The wind beneath your wings shouldn't hiss

I have this chair at work that is an exercise ball balance chair. It’s one of those Pilates balls that sits in a base with wheels, and it’s supposed to be more ergonomically friendly than your standard Mad-Men-era office chairs. (Between you and me, until this thing starts making my coffee when I get to work first thing in the morning, the jury’s still out on how much friendlier it is.)


I inherited the chair from my predecessor in the office, a yoga instructor who swore by the healing properties of the exercise balance ball. Seeing that my existing chair was torturing my sciatica on a daily basis, I thought I’d give it a whirl.

The problem is that the chair has a tendency to whirl when you least expect it to, making the promised “balance” seem like a wished-for dream. One time I bent down to tie my shoelace and almost ended up in the office next door. Through the drywall, that is.

Plus, my reaction time is slower since I have to take into account the physics of the chair. Let’s just say jumping out of my chair isn’t really an option.

Which is where I was three months ago when a loud, hissing noise was coming from the hallway outside my office. It sounded like a very large snake was warning someone that he had gone too far … not a comforting sound on your average day at the office. It startled me so much that I jumped out of my chair, propelling myself off balance from the balance chair (oh, the irony!) and nearly stumbled into the hallway to figure out what was wrong.

Other employees were out in the hallway as well, trying to discover the source of the hissing. Turns out it was a loose valve of the AC unit in the conduit hoochamajig. (This is why I majored in English and not engineering.) Bottom line, the hissing stopped.

But wouldn’t you know it, it happened again a few weeks ago. As the loud hissing started anew, I sat still this time, learning my lesson from before.

But the strangest thing happened. No one else started to congregate outside my office in the hallway. The hissing was as loud as ever, but no one seemed to mind except me.

Then I noticed something odd.

As I was looking out toward the hallway over my computer screen, the screen kept getting higher and higher as the view of the hallway disappeared. Was my desk rising? Was I melting?

Finally, I looked down and realized that this was no AC valve gone awry. No, my exercise ball had sprung a leak and my hopes of balance were rapidly deflating before my very eyes.

I took the ball home, sad and deflated of any balance it ever offered, and pumped it back up, all the while laughing over how long it took me to figure out what was going on.

I’m back on my perch, so to speak, but I realized that the exercise balance ball is a metaphor for life.

I’ll be sure to let you know what it is the moment I figure it out.

Eileen Burmeister is a freelance writer who lives in Winchester, Ore. You can email her at burmeistereileen@gmail.com or you can follow her on Twitter at EBurmeister.

No exercise balance balls were harmed in the writing of this article.

Chevy Chevette ... it'll (not) drive you happy!

Our 16-year-old son recently bought a car from a trusted family friend. Sure, the car has over 250,000 miles on it, but this 1996 Honda Civic runs surprisingly well. Granted you might point out the dent in the hood from the past owner’s run-in with a deer, or the faded paint on the roof, or the crack in the window. But as far as first cars go, this one is a winner.


At least my husband and I can see that it is a winner, especially compared to the sorry jalopies we’d owned over the years (kids, ask your parents what a “jalopy” is). Of course our son, Nathaniel, wasn’t around when we owned these cars. Ever since he’s been old enough to remember we’ve had sensible and reliable family cars, and we’ve been blessed to be able to afford to get them fixed when they need it. 

He wasn’t around when we were newlyweds, poor as dirt, living in a 600-square-foot apartment and happily accepting day-old bread off of the Safeway truck. We were graduate students in love, and living from paycheck to paycheck. Macaroni and cheese made a complete meal, and date nights consisted of the $1.50 cheap theaters in Denver.

Before our marriage, I had a penchant for truly horrible car decisions. While I was paying my way through college, I grew tired of the beater cars that kept breaking down. As a commuter student, I needed a reliable car to get me to and from the university, so I decided to bite the bullet and buy a brand new 1986 Chevy Chevette. But wait! Why buy one when you can lease one for $10 a month cheaper and save yourself a full $120 a year? (At least that’s how the sales guy put it). Being young, thrifty and foolish I signed on the dotted line and leased myself a Chevette. For five years. With no option to own. Ah, youth!

