am responsible for the care of. I am embracing them, and have even said a few things to them as I water them. This is a great connecting point with my son and I, as we watch and talk about how they are already changing. How wonderful.

Well, my tape dispenser at work is finally empty, so I’m ready to refill it. I was so excited about how many replacement rolls of tape that were in the supply closet. I’ve been requesting a few boxes of small paper clips to join the other supplies in there, but no go yet on that. Back to my sticky situation. Initially, I was going to reach out to our administrative assistant and ask her to show me how to do this. Then, I decided I would challenge myself and figure it out. I didn’t want to pull the mechanism too hard and break it, as the most basic of office supplies are difficult to come by- a tape dispenser would be like gold- probably why there are so many rolls of replacement tape in there. When I couldn’t figure it out, I googled how to change a tape dispenser. The first video I found showed how to put a brand new tape roll into an open and awaiting dispenser. This looked promising. I was tricked by the length of the video. At 45 seconds, of course it would be showing specifically how to get the old empty roll out and put the new full one in. No, it was a Vanna White imposter showing the dispenser as though it was something way more fabulous than it is. Don’t get me wrong, I do love office supplies – but really? Then, the disembodied hands (black sleeves against a black velvet backdrop) kept ripping pieces of tape off and stretching them around in front of the camera before sticking them into one pile. Enter stage left- A piece of paper with a rip on top. The instructional video proceeded to demonstrate how the tape could mend the rip. What the hell. Are you serious? I kept waiting and waiting, believing that the video would show how to pop the core of the empty roll out to allow me to pop a new full one back in. The model roll of tape in this video is very full. I am not willing to watch the several sequels to get to the ending that might or might not show me what I was looking for.

In frustration, I pull hard at the empty tape core in the dispenser. And look at that, it snapped right open. I happily put the new roll of tape in and viola. That was way less than 45 seconds. Maybe I should make a how to video of actually how to replace tape in a tape dispenser.

A mangled pile of nylon and metal. Alternating blocks of bright purple and white show just how joyful you once were.

Now here you are, dead on the side of the road. Abandoned by your owner when you could help them no more. You weren’t even moved to a proper final resting place.

I recently got a book about Stephen Hawking to learn more about him and his life. And, I did learn more about him. But, in doing so, I was left with more questions about a few other people’s lives. You see, the second-hand book I bought had two bookmarks tucked away within its pages. They are strips of pictures from the picture booths set up at weddings and other parties. These celebrated two different weddings. First, I located the common denominator- the guest that shows in both photos. This took a bit to figure out, as the guests had lots of props all over themselves – funky hats, golden star antenna headbands, oversized bright red lips that you hold in place with a stick (kind of like you would hold opera glasses in place but a few levels lower on your face), feather boas, oversized glasses and huge polka-dotted bow ties. Ah, there she is. She went to both Sarah and Patrick’s and Kaitlyn and Keith’s weddings. Now I am curious about how long ago these weddings were. How interesting. Sarah and Patrick wed on July 4th, 2015 and Kaitlyn and Keith wed on December 31st, 2017. Both weddings were on holidays. So, on their anniversaries, there will be celebration all around them no matter how their relationships are going. We know, based on statistics, that one of these couples will be divorced. I study their friend groups in the pictures, trying to read into which couple it will be. Everybody seems so happy. I guess time will tell.

I finished the book and moved to donate it back. I once found a crisp clean and certainly flat 2 dollar bill hidden in a second-hand book I bought at my local library. Into my coin collection the bill went. But, this treasure, these pictures found within the pages, I return to the pages before I usher the book along to my local Goodwill. Sarah and Patrick and Kaitlyn and Keith, I will pass your stories on. And hopefully, you continue in wedded bliss.