Artistic frags

If you're new to Friday Fragments, it's a cyber party hosted by Mrs. 4444s that gives us a chance to put out there the bits and pieces that are floating out in our brains.

This week, it turns out my frags all have a creative bent to them. Consider it my attempt to bring a little culture to the blogosphere.

First up: A haiku! You may remember from your literature class in junior high that a haiku is a poem that has three lines and a syllable pattern that goes 5-7-5. For some reason, Mike likes the haiku. So much in fact that he has a blog called "How You, Haiku?" that he updates from time to time. This week he wrote and posted one that I just love.

Frivolity stops

A beetle crosses boy's path

He sits and watches

It's about Robbie playing outside and stopping to watch a bug. I don't know why, but it makes me smile.

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Today's second frag is a quote that a guy I knew in high school posted on his Facebook page:

Sound when stretched is music,

Movement when stretched is dance,

Mind when stretched is meditation,

...Life when stretched is celebration.

~Ravi Shankar~

The classmate who posted it is an artist himself, living and working in Cocoa Beach, Florida. I asked him when he became an artist. He said, in true artist form, "at birth." Grooooovy!

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Last week, I got together with a bunch of my sorority sisters to celebrate our 40th birthdays. One of my friends is an attorney in Manhattan. Her husband is working on his music career as part of a "melodius acoustic rock" band called The Hillary Step. I've listened to a few snippets of music on their website and it didn't make me want to turn the audio off. I would probably even buy a song or two off iTunes. Mostly, I was interested because of the origin of the band's name. Apparently, the Hillary Step is the last step climbers take before reaching the summit of Mt. Everest, a nod to Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person ever known to reach the top.

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Do you know what kind of art I just don't have an appreciation for? Ugly animation. All that Japanese anime stuff? YUCK! My boys love shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Dragon Ball Z Chai. I can't get past the ugly animation to see if I like the story or not.

Give me something with softer lines and more cheerful colors anytime. Something like this:

Or this:

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Of course my favorite art is the stuff made just for me:

Made up

I think I started wearing makeup in the 8th grade. I don't remember if I wore foundation or lip gloss or mascara. What I do remember is the cobalt blue eyeliner. I liked it because I thought it brought out the blue in my eyes.

In high school, I wore make up daily. As the oldest daughter of a woman who didn't really wear makeup, I didn't have anyone to teach me how to wear makeup. I think I just kind of figured it out (or made it up) as I went along. High school was when I really started wearing foundation. I had to so I could hide the embarrassing hairs that had begun growing out of my chin.

And of course in college, makeup was a must -- even on days when I wore pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt to class.

I'm not sure when it was that I stopped wearing makeup. When I stayed home with my kids when they were little, I would stay au naturel on days we actually stayed at home. But if we went to church or the grocery store or the park, I put my face on.

I know that when I went back to work almost five years ago, I went back wearing makeup. My sister sells Mary Kay and I'm sure that I was well-outfitted with foundation, blush, eyeliner, lip liner (people still wore it then, I'm sure), mascara and maybe even some eyeshadow.

Exactly when I quit wearing makeup, I'm not sure. Maybe in the last two or three years. I recall that the first few times I went to work without a trace of "paint" on my face, I was very self-conscious, apologetic even, about my untouched appearance. I didn't go cold turkey. On most days I wore makeup. But from time to time, if I was running late or had misplaced my makeup bag, I'd go without. Eventually, I quit being self-conscious about it and I quit wearing makeup all together.

Once in a while, for a special occasion I'd put my face on. But it had to be really special. Like a wedding or the Go Red for Women fashion show.

For some reason, last Friday on the way to my aerial acrobatic adventure, I looked in the mirror and thought "I wish I'd put on some makeup." Something about the way my lips blended in with my skin, which was pale even though I'd not yet gone upside 30,000 feet over Lake Michigan, made me think a little color would be nice.

