Bandit

Rituals are like prayers: they are things we do that keep us grounded and in place. I have a series of them, especially in the mornings, as mornings and I are not always on good terms. I shuffle to my kitchen, try to eat, do yoga and then go through my bank accounts online.

I have major issue with numbers. I have a friend, named Jim, whose neurons in his head run back and forth over numbers, gemoetry, physics like a superhighway. My number neurons are more like a dead end round in the deep south: the further you go with it the more lost you become.

This last Tuesday, I went through my morning ritual and quickly caught my breath. My account showed that I was overdrawn over $4,000. Moreover, it seems that I had purchased a couple of first class flights to Ohio, bought a boat load of flowers -- all while I was working in my yard on a rainy memorial day weekend.

I have heard a lot about identity theft but, like so many, think "it can never happen to me". But as I stared at the bright red text of my online bank statement, I realized that I had been ambushed by a cyber bandit.

I had so many questions. The first are obvious ones..."how could it happen?" "Who could have let it?" "How do I fix it.." After awhile, they gave way to ridiculous questions such as, "Who sends 3 bouquets of flowers all in one day?" I started making up stories about some sad guy who really needed to get a date and was so desperate he hacked into my (almost) empty bank account to try to impress his lover.

The girl at the bank was sympathetic but I was such a mess that I didn't give her much time to apologize. My main question was - and remains -- how could someone take money from my bank account that wasn't even there? What, when I have to get a signed affadavit just to cash a check at my drive in, what with the girl in the glass cage not even speaking English.

I couldn't shake the feeling of violation. I walked around the rest of the day with my shoulders hunched looking around corners, wondering if i could spot my bandit. But everyone looked very normal - if not concerned -- as I peered nervously around.

My questions remain and my concerns are now greater than before. It seems that traditional muggings are passe - now, intelligent cyber thiefs can scam us while we stand outside in the rain, digging holes in our yard and never knowing for a minute what kind of danger we are in.

Letting go

I have my checklist almost complete.

All day marathon of "Law and Order". Check.
Comedy station on my XM radio. "Check
Lots of dirt to spread around my (very wet) garden. Check.
Newest bestseller by Ann Lamott. Check.

I will need all of these tomorrow and the days following because around 5 PM I put our youngest child, E, on a plane that will take her to London. She'll be gone for 11 days.

It is hard being 17 and totally terrific. What with all the great grades, the constant athletic achievements, there is a lot of pressure. Also, it's tough to continue hating your mother, which is the first job of all teeange girls. I know. I did it, too. We all do it because deep down we're terrified that we'll become just like her. And most of the time we're so busy fighting that we do exactly that, become like someone we don't want to be. Who was it that said, "What you resist, persists?"

I've been trying to figure out something to say to her, write to her, lie to her and let her know that I won't be doubled over with grief over letting her get on a plane and fly halfway across the world - without even her dad with her.

I know I'm suppose to be in this generation that has all these enlightened views about parenting. I have a friend who is like Lorelei on "Gilmore Girls" and she and her daughter have coffee and talk all the time. I really hate her, sometimes, when she chirps about shopping and all that.

E and I tried shopping together. But I do all the wrong things. I do stupid things like pointing out stuff that will look great on her. I compliment her on her hair. I ask her opinion on shoes that I want to wear. She looks at me with those great, steady eyes and (not so) patiently will say, "Yes, mother.." just like I use to say to her when I dragged her through shopping malls and she pointed out stuff for me to look at. I was too busy, too often, trying to get home, get the dinner started, trying to "do" all those things moms do.

Funny, I just didn't see the moment when the roles would reverse.

I have one friend who has kindly said, "they have to hate you, otherwise it hurts too bad for them to leave you" She's had three daughters so she should know. Now she spends vacations with her daughter and grandkids and thinks it marvelous. So maybe that is in the future for us.

Tomorrow will be just another step for her to take and one that I cannot take with her, at least not in the same direction. She is going and I'm staying. She has a passport not only to another country but to another phase of her life, one that she has been headed all this time. And while I can be present, I cannot really be with her for that is the call of adulthood, to do it on your own steam.

I am, on every level, so deeply proud of her. She's a completey together kid. Often after she speaks in fluent spanish or solves some math problem that would stump NASA, her dad and I will look at each other and wonder how this force came from us. We kind of dumbly made our way into parenthood and we've been ambling around, making things up as we go.

Kind of cool to see that our missteps have taken at least someone in the right direction.

Rain and Roses

In spite of my best intentions, my garden sits in a bog, weedy and overgrown. I had high hopes for a Memorial Day Weekend weeding blitz, but alas, this morning there is more and more rain coming my way. Even though I tried to scare off the bad spirits by insisting that a dump truck load of dirt be delivered in the driving rain (the truck couldn't even get the dirt to my garden. Deep rifts of sod and dirt stretch across my yard where the driver attempted to fulfill my request) there is little hope that my garden goal will be accomplished.

Seeing that my plans were squashed, Dan wisely packed me up last night and drove me to the Tulsa Rose Garden. Most years, I'm knee deep in my own gardening projects and I miss the display of roses -- usually arriving a couple of weeks too late or too early to see the real beauty of this Tulsa masterpiece. Not this time. This year, I was right on schedule to see "Gizmos" and "Gidgets" and "Dolly Parton" and "Casablanca" all strutting their stuff and in full bloom. At one juncture I stopped in front of "Sheila's Perfume", it's large blooms bigger than my hand. I plunged my nose into its heady fragrance and I was undone.

The colors, architecture and fragrance of this garden can lift the dreariest of spirits. Go and see for yourself - but take your umbrella.

http://www.tulsamountains.com/gallery1/html/rose_garden_i.html