The car, although brand new, went through three alternators in those five years. At one point, the driver’s-side door stopped opening, forcing me to climb over the console and exit out the passenger door. Then right about the time I was finishing up college, the passenger-side door stopped opening as well, forcing me to crawl through the hatch and hoist myself over the two seats. This was neatly timed with my student teaching at an area high school, making for an interesting entrance and exit each day.

After the “Chevette Lease Debacle,” I got smart and bought a used but reliable Nissan Maxima which I loved. I then started dating my soon-to-be husband. I heard through the grapevine that his last car was a VW van with carpeted ceilings and fuzzy dice. It was a match made in heaven.

Since then, we’ve made some wiser choices, learning from our many mistakes, but we realize that we’re only one step away from a really bad car choice. In fact, I recently passed a Chevy Sprint that had the back hack-sawed off like an El Camino wannabe, and I muttered, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

So now it’s time for our son to learn the hard way how first cars have the power to make your spirits soar and break your heart, all in the same afternoon.

Full disclosure: The Chevette was my SECOND car. My first car was even worse – a ’74 rusted out Dodge Dart. But that’s another story…

Eileen Burmeister is a freelance writer and reliable car owner, despite the dent in the back panel. She claims a deer ran into the car. You can email her at burmeistereileen@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter at EBurmeister.

Ode to the Ellipses

In honor of National Punctuation Day, which was earlier this week, The News-Review is re-publishing this column from 2009.

Going cold turkey on National Punctuation Day

I know it’s wrong to use it in such a way, and I know that it’s become a crutch, but I must admit that I’ve been having an illegitimate love affair with the ellipsis for years now. Surely, I thought, I could find a support group among the many writers who have been similarly led down this particular primrose path of pauses, but alas … none existed.

Not to be dissuaded, I set out and started my own support group called “Ellipsis … Anonymous.” I invited everyone to my house at 2000 W. Maple … a place, I must confess, I bought for the address alone … and I served M&Ms in batches of three.

However the people who showed up tended to trail off midway through their stories, or stopped abruptly before staring off into space, which seemed appropriate but really stymied the healing process. It was … daunting.

I found myself wandering the streets that night, talking to myself, binging on one story after another without end, drinking deep from the nectar of incomplete thoughts until … I hit rock bottom.

It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t pause for breath in my prose without automatically hitting dot-dot-dot. I was ravenous … a wild animal on the prowl for a pregnant pause, a thoughtful moment or a half-baked idea so I could swoop in and get my fix. I was putting ellipses where commas would suffice … ellipses when em dashes would do the trick … ellipses when a yadayadayada would convey the same idea. It was all too much and I collapsed under the pressure.
I woke up the next morning in the gutter outside of a Barnes and Nobles, gripping my beat-up copy of “Love is…” poems and staring in the face of one harsh reality … I needed help.
I got up out of the gutter, flipped open my laptop and started writing … hair of the dog and all that jazz. What I was after was a mantra to get me through the tough spots, those times where it’s just so … tempting to use that one, single punctuation, albeit incorrectly. I needed a higher power to see me through, and … amazingly … this little beauty fell out of the sky like a penny … or coin … from Heaven:

God grant me the serenity
To accept the proper uses for the ellipsis;
Courage to use it when I should and deny myself when I shouldn’t;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Doesn’t it seem appropriate, then, that today, National Punctuation Day, would be my quit day? I have decided to go cold turkey. No more ellipses for me. I’m clean and sober starting now of course that means I can’t use any punctuation for fear that the pause in and of itself would throw me headlong into a full blown relapse from which I might never recover until I could once again use my beloved and reliable ellipsis just saying the word makes this all the more harder until I simply … break … down.

They say that admitting the problem is half the battle, and I’m counting on that to be true. But right now, I have an inexplicable desire to learn Morse code and eat M&Ms. And besides, as my friend Scarlett once said … “Tomorrow is another day.”

Here's hoping cottontails are allergic to bananas

Our 10-year-old daughter Lily is volunteering at the Saving Grace Animal Shelter. Which is good and bad: Good because it’s giving her an important lesson in volunteerism; bad because she comes home each week wanting to adopt another dog.

Clearly she doesn’t remember our last foray into dog ownership: Puddy, the border collie/beagle mix. We adopted Puddy about six years ago. We named him after David Puddy, the Seinfeld character who played the witless boyfriend of Elaine – a man who was equal parts lovable and stupid. What could go wrong, right?

Within days we realized just how ill-equipped we were to own a dog.

The signs were many. It started out that when I found him on top of the kitchen table, covered in blue ink, munching on a magic marker of the same color. And to add to my infuriation he simply looked at me, head cocked, as if to say, “What’s up?”

Another time I found Lily’s Ken doll (from the storied Barbie/Ken romance) splayed across the rug in Lily’s room with both hands gnawed off well past the wrists.

And it wasn’t just toys and art supplies that drew Puddy like bees to honey. One night I made some homemade banana bread for the next day’s breakfast. I left it to cool overnight on the counter, out of Puddy’s reach.

The next morning I found it on the floor, covered in dog hair, gnawed around the edges. At first I thought my husband Craig had gotten his hands on it, but then I remembered that his hair was different than Puddy’s (thankfully). When I finally spotted Puddy he was curled up in a tight ball, trying desperately to avoid all eye contact. Oh, yeah, he was as guilty as sin.

We tried every trick in the book with Puddy but could not tame the beast. In the end, a friend of ours adopted him from us and then proceeded to move to Cape Cod. We try hard not to read into the fact that Puddy moved as far away as doggedly possible without leaving the country.

Still Lily is a lover of all animals, especially dogs. The day we gave Puddy away, we drove out to Saving Grace Animal Shelter and adopted a kitten named Sabrina. We’ve had her for three years and adore her. Except when she’s spitting and hissing; this is mostly directed at Lily.

We’ve tried to explain to Lily: “When you try to: (1) dress a cat in doll clothes, (2) try to paint a cat’s nails, or (3) braid a cat’s hair … well, let’s just say she’s not going to purr.”

Then Lily reminds me (as she’s shoving Sabrina’s leg through the arm hole of a doll party dress) that I once tried to bathe the cat, resulting in a ripped shirt and claw marks up and down my arm. Touché, Lily. Touché.

So since Sabrina is not willing to act like a dog, Lily persists in asking for a dog. Of course we want to give in, but we are reminded of the debacle that was pet ownership with Puddy. As a result, we’ve encouraged Lily to look toward adopting other, gentler animals to satisfy her desire. And I think we settled on one: a bunny.

Thanks to all of the bunnies at the Douglas County Fair this summer, Lily now has a bunny fund on her dresser, quickly filling with any spare change and allowance money she can earn.

I’m hopeful, but realistic. I’ve read enough Peter Rabbit to realize that our neighbors’ gardens may be in for a treat.

I hope they like bunnies in Cape Cod.

Eileen Burmeister lives in Winchester, Ore. She can be reached at burmeistereileen@gmail.com or you can follow her on Twitter at EBurmeister.

Oxford Dictionary's new words are simply ridic

It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean back-to-school time. I don’t even mean college football season. Of course I’m talking about the time of year when Oxford publishes its list of words added to the online dictionary.

And once again I am left sitting at my desk, head in my hands, weeping for the future of the English language. You think I’m overreacting? Tell that to the tweep with the ridic soul patch who has a hella nerve asking for a group hug. Yes, all of those words and phrases in that preceding sentence are now part of our lexicon at oxforddictionaries.com.

Sigh.

Let’s take them one at a time:

• Date night, n.: “A prearranged occasion on which an established couple, especially one with children, go for a night out together.” Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure we’ve already cemented the meanings of “date” and “night.” So couldn’t we have figured out the meaning of that compound word using nothing more than our wits?

• Hackathon, n.: “An event, typically lasting several days, in which a large number of people meet to engage in collaborative computer programming.” So it’s like a dance-a-thon only easier on the feet. And less festive.

• Hella, adv.: “Extremely; a large amount.” For example, that’s a hella stupid word you’re adding to the dictionary.

• Inbox, v.: “Send a private message or an email to someone.” Fair enough. We all use it when we’re talking about our email, so I see how this should become part of the dictionary. Well played, Oxford.

• Lifecasting, n.: Defines “the practice of broadcasting a continuous live flow of video material on the Internet which documents one’s day-to-day activities.” I think we call that “Jersey Shore” and “The Kardashians” and they’re horrible. Why encourage more of the same by giving them an official word? If it’s a word or phrase you’re after, I think the more appropriate would be “train wreck.”

• Lolz, pl. n.: “Fun, laughter or amusement.” It was depressing enough when they added LOL (laugh out loud) a few years ago, especially because an entire generation of senior citizens thought it meant “lots of love.” This lead to disastrous misunderstandings, such as sympathy cards that were signed “I’m so sorry for your loss. LOL.”

• Micro pig, n.: “A pig of a very small, docile, hairless variety, sometimes kept as a pet.” Um, haven’t we successfully described that as a “small pig” for years?

• Mwahahahaha, exclamation: “Used to represent laughter, especially manic or cackling laughter such as that uttered by a villainous character in a cartoon or comic strip.” I have no words.

• OH, n.: “A person’s wife, husband, or partner (used in electronic communication).” This one is wrong on many levels. First, as an Ohio native, it’s just confusing. Second, what does OH stand for? It doesn’t say in the entry. Old hag? Ornery hooligan? I’m left with more questions than answers.

• Photobomb, v.: “Spoil a photograph by suddenly appearing in the camera’s field of view as the picture is taken, typically as a prank or practical joke.” In my day, we simply called that “Cousin Jerry being a jerk again.” Now I know the appropriate word to use.

• Ridic, adj: “Ridiculous.” So let me get this straight. Instead of saying “laugh out loud” you say LOL (which is still three syllables, so you’re not making life any easier, I might point out). And instead of saying something is ridiculous, you get the first part out and just stop. Are you so apathetic that you don’t even have the energy to finish the word? Whatev.

And there are more. I just can’t bring myself to go on. You can see the entire list at oxforddictionaries.com if you can stomach it.

Why do I revere the dictionary so much that these additions make me cringe? Because my mom treated it like the Bible. Growing up, if we asked my mom what a word meant, she’d say, “Look it up in the dictionary” in her best Moses voice. It was most-used book in our home. The dictionary held all sorts of meanings, universes, ideas and helped explain the world around us. And I’m not seeing how “mwahahahaha” helps further explain the world around us.

In fact, I think it’s ridic and it makes me LOLZ.

Eileen Burmeister is a freelance writer in Winchester, Ore. She can be reached at burmeistereileen@gmail.com or you can follow her on Twitter at EBurmeister.

Circle of Death turns into a top-of-the-world experience

As a kid growing up in Ohio, there were a surprising number of amusement parks to choose from for a state in the middle of nowhere: King’s Island, Geauga Lake, Sea World and Cedar Point.

It was during my youth that I started my life-long decision to avoid all rides that made me (1) convinced of the effects of gravity as I plunged to my death, (2) dizzy, and/or (3) want to (how shall I put this delicately?) return the corn dog and fries I had just eaten.

Okay, I may have tended toward the dramatic as a child, but a number of these rides had you spinning, going in 360-degree loops and dropping 300 feet in six seconds. I am not a fan of any of these activities, especially when all I have to separate me from the concrete below is a nylon belt over my shoulder and a wildly insufficient bar across my lap.

What did they take me for, a 10-year-old fool?

So, instead I hit the bumper car circuit with the all the other people – mostly grandmas.

Now fast forward a few years to last Saturday, the last day of the Douglas County Fair, and my own 10-year-old Lily had not yet attended. She couldn’t stop talking about going to the fair so she could experience the same things I did as a kid.

I’m not proud to admit that I had planned to avoid the fair completely by not driving past that area with Lily in the car for, oh, say two weