ACL Diary: It Takes a Year

April 2, 2011 was the day it happened. It was the day our daughter’s life changed.

We were told it would be about a year before she would truly “be back” as a soccer player with a torn and replaced ACL. Her surgeon and therapist cleared her to play six months ago and that’s because she was physically strong. But getting back her confidence—not to mention the kind of playing time a top-level player needs—was slower in coming.

Less than a month after her first games back on the field with her club team (Samba), they broke for the high school season. Unfortunately, her high school coach/teammates appeared to treat her more as the injured player she had become rather than the talented player she was. She trained daily with the team and grew stronger and more agile, yet she spent most of the season on the bench. Trust, it didn’t do a thing to redevelop her confidence, and it even threatened to take away her passion for the game.

Willow the "Bruiser"

What we learned during this three-month period is that you can’t always depend on a coach to take a special interest in your kid, nor can you get him or her to believe any other method, style or strategy may be more effective or successful than the one in which he/she believes. So, we just encouraged our child to hang-in there, keep working, and if she wanted to continue playing, her time would come.

I suppose it’s fair to say that as we kicked our way through the grief stages of our daughter’s injury and the near-fatal rip it gave to her soccer career, that this was the acceptance phase. She had a major injury. She needed time to fully recover.

Willow Cozzens, #24, in the air

Thankfully, the school season came to an end, the club season resumed, and Willow took her place back on the field. She was still not in a starting position—but she was given a respectable amount of playing time. And it wasn’t long before we were regularly seeing shades of the old Willow—or “Bruiser”—the nickname she earned last year.

“Did you see that slide, Mom?” she called to me between halves at a recent a game. I assured her that I did indeed see it, (and it didn’t even make me nervous). “That was for you!” she said with a wink.

Her team went undefeated in the AZ Division I State League season, clinching the championship and earning the first place seed for the upcoming State Cup tournament, which begins later this month.

After one full year and a lot of medical and therapy bills paid in full, all we can say now is: Go Samba! Go Willow! We love you; we believe in you. And it’s very rewarding to see how much you believe in yourself.

NOTE: We isolated this very short clip to show her tenacity on the field last weekend against the current state champions, a national team. She's the tall player in red on the left, who makes a tackle, gets tripped, recovers, and then fields the ball to her outside defender. Atta girl.

Volunteer Burnout Once Again Rears Its Rude Head

Wow. She just hung up on me.

My entire family overheard the phone conversation I had with the “mom volunteer” (MV) who answered the high school attendance line, and they witnessed my dropped jaw reaction. I wondered if she always treated callers the way she treated me or if she was simply having a bad morning.

You know, I consider myself an “unapologetic beyotch;” however, I don’t feel that gives me the right to be rude. What I mean by this description is that I don’t apologize for my beliefs—be they political, moral, humorous or intellectual in flavor—and if they disagree with yours, well then, I suggest we agree to disagree. And in general I don’t have a problem when people disagree with me. Unless, of course, they’re RUDE about it.

Seriously, this MV was curt from the start. I didn’t even get to finish my first sentence when requesting to speak to someone about my daughter’s detention. “Hold on,” she said, cutting me off. I waited on hold for two minutes before she came back on the phone and said she couldn’t locate an assistant principal to handle my issue.  “So what’s the problem?” she asked.

Yesterday was a registration day and my elder daughter attended her appointment then left school to come home and pickup her younger sister to bring her back for the 9:35 a.m. start time. I approved this, but I didn’t write a note. And my surrogate chauffeur failed to get a pass to leave campus, thinking the same rules didn’t apply because their start time wasn’t until 9:35. The Detention Ticket, in fact, designates the period of the violation as “before school.”

Keep in mind that this is a kid who currently tends to make a lot of her own rules and she’s faced some pretty severe consequences for doing so. But I felt this was as much my fault as it was hers, and I simply wanted to share the responsibility and talk to someone about it. I only just looked up the bell schedule for the registration process and it CLEARLY reads: STUDENTS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE CAMPUS AFTER REGISTERING. So my daughter made a mistake, but I wasn’t a very responsible mother either.

“Well I know what the principal is going to say to you,” said MV. “I’m a mom at this school, too, and your daughter is a junior and should know better by now. She got caught sneaking out and that earned her a detention.”

Whoa! Sneaking out? No one was “sneaking” out. Obviously she had given her name to the parking lot monitor and said what she was doing. He issued the detention because he was following the proper procedure. We understand this. And frankly, she deserved the detention. Again, I just wanted to communicate my role in the violation.

“She wasn’t sneaking anything,” I said. “She had my permiss—”

Interrupting me again, MV said, “I’m writing this all down and someone will call you.”

“Shall I give you my phone number?”

“I have it. BYE.” CLICK!

Repeat: Wow. She just hung up on me.

I called back, she answered again, and I asked for her name. When I conveyed I felt her behavior was both abrupt and inappropriate, she asked why I would think such a thing. “Well for one, you hung up on me!” I said.

“That’s probably because I had 20 phone calls waiting,” she said.

“I understand you’re busy,” I said, “And I appreciate the volunteer work you do; however, I’m just a mom like you and I was simply calling to speak to someone about my daughter’s detention. I didn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

“I’ve already told you I wrote down your concerns and someone will call you.”

“That’s it?” I asked. “No apology?”

“I already apologized to you at the beginning of the conversation.”

Gee, I must have missed it.

It made me think. Bad day? Busy day? Whatever the problem, if you’re suffering from volunteer burnout, by all means do us all a favor and take a day off.

Bottom line? I think I have a new definition for “unapologetic beyotch.”

Haircut One Hundred

Last May after Keratin straightening 

My daughter ran into a soccer mom yesterday, someone neither she nor I have seen since the school season ended back in February.

“How’s your mom?” asked the woman.

“She cut off all her hair,” responded my daughter.

I wish I could have seen the expression on the woman’s face when she heard this. If I had heard someone had cut off all her hair, I’d think she went a little nuts.

Well, maybe I did.

Last May I succumbed to my first hair process ever. I had it straightened. And for about five minutes I had the silky straight, flowing follicles of a regular Breck girl. (Don’t know what a Breck girl is? Ask your mother). Unfortunately, during a regular Wisconsin summer filled with lake water and humidity, it wasn’t long before my hair was back in corkscrews.

When I returned to Tucson, I learned that my hairdresser had moved to Jersey. So, ever since September, it’s been ponytail city for this soccer mom.

New hair: Curly version

Finally, it came time for me to do something about what ultimately was a lot of dry, damaged hair. During a phone conversation with my friend, Diana, we got off the subject of our teenage daughters and on the subject of our middle-aged hair. She recommended two stylists in Tucson, one for cut and one for color. I made appointments immediately, before I had the chance to chicken out.

New hair: Straight version

Because I just wasn’t happy with my long hair anymore, I felt my only option was to have it all cut off. Yikes. I still don’t know if it was the right decision. I’ve received a lot of comments—compliments even—but I think most people are simply reacting to the change and how short it is.

My hair hasn’t been this short since I was three years old.

“Who are you and what did you do with my wife?” asked my husband when I came home from getting it cut.

I’ve been avoiding the mirror because every time I look into it, I don’t recognize that person either. She no longer looks like a girl—she looks like a mom.

My Week With Willow

We had the house to ourselves for a spell last evening. It was after track practice. The homework was complete and it was one of the two weeknights per week that didn’t involve soccer. We had an unusually early dinner because Camille had volleyball practice. Dad was, of course, in his man cave working his 24-7 Internet business. So, it was just Willow and me.

“Want to watch the Marilyn Monroe movie with me?” I asked.

To my delight, she agreed. I admit I was a little surprised. Throughout the week it was apparent that I wasn’t my daughter’s favorite person with whom to spend time. Nearly everything out of my mouth—be it compliment, directive, warning, comment or opinion—had been met with either a sigh, an eye-roll, a barbed comeback or all three.

Have I mentioned before how much I detest this teenage stage of motherhood?

From the film My Week With Marilyn

Anyway, there are lovely moments as well. And watching the film, My Week With Marilyn (starring Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh and Eddie Redmayne), was a nice 90 minutes. Earlier in the week she had asked me why the world continues to be fascinated by Marilyn Monroe. I explained how she was once the world’s biggest star and how she’s an icon for a glamorous Hollywood era—a day gone by. And she, like other American icons who died before the world was finished with them, remains a fascination or a mystery of what could have been.

I also told her that Marilyn Monroe inspired me to become a writer. Yes, it’s true.

Marilyn Monroe

It happened when I was in third grade. It was a night not unlike the one Willow and I had last night, when my mother invited me to watch the Marilyn Monroe classic, Some Like it Hot.  It was 1968, some six years after her death. Young as I was, I knew Marilyn was a huge star, but her ‘American idol’ status was in its earliest phase. Anyway, I so loved the movie (and the very fact that my mother allowed me to stay up and watch it with her) that it prompted me to write a ten-page synopsis of the story. I have no idea how many words that was—as evidenced by the five-year diary I began shortly thereafter and recently dug out of my archives—my handwriting was quite fat at the time. And I can’t imagine the spelling and grammar were all that great. How I wish I’d saved that little piece of my writing history.

Willow Cozzens

My mother was impressed by the content and storytelling, however, and suggested I give it to my teacher. Her name was Mrs. Meyers and she was the first lay teacher (non-nun) I’d had at my Catholic elementary school. Apparently Mrs. Meyers was impressed too. She asked me to read the paper in front of the classroom. I did. And when I finished reading, my classmates burst into applause.

I knew from that point forward what I was going to be when I grew up. No, not an actress like Marilyn Monroe.  But, of course, I was going to be a writer.

Willow liked that story. And she liked the movie, My Week With Marilyn. I recall that a line uttered by Michelle Williams/Marilyn in one scene when she was looking at a family of dolls in an exquisite dollhouse in Windsor Castle particularly struck my daughter.

“All little girls should be told how pretty they are,” says Marilyn. “They should grow up knowing how much their mother loves them.”

“Awwwww,” she cooed. And then Willow reached over and touched my arm, and kept it there for the remainder of the film.

What a nice way to end the week.

I'm Just Mad About Saffron

Ever since I tore ligaments in my left ankle I have been in a prison of inactivity. Even though I try to act normal (and yesterday I went for an extended hike with my husband and my Cinco), I’m not. Daily, the pain reminds me that I need to get off my foot/feet.

So how have I filled the time normally dedicated to working out? By cooking.

Of course, when one combines inactivity with cooking, it’s a recipe for weight gain. So that, in a word, sucks. But I think the potato salad I made yesterday was worth it. It’s because I discovered a secret ingredient and used it for the first time.

What was it?

SAFFRON. 

Wow. Who knew?

I knew saffron was a spice and had seen it used on cooking shows, but I never actually considered it. Growing up, I thought it was girl’s name and Donovan (or a guy named MELLOW YELLOW) was mad about a girl with this name. But yesterday in the spice aisle at Safeway, I learned that saffron is the most uniquely packaged, and most expensive spice available. A .06 oz jar cost me $19.49.

Saffron is a “carefully selected portion of the flower of crocus sativus. It is a pleasantly bitter spice used as much for its golden yellow color as for its subtle flavor.”

Call it Mellow Yellow.

In its raw form the fibrous strings may be bright cerise; however, once I used it in a white wine reduction, my potion became bright yellow. And when I mixed it with light mayo for the potato salad, magic happened. 

I couldn’t stop dipping my finger into the mixture and “testing” it for flavor. Alas! Look what it did to my nails!

Trust me, once I added the saffron mayo mixture to boiled new potatoes, along with fresh cilantro, mint, red onion and grape tomatoes, what I served my family for dinner last night was far more attractive than the hands that served them.

POTATO SALAD RECIPE*

21 oz. red or new potatoes, peeled and diced to 1 inch. (I also used baby Dutch yellow potatoes).

1/2 tsp. toasted cumin seeds

Approx. 18-24 grape tomatoes (cut in half)

1/2 small red onion, finely chopped

3-5 TBLS coarsely chopped fresh cilantro

1-2 TBLS chopped fresh mint

7 oz. LITE mayonnaise

Saffron Reduction:

1 tsp. saffron in 1.8 oz white wine, reduced down until all the color has come of the threads and only 1 TBLS is left

Sea salt and pepper to taste

2 TBLS lemon juice

Preparation:

Place the potatoes in a large sauce pan and cover them with cold water. Bring the potatoes to a boil, then reduce heat and let them simmer for 8 to 10 minutes or until they are tender yet firm. While boiling the potatoes, place the mayo in a bowl and slowly add the saffron reduction and lemon juice. Mix well and season.

Drain the potatoes in a colander and place them in a large bowl. Lightly toast the cumin seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat for 3 minutes or until lightly browned and fragrant. Stir into saffron mayo and add to potatoes. Let the mixture cool.

Shortly before serving mix in the tomato, onion, salt, pepper, cilantro and mint.

Serves six

* variation on recipe offered on Today Show website

It’s Not Getting Easier

Twenty Years. The traditional symbols for 20-year wedding anniversaries are china and platinum. The gemstone is emerald, the flower is day lily.

We, however, are not celebrating 20 years of marriage. We passed that marker in 2009. We are celebrating 20 years of owning/ operating our business, Sandy Point Resort and Disc Golf Ranch. So, using the traditional symbols, perhaps it might be appropriate to take a china plate and throw it like a Frisbee toward a disc golf basket made of platinum. We could do it in the midst of a full-growth, emerald green summer shortly after the day lilies all around the property are in full bloom.

In spite of our 20 years at Sandy Point, we’ve only been going back-and-forth between the Northwoods and the desert for 15 years. We started this yo-yo lifestyle when expecting our youngest daughter, Camille, who will celebrate her 15^th birthday this summer. When she and her sister, Willow, were babies we definitely had an ideal plan for the ideal lifestyle. Yes, we moved twice per year; however, we had a solid six months in each location.

That was a time when people said we had “the best of both worlds,” and we nodded our heads in agreement. Now we nod our heads and grimace. How naïve were we to believe going back-and-forth would get easier instead of more difficult?

Let me illustrate just two items putting a damper on our best-of-both worlds scenario these days:

#1. Airlines are a business suffering in this economy like any other. We currently cannot find flights from Tucson to Rhinelander (45 minutes from our resort). The closest we could get at Christmas was Minneapolis/St. Paul (four hours from our resort). This May we can get to the Central Wisconsin Airport, which is an hour-and-a-half drive. We used to get flights for $300-something. Now they’re more like $700-something. Multiply that times three, and then figure the astronomical cost of gas for Mike to drive back three weeks ahead of us. Ouch.

#2. The Tucson Unified School District recently informed the community that the 2012-13 school year would begin on AUGUST 2. Smack dab in the middle of a Sonoran summer, our kids will be plucked from their Wisconsin lake-home paradise and dropped into the scorching desert to cut short their much-needed (and well-deserved) summer vacation. And we will lose 50% of our cleaning staff while facing an entire month of a full house at the resort. Mom and Pop can’t leave the mom-and-pop operation, so, I’m currently wondering, who is going to take care of our kids in Tucson while we’re trying to keep the business going?

Yes, indeed, it’s the best of both worlds. What an AWESOME plan we had 15 years ago. Even then, I don’t think anyone told us it would be easy. But I honestly didn’t believe it would get this hard.

Fake UGG Boot Update

The fake pink boots are still sitting in a box in our living room, awaiting a paid mailing label to China. I really want these Fuggly things out of our house. But they won’t walk away on their own.

Our crackerjack financial advisor, Nina, and credit card disputes caseworker, Love, took care of crediting our account. Now we await the paid mailing label to return them to China. According to Visa disputes, the Internet company has 45 days to redeem itself. Today, however, I didn’t receive a label. Instead I received this message:

Dear customer：

        Sorry for the inconvenience,you placed an order on our website cheapuggboots-forwomen.com   on Jan  26 ,the products is a pair of Air UGG Classic Tall Baked Clay   US-8 . The order was sent out, and it was signed .

But we found the bank chargeback the transaction,   could you contact the bank to cancel the  chargeback, then we can process u 70% refund ,thank you so much.wait for your reply

Best Regards

Angela

Visa Disputes called this letter a “form of harassment.”

To me this whole experience is more a form of pain-in-the-assment. Consider this message on the website’s home page: “You can shop with confidence knowing that all our designer products are guaranteed authentic plus our 100% Money Back Satisfaction Guarantee.” This is not only untrue and fraudulent, but it’s also laughable.

Nina and I both had the same reaction to the letter. “Un FREAKING believable.” Obviously “Angela” still doesn’t understand the meaning of guaranteeing a customer’s 100% satisfaction. She’s getting closer with this 70% offer, but still fails to acknowledge that what was ordered (baked clay) was NOT what was sent (brick red). And this, of course, doesn’t even take into account the fact that they’re fakes.

The UggAustralia.com website now lists cheapuggboots-forwomen.com as a known counterfeit website. Since counterfeiting is illegal, I can’t help but wonder what notice or transaction Angela and her company will find next. It will hopefully cost them far more than a mere chargeback for a pair of pink boots and a mailing label to China.

An UGGly Situation

Our daughter, an avid online shopper, learned the hard way—right along with us—that there are unscrupulous vendors on the World Wide Web. And today I seek to avenge our experience by outing this company for its illegal and fraudulent practices.

www.cheapuggbootsforwomen.com . . . you are SO BUSTED!

A pair of Classic Tall (Genuine) UGG boots costs $200. Eager to own a pair, our 14-year-old’s  $20 per week allowance made this expensive fashion statement out-of-reach. She thought she was being clever—a “good” shopper—by searching online for a more affordable pair. Cheapuggbootsforwomen.com offered a pair she wanted “on sale” for 50% off.  To her credit, she planned to perform a host of chores and tasks to work off the debt, and I ordered the boots for her on this promise.

"Baked Clay": The boot we ordered

We ordered the Classic Tall UGG boot in “Baked Clay.”  The total charge, according to the email order confirmation, with shipping was $106.99.

Two weeks later, what we ordered was not what arrived in a soft box wrapped in plastic with a return address printed with Chinese characters. Instead of anything resembling the color “Baked Clay,” what we received can only be described as Puke Pink. The description on the box didn’t even read, “Baked Clay.” It read, “Brick Red,” a color option not even featured on the website.

As anyone would do, particularly with a company that advertises “100% satisfaction guaranteed,” I contacted customer service to obtain the return/exchange procedure. This is the first (verbatim) response I received:

Dear Customer,

We are really sorry for the trouble. What a shock! There must be something wrong. We never get this kind of customer complain. Could you do me a favor and send me the pictures of the product which you received. Thank you so much.

Best Wishes 
Angela

"Brick Red," the boot we received

I sent photos of the pink boots, and the box label reading “Brick Red.” Twenty-four hours later I received this:

Dear customer

Thank you for your email. I have checked it for you. The shoes of this style is this colour.

about the"shipping&return"policy on our website:If you ship the item back you need to pay the shipping fees which is very expensive and you just get 50% refund.Then you lose so much money and get nothing finally.It is not a good choice for you.Could you keep it or sell it to your friend,then when you re-order from us,we give you  discount?wait for your reply

Best wishes

Angela

I’m using the copy/paste function so, dear readers, you may get the full effect of the correspondence. Certainly, I was not pleased with this response. It didn’t come close to guaranteeing my 100% satisfaction with the transaction. Considering the suggested high price of shipping back to China, I stood to be far less than 50% satisfied. “Then you lose so much money and get nothing finally.” Really?

Smelling a scam, yet still willing to give “Angela” the benefit of the doubt, I thought perhaps “she” failed to translate properly and missed the part that I ordered “Baked Clay” rather than “Brick Red.” So I tried again. Five hours later I received this:

Dear customer

The style of your order is that one.

If you exchange for it, we also send the shoes which you received  to you and you need to pay the 30% processing fee and expensive shipping fee. so could you keep them? if you reorder from us, we will give you a big discount.

Best wishes

Angela

At this point, even though the letter makes little sense, I get it. I’m not going to be satisfied. I therefore contacted my feral financial advisor, Nina, who I trust has my back on all things financial and specifically credit card related. She put me in touch with the disputes department of our credit card company, where we spoke to a woman named “Love” (not kidding). Love advised me to request the return address of the company in order to attempt to return the product I didn’t order. (The shipping label was in Chinese and there was no paperwork or return/exchange form included with the package).

I made several attempts via email, each time requesting the return address in English. And each attempt failed:

Dear customer

If you ship back, you need to pay for the expensive shipping fee and just get 50% refund, do you accept it?

wait for your reply

Best wishes

Angela

***

Dear customer

It't not a good choice to you. could you keep them or sell to others, give your friends ?then reorder from us, we can give you a big discount.

Best wishes

Angela

***

Dear Customer

Thank  you for your reply. could you keep them? we can process 5% refund to you. wait for you reply

Best wishes

Angela

***

Dear customer

If you ship back, you need to pay for the expensive shipping fee and just get 50% refund, you will lost much and get nothing, could you keep them or give your friends? we can refund you 10%.

wait for your reply

Best wishes

Angela

Clearly, Angela had no intention of providing the return address. So, we returned to Love, our advisor in credit card disputes. While on the phone with Love, Nina and I learned something else about these pink boots. Surprise, surprise, they aren’t even genuine UGGS.

That’s right. In addition to being a Fuggly shade of pink, they’re also FAKES. Flippin’ FUggly fakes.

We discovered this when Love advised us to check the UggAustralia.com website where there’s a boot-load of material dedicated to exposing the practice of counterfeit products passing themselves off as genuine. It’s as simple as keying in the name of the retailer in a search function to determine whether or not they are authorized UGG dealers. Of course, www.cheapuggbootsforwomen.com AND the company that actually billed my credit card, (for a higher figure than the $106.99 printed on my original invoice) www.salenow-online.com, are NOT authorized dealers. The site suggests these companies may retail counterfeit Ugg products.

Turns out there’s far more than a boot-load of material on the Internet—articles, YouTube videos, etc.—instructing consumers on how to determine whether or not an Ugg boot is counterfeit.

We definitely have a pair of pink fakes.

Although I was tempted, I didn’t respond to “Angela’s” final request for me to keep the fake pink boots. Instead, I reported the companies she represents and their illegal practices to the Ugg Australia counterfeit department, and notified several anti-counterfeit organizations and government agencies listed on the Ugg Australia website. My credit card company has all the necessary paperwork to dispute the charge.

Meanwhile, I’ve been advised to hold onto the pink boots until we hopefully attain the goal of receiving a postage-paid mailing label so I can return them—not keep them or “give my friends.” The charge(s) on my credit card (for the boots and for the credit card company’s surprise international shipping charge) are currently being held.

Many thanks to Nina for helping me stomp out this unfortunate event and for helping us learn a valuable lesson. We now understand that counterfeiting is rampant and illegal. According to Ugg Australia, “It has a significant impact on the global economy, removing tens of thousands of jobs and costing the economy an estimated $600 billion of legitimate revenue a year. The International Trade Commission concluded that U.S companies have lost close to 1 million jobs domestically due to Chinese counterfeits.”

Ultimate message to all: Beware of UGG boots for sale or discounted, or cheap UGG boots advertised on Ebay or anywhere other than Uggaustralia.com or reputable registered/authorized dealers. Don’t make the same mistake we made. If you do, I 100% guarantee, you’ll kick yourself.




cheapuggbootsforwomen.com

Book Review: Guilty Pleasure

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My teenage daughter insisted I read this and, I admit, it had me engrossed from start to finish. This is the first person account of a young girl in a post-Apocalyptic world who volunteers as "tribute" from her district to participate in what is essentially a reality TV show, The Hunger Games. Twenty-four kids, ranging in age from 12-18, representing 12 districts in what was once North America, are primped and prepared to fight to the death in a wilderness arena. They must find their own food and water, shelter, weaponry and companionship. Only one will survive and return home a hero.

Reading The Hunger Games was like watching a gorier version of the television show Survivor. It included both loathsome and likeable players, alliances, back-stabbing, solid friendships and even a love story.

Katniss and Peeta are the girl and boy from District 12, who their mentors and stylists present to the viewing audience as star-crossed lovers. Peeta is actually in love with Katniss; however, she is a hard-nosed, focused hunter and only believes she's playing a role through the Games. For example, she has been instructed that every kiss she gives Peeta may result in a reward, or some kind of treat or necessity from her mentor/sponsors. That the reader is aware of Peeta's true feelings and Katniss is not, is part of what makes it a simplistic and even silly love story. But I think that's testimony to the genius of the author. It magnifies how reality TV can be both inane and riveting at the same time.

I believe it was the good writing and the author's technique/story-telling ability that made me turn the pages non-stop until I finished. As for the subject matter?  File this one under "guilty pleasure."



View all my reviews

Kankle Time

Last week a stepstool collapsed from underneath me as I reached for a sweater on a high shelf. Without warning or a chance to anything to break my fall, I was in a heap on my closet floor next to a pile of wood. That stool had been reliable for at least a dozen years. Now it’s useless. And so am I.

Unable to get up, my initial cries for help were met with no response. Not even from the man in the next room who was servicing our heater/air-conditioner compressors. I therefore scooted my way into the bedroom, continuing to call for my daughter in the next room. When she finally came into my aid, she thought I was sneezing.

After the accident it took about 20 minutes before I could put weight on my left foot. My ankle was swollen but not incredibly painful. More painful was a deep cut on the side of my foot just below the pinkie toe. Unfortunately, I had to be somewhere in 15 minutes and was unwilling to cancel. So I didn’t immediately ice the injury. Instead I hobbled my way around the task at hand and took care of the foot later.

With ankles the size of most people’s wrists, I’ve been no stranger to sprains. I know how to treat them and with a little ice and a little elevation, they go away. Unfortunately, however, the swelling isn’t going down and now there’s an ugly black-and-blue patch lining the base of my foot from heal to instep. I’m afraid I’m dealing with torn ligaments in addition to the sprain.

“Keep it elevated and iced, and take some Advil,” said my sister, who faced a very similar injury when she slipped down the stairs a while back. Offering an empathetic, “I feel your pain, sister,” she also admonished me for not staying off it.

So, yesterday I stayed off it and spent most of the day on the phone and on Facebook. And so far today, I’m catching up on all the shows recorded on our DVR. Man, there is some raunchy $hit on Showtime. I mean really! Have you seen “Shameless?”

Now I’m watching the movie “Too Big To Fail” and it’s just aggravating me. I wish someone would come and bail me out of this mess. I can’t manage a household and a business with my foot propped up.

Looking Back to Brookfield

“Poets claim that we recapture for a moment the self that we were long ago when we enter some house or garden in which we used to live in our youth. But these are most hazardous pilgrimages, which end as often in disappointment as in success. It is in ourselves that we should rather seek to find those fixed places, contemporaneous with different years.”

— Marcel Proust, 

In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past

9037 Bartlett Avenue

A childhood friend, John Buck, who grew up one or two streets over from me, sent this photo of the home in which I grew up. I spent nearly 18 years there, moving out in August, 1978. Returning briefly after my first year of college, when I got there my parents were gone and there was a FOR SALE sign in that patch of lawn in front of the picture window and evergreen shrubs. I don’t think they’re they same shrubs, and it appears the widow was replaced as well.

This house is often the setting in my dreams. But I don’t usually see it from the outside. In all my memories I’m inside, and I belong there.

Looking at this house and remembering my past, with respect to Marcel Proust, I am not disappointed. It reminds me of the value of a stable childhood, which is a legacy I wish to pass on to my own children. Even though we move twice a year, at least we go back-and-forth to the same two homes. And as we prepare them for their futures, I can only hope that when they do look back, it is with a feeling of success.

“He Won’t Shoot Me.”

I don’t know whether or not this is true or if it’s Valley legend, but I’m going to share it anyway. From the moment the texts began chiming into my daughters’ phones, and postings on Facebook informed us there was a shooting in the neighborhood on New Year’s Eve, we paid attention as the details of the incident unfolded.

We warned our girls to be cautious about accepting and spreading information and suggested they patiently wait for the facts. These “facts” are continuing to trickle into the mainstream as life goes marching on.

What we do know ten days later is that there was an incident of a drug deal gone bad. Very bad. A 17 year-old boy was shot and killed while attempting to sell a pound of pot for $3,500. The prospective buyer—or according to news reports, a 19 year-old boy accompanying the prospective buyer—reportedly had no intention of handing over the cash. Instead, he pulled a gun. And, we were told—and this is the part I cannot shake—that the last words of the seller, the now deceased 17 year-old, were, “He won’t shoot me.”

If true, I can’t help but wonder how long it took for that statement to provoke the shooter, and if there was any time at all for the boy who uttered those words to process that he’d been shot.


Aside from being a drug dealer, the dead boy was known as a “good kid,” a loved boy from a good family. He went to one of Tucson’s most exclusive high schools and we had heard he was planning to attend Harvard University. Or was it Stanford? Both had been reported. They don’t let just anyone into those schools, do they? You’ve gotta be smart, right?

Many questions arise as to why he resorted to dealing drugs and how he got involved with someone with a criminal record, who didn’t hesitate to shoot him when he wouldn’t handover the weed. But when I heard he faced the serious, deadly metal of .40 Caliber Glock pistol and he didn’t handover the weed, my first thought (with apologies to those who loved him) was, “was he STUPID?”

I think the appropriate word here is not stupid, but rather, “naïve.” And yet, I’m still shaking my head. After all, we choose to raise our kids in these upscale, supposedly safe neighborhoods. We send them to good schools; give them the best educations we can, and teach them to stay away from drugs and alcohol. We THINK we know what they’re up to even as we hand them keys to their own cars at the age of 16.

But as this case proves, sometimes not even THEY know or understand what they’re up to. As they move toward independence and we move away from managing their every move, we’re left with little more than hope. We hope they’re going to be okay on the good side of town—away from the crime we see on TV and read about in the papers.

So, now I ask, did this boy’s mother have any idea her son was dealing quantities of weed? Or did the mother of the boy at whose house this crime occurred have a clue what was going on while she was “out of town?” Should these parents also be accused of naiveté? I don’t even want to wrap my mind around trying to imagine how the mothers (and the kids who witnessed the murder) feel right now, and I pray they have strength to get through this.

I want to believe that I’m a smart mother, raising smart girls who will make wise choices. Of course, I want to protect them from the sometimes harsh realities of the world around them, but at the same time, I don’t want them to be naïve. I want them to understand that sometimes shit happens simply as a matter of bad luck. Anyone can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And when I seem to them to be overprotective or asking too many questions about where they’re going and with whom? I hope they learn I’m doing my best not be naïve.


Rest in peace, young man, Carlos Sandoval. I didn’t know you, but it appears we have several mutual Facebook friends, and I do know a couple of the boys who were with you when you died. In fact, I’ve known them since they were very young—and innocent. And in conclusion, I say to my girls and to all the high school kids out there who might be reading this, please, for God’s sake, don’t let this happen again. Don’t be naïve. MAKE WISE CHOICES.

ACL Diary: The Long and Short of It

Six months. It’s a time period that normally flies by. And the six months that have elapsed since Willow’s ACL injury have, indeed, roared by with all the speed, sound and intensity of an F-16.

In retrospect, however, it feels as though it’s been the longest six months of my life as I’ve lived vicariously through—and paid for—the medical bills of my first-born, 16 year-old child.  The last three weeks, in particular, have been especially challenging.

Dr. Tucker's thumbs up

Willow’s surgeon and physical therapist officially cleared her to play soccer three weeks ago. Those were happy appointments, and as a result, she showed up on the soccer field ready to go. She, however, was met with equal doses of congratulations and welcome back, side-by-side with skepticism and apprehension.  Her club team, which picked up several talented players over the summer, had been doing just fine—excellent, in fact, in her absence.

Some apprehension may have come from her teammates, but it was also palpable from the one person for whom it counted: Willow.

And who could blame her? Anyone who has suffered this injury will tell you that after the successful surgery and rehab, it is—more than anything—an emotional experience.

Players/patients ask themselves: Will I be good enough? Will I be fast enough? Will I be strong enough? WILL I BE THE PLAYER I WAS???

On September 21, 2011, Willow was cleared to play, but only in practice. Competitive play in a game situation would be limited for “two-to-three weeks.” Then they wanted her back “full-on.” Take a few baby steps, they said, and then jump into the deep end of the pool. They assured us her knee was strong and it was all about her commitment to return. From the beginning, they treated her as a Level 1 athlete and all decisions—from her type of surgery to her rehab protocol—were based on getting her back on the field as soon as possible.

Given that Willow has been a textbook kid since the day she was born (on her due date with high APGAR and not a spot or stork bite to be found), she had the track record on which to base her good health. She proved it, once again, by working very hard at recovery and physical therapy, and even impressively restrained herself at various activities when she wanted desperately to forge ahead.

Coach Walter

Willow has been very lucky to have understanding and supportive trainers and coaches. Walter, her head coach, for example, is a man who loves and treats each girl on his team as though she is his daughter. For example, last spring on the day Willow was injured, I witnessed his immediate reaction. Coach first, he stood up and THREW his hat to the ground. Parent second, he could hardly watch as a team dad and an assistant coach carried her from the field. Walter knew, in the midst of his State Cup challenge that he was losing one of his key defenders, and displayed on his face during those minutes was the special language of love, fear, disappointment, and COACHING, that few possess and/or comprehend.

Coach Kate

God bless Walter, he saved a roster spot for Willow, and consistently checked in with us over the past six months to monitor her progress.  This is what a good coach does. And when you have a coach who believes in your kid, even an injury as serious as ACL is bearable.

In addition, this season’s new assistant coach, Kate, is a young woman who has also undergone knee surgery, and she knows as well as anyone what it takes to get back on the field after this experience. From day one of Willow’s clearance, she’s been an empathetic ally, and has monitored Willow’s progress/return.

Willow last weekend

Empathy is important; however, it’s only one aspect of assisting your child with full-on recovery. And trust me, hard as it was for Willow to sit on the bench watching her teammates play over the past three weeks, it wasn’t easy for us either.

This past weekend at a soccer tournament in Scottsdale, however, Walter threw Willow, #24, into the deep end of the pool and kept her in that first game for sixty minutes.

They were, without a doubt, the longest sixty minutes of soccer I’ve ever watched.

ACL Diary: From The Sidelines

Willow’s team is back in action and playing very well. Undefeated in their last six games, over Labor Day weekend in San Diego they earned a tournament championship and then won their first state league game of the season. Last night playing in the U-18 age group (a year up), they tied the current 1994 age group state champions in the TSA tournament.

Willow watched it from the sidelines.

Willow, in navy blue, watches with teammates

Our friend, Betsy Blackwood, who had her ACL reconstructed by the same surgeon as Willow, warned us that the hardest part about recovery is sitting on the bench while your teammates play—especially when they’re kicking butt without you. And that’s definitely true. But I gotta hand it to Willow, as she gets closer to the magical day on the calendar and her next appointment with Dr. Tucker, she handles it very well and truly supports her team.

Betsy Blackwood as an UALR Trojan

She’s been attending practices for several weeks; however, she can only warm-up with them. When they start drills, she puts on her running shoes and runs laps around the fields. Still in physical therapy twice a week, she continues to get stronger and stronger and has a goal to come back stronger than ever. We anticipate clearance for playing soccer to come very soon.

As for Betsy, she’s back on the soccer field with a scholarship at University of Arkansas, Little Rock. And from what I understand, she’s once again kicking butt!

Willow and Olivia show off their repairs

Willow’s other ACL buddy, Olivia Ortiz, a teammate for years, is also back in action after ACL reconstruction and she and her current teammates won their game in the TSA Tournament last night 2-1. 

(BTW: Livvy, we still have your ice machine and plan to return it; however, today I spoke with another former teammate of Willow’s who is undergoing ACL surgery in October, and I wonder if you’d allow us to loan it to her??)

Meanwhile, we are truly grateful for the support, empathy and inspiration Betsy and Olivia have given us throughout this process, and as we watch from the sidelines, it’s really good to know that there is indeed soccer after ACL surgery.