So when I met up with some college friends that night, I got real wild and wore, gasp!, lip gloss! By Saturday morning, I was back to sporting the "organic" look. Same for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Wednesday, when I got dressed, the dry cracks in my heels were killing me. So I slathered on the Heeltastic and put on socks and tennies. You can't exactly wear something nice with socks and tennies, so I chose a pair of khaki capris and turquoise v-neck t-shirt.

When I dropped the kids off at the babysitter's, her mom said "Oh, you're not going into the office today?" I guess that I did look a little bit like I was ready for a day of garage saling. A few hours later, at the office, I was sitting in a meeting with four other women. I looked around and noticed, "everyone at this table is wearing makeup...except me."

I didn't think about it again until this morning. Unlike the past 500 or so days, today, I thought I'd wear some makeup. Of course I had to go out in the garage to find the bag of random stuff I cleaned out of the Pilot when we sold it nearly a month ago. That's where my Mary Kay tinted moisturizer was.

To finish the rest of my face, I had to find Annie's makeup bag. Good thing I have a teenage daughter or I would have been out of luck!

I thought I might feel instantly transformed once my face was done. But I didn't. I was pleased with the results, though. It was Mike's day off, so he was spending the day with the kids and he noticed. When I got to work, one of my co-workers said "You look really nice" and then an hour or so later said, "You're wearing makeup!"

I considered putting a picture of the made up me in this post. But the point isn't how I looked. It's how I felt. And today, I felt like wearing makeup. And I'll probably wear it again. Maybe even tomorrow. Probably not every day. But whenever the mood strikes.

Scaredy cat

For the past week or so, Robbie has been afraid.

I think it started when all three of the kids decided it would be fun to scare each other. They'd wait outside the bathroom or around the corner when they knew someone was headed for the family room or under the covers in the bedroom. Then, at just the right moment, they'd jump out and yell "Boo!" at the generally unsuspecting party. Although he was often on the receiving end of the scaring, Robbie dished up his own fair share of scare tactics as well.

Then late last week, they watched Batman vs. Dracula, a cartoon that I had chosen for instant streaming from Netflix. Usually, Robbie is fascinated by the topic of vampires. He's never seen Twilight or any of the sequels, but he asks Annie endless questions about them. But for some reason, Batman vs. Dracula scared the Bela Lagosi out of him.

Since then, he is afraid to go anywhere by himself. I'm not talking about going outside to play. I'm talking about going to a different room.

If I tell him to go upstairs to get his shoes, he can't because he's scared. If I ask him to get me a Diet Coke out of the garage fridge, he says its too dark in there. If I move to turn over while lying down with him at bedtime, he is instantly sitting up, asking where I'm going.

I'm trying to be sympathetic without being coddling. If he wants to go to the basement to play Legos but is afraid because it's too dark, I offer to stand at the top of the stairs and watch him as he turns the lights on. I've issued an edict that there is to be no more jumping out and scaring each other. If I'm in another room, he'll randomly call out my name. When I say "Yes, Robbie..." he says, "Oh, ok," as if he's just checking that I haven't left him alone in the house.

I feel bad for him. I also feel impatient, hoping this phase passes quickly and not entirely sure of how to help it along. So if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Houston, we have lift off!

Back at the Gary Jet Center, I was all buckled in and harnessed to my parachute. Mark the pilot was as casual as if we were taking the family car for a spin around the block. I was nervously chatty and completely regretting my decision to participate in this activity that was clearly meant for someone braver than I. It was not that I thought we were going to crash. I never thought I might die. I was just more concerned about throwing up.

It wasn't until we were rolling toward the runway that I realized there was virtually nothing in my little space of a cockpit for me to hold on to. I found one small bracket in front of me that I could awkwardly reach with my left hand. My right hand was in charge of the video camera.

We pulled on to the runway, swerving back and forth like the Indy cars do when they are warming up their tires. Mark said that's so he can see the other plane in front of him. If he didn't swerve, he wouldn't be able to see in front of the nose. Then, swerve away, I told him.

We lined up in formation with the two other AT-6 Texans of the Aeroshell team. Taking off and flying in formation was amazing. The takeoff was much smoother and less scary than in a passenger airplane.

Just the "normal" flying was beautiful. The sky was so blue. And the clear canopy over my head let me view everything around and above me. I could see Lake Michigan and the beach and all the patchwork pieces of land below us.

We were within 6 to 12 feet of the two other planes for the entire flight. I looked over and saw the passengers in the other planes and waved at them -- and they waved back! That's how close we were. It was kind of a Top Gun moment, only we weren't inverted and no one flipped the bird.

I also noticed that the pilot in the lead plane wasn't wearing a helmet. I said something to Mark into my microphone about that.

"He's not wearing helmet. His parents or his wife should give him heck for that!"

"Oh, he's not married," Mark replied. "And his parents don't like him much."

I laughed and then a few minutes later realized, "Wait a minute! I'm not wearing a helmet either!" That's when Mark said the helmets are more for communication than for safety. I guess if the plane were to go down, a helmet wouldn't help much anyway.

Just as I was really thinking I was glad I'd decided to do this and I couldn't believe how enjoyable it was, Mark said "Ok, here we go!"

I heard the engines of all three planes gunning and in an instant we went from a smooth forward motion to an incredibly fast, incredibly scary ascent straight up into the sky. I said "Oh sh*t!," followed by "Jesus, Mary, Joseph!" I grabbed my parachute with my left hand and held like mad onto the videocamera, which was still rolling, with my right hand.

Then we started to flip -- forwards or backwards I'm not sure because my eyes were closed. One of my Facebook friends said I should keep my eyes open so I didn't miss it, but I don't think that was even an option. The force of gravity pushing down against the plane climbing up was so strong. The video camera felt like it weighed 50 pounds.

Other than my first utterance as we were racing upwards, I didn't cuss. I didn't scream. Mostly because it's impossible to do either when you are not breathing.

The flip was over before I knew it. I was just getting air back into my lungs when Mark's voice came into my headphones and said, "And here we go with the roll..."

Again, my eyes closed and my breathing stopped. And again it was over so quickly. That's when I was sorry I'd missed it. I wished I'd kept my eyes open and thought about asking if we could do one more stunt. Then I decided maybe it was the lack of oxygen to my brain entertaining that idea and I should just keep quiet.

I looked out the window and saw circular smoke underneath us. I asked Mark if it was our trail, but he pointed out the 6 smaller, yellow Lima Lima precision planes flying below.

From there, we headed back to the Jet Center, me enjoying the beautiful, air around us. That is until without warning, we pealed up and off to the left. In hindsight, it wasn't really scary. Just startling in an "excuse me while I get my stomach out of my shoes" kind of way. We circled around and landed.

Mark swears the flight was about 15 minutes long. It seemed to start and finish in about 3 minutes to me. And it seemed like maybe it wasn't such a crazy thing to do after all. Maybe I will still dye my hair blue.

When we landed and Mark parked the plane back in its original location, Mike and the kids ran out to congratulate me. Annie and Charlie said I looked pale. Mike said he was jealous. Robbie said "let's get lunch."

We signed the Aeroshell log books and got an autographed picture from the team. Though I wasn't the least bit sick or queasy in the air, once I'd been on the ground for about 3 or 4 minutes, my legs started getting shaky and I felt the need to eat something -- fast. It was like the rapidly changing altitude and the battle with gravity caught up with me as the day went on.

I spent much of the ride home reclined and feeling a little woozy. Oh, and I think those g-forces must have had some kind of crazy intrauterine effect because my monthly visitor made an unexpected appearance later in the day as well (either that or I'm just a really bad calendar keeper).

I learned at least two things from this experience:

1. I am braver than I think I am.
2. I am a really terrible videographer.

I apparently kept zooming in on things (didn't mean too, honest!) during the flight. But thank goodness for a techy husband who likes to edit video. The first 1-2 minutes are of the pre-flight instructions. Followed by some funny photography Mike laid in -- but enjoy the nervous conversation I was having with Mark. When you start seeing the video going sideways, that's the roll! Just watching the video makes me get all nervous and hold my breath again. Enjoy!

Dear Panera

Dear Panera --

I love you for your Fuji Apple Chicken salad, your low-fat vegetarian black bean soup and your chocolate chip muffies. I I love you for your free WIFI that makes this a perfect office away from home.

I would love you more if you jacked up the thermostat a bit, but that's nothing that a pair of jeans and a sweater cannot fix. I would love you even more than that if you served Diet Coke instead of Diet Pepsi, but I can get over it.

However, our long-term relationship might come to a screeching halt over this monumentally annoying jazz music with its "makes-my-mind-race" tempo and its blaring horn solos.

Will miss you much (unless I invest in some noise-canceling headphones),
Amy

One step closer to the craziest thing I've ever done

When I last left off, we had just arrived at the Gary Jet Center and my kids had been forbidden to say anything about any bodily functions that might inadvertently occur during my flight on a AT-6 Texan.

The Jet Center is a small private airport that see lots of corporate traffic from people doing business in or from Chicago and "the Region," as northwest Indiana is referred to. So while this crazy air show-related flight was a big deal to those of us going up, the folks at the Jet Center were a little inconvenienced by all the extra people milling around, possibly getting in the way of their real business.

I checked in with Erika from the South Shore Convention and Visitors Bureau who got me into this mess in the first place invited me to join this adventure. The kids (Mike being one of the kids here) were entertained to see several kinds of planes -- the Thunderbirds jets, the Lima Lima precision planes, the Texans and the Yak-52s lined up on the tarmac.

The Gary South Shore Air Show is what they call a deployed show. The planes take off from one location (the Jet Center), but perform at another location (over the beach on Lake Michigan). Within a few minutes, we met one of the air show volunteers, whose name escapes me now.

The volunteer was an Italian grandmotherly type. She told us that before our flight, we'd go over safety procedures with the pilot. When she said that we'd all be wearing parachutes, I didn't know whether to feel secure or scared sh*tless.

Grandma Airplane asked if anyone gets car sick. "If your stomach drops when you're on a roller coaster, that's normal," she said. "But if you have to sit in the front seat and hang your head out the window of the car on the highway, you might want to reconsider because it's no fun for us to have to stop everything to get you down and clean out the plane."

I told her I don't really get carsick, but I don't do roller coasters so I didn't know what my stomach would do. She had me really worried, but I wasn't about to change my mind. I'd already invested 150 miles and more than 3 hours in this adventure.

Then she took us out to get a closer look at the Texan:

Of all the planes on the tarmac, the Texans had the bulkiest body. Although I really wasn't nervous at this point, I was happy to have been assigned to the chubby plane. Probably because of my own size and shape, I've always been drawn to the stockier sorts. Plus, it just felt safer and, I reasoned, would be likely to roll and flip more slowly than those skinny little planes parked nearby.

Most of the folks in our group kept a reasonable distance from the planes, as the FAA was still on site inspecting them. Of course "most" does not include Mike, Robbie and Charlie who cozied up right next to the plane, checking out everything. I was only slightly mortified when one of the Jet Center employees rushed over to the air show volunteer and whispered something, after which the volunteer loudly announced that no one should touch the planes. In the boys' defense, it wasn't like they were climbing on the wing or spinning the propeller. But I kind of wanted to hide anyway.

After our meet and greet with the planes, it was back to the exterior of the Jet Center to wait for FAA clearance. The weather was perfect -- upper 70s, lower 80s, beautiful blue and not humid skies.

My new friend Cherie, aka the Queen of Free, had not yet arrived and I began to wonder if maybe she'd changed her mind. But soon enough she was there with her daughter, a friend, and most importantly to me, gum and non-drowsy Dramamine. Well, it was Wal-amine. She is a frugal blogger after all.

There was a quite a bit of waiting to be done. And then, suddenly, they were calling my name and it was showtime! I closely watched the people coming off the Texans before us, looking for any sign of green faces, rubbery legs or other indications that might suggest to me I should turn and run. But they -- a radio station intern, a photographer for the Chicago Tribune, and reporter for a northern Indiana newspaper -- seemed no worse for the wear. Well, they weren't fist pumping and clamoring for another ride, but they weren't kissing the ground either.

Mike went out with me to snap a few pictures. I realized afterward that I didn't hug and kiss the kids goodbye. I just slipped away while they were watching a huge transport plane that looked like a manatee with wings maneuver along with runway.

Amazingly, I still wasn't nervous. I was just excited about the opportunity. We would be flying with the Aeroshell team. I met Mark, my pilot, and after a quick introduction, he told me to go ahead and get in the plane.

I had to climb up onto the left wing, put my right foot on a hold in the side of the plane and climb in. Had I been any shorter than my 5-feet, 2-inches, I might have had to get a boost from behind.

Mike walked around to the other side of the plane to shoot video of Mark giving me the pre-flight instructions:

About the time Mark said "if you had to get out, you gotta do it yourself," I thought maybe I should get out of the plane NOW. But I didn't say anything other than "Ok. ok." and "I don't know what I've said yes to."

As I double checked the location of the sick bag, Mark climbed into his seat in front of me and Mike walked back to the Jet Center. I didn't kiss him goodbye either, which would have been hard to do from my ultra-buckled-attached-to-a-parachute spot in the back of the Texan. So it's a good thing I didn't die because I didn't kiss anyone before we took off. It's also a good thing I didn't die because I had to sign a waiver abdicating my right to sue should anything happen.

This was my view from the back seat:

I started talking a lot to Mark because I was nervous. I asked him if he was a praying man (yes) and assured him that I'd already said more than a few Hail Marys. I found out he's from Birmingham, Alabama, that he's been flying aerial acrobatic planes for 25 years, and that he doesn't like roller coasters. Really?! There's some hope for me!

Just about the time Mark powered up the engine, I thought maybe I should tell him I changed my mind. I envisioned myself tossing off the parachute, hopping from the plane and running like a mad woman for the Jet Center, where I would grab my kids, hop in the van, head home and tell everyone that the flight had been canceled on account of bad weather.

But because I wanted to save face more than I wanted escape certain nausea, I stayed put. Besides, I had a blog to write! Now you stay put for the dramatic conclusion to my aerial adventure.

Cleaning (virtual) house

I should be cleaning real house, but virtual cleaning is easier and doesn't make me sweat. One of my Facebook friends mentioned that she pared down her list of Facebook friends. It's never occurred to me to do that.

I currently have 538 Facebook friends. Some of them are people I see regularly -- people from church or work or the kids' school. Others are friends from college and high school. A few are Mike's friends from high school who happen to like me too.

In the couple of years I've been on Facebook, I don't think I've ever unfriended anyone. Mostly because I don't want anyone's feelings to get hurt, though the reality is that they would probably never even notice. The chances are pretty good that I have been unfriended and have remained clueless about it. I have "hidden" a few people so, while they remain my friend, I don't see their updates.

Sitting here, I can think of a couple of people I might consider weeding from my Facebook friends list. Of course, I probably can't remember most of who those 538 people are. Is it time to clean my Facebook house?

It feels kind of like when the volume of catalogs delivered by the mail lady or the number of e-mail advertisements in my in-box gets too overwhelming, I go and unsubscribe from a bunch of stuff.

Is there a Facebook friend threshhold? If I pared down my list of friends, would I simultaneously be cutting back on my Facebook time, too?

If you Facebook, have you ever gone in and cleaned up your list? Was there any fall out? Did you feel better after you did it?

(And if you do Facebook, have you "liked" the 4th Frog fan page yet?! Sorry, blatant self-promotion there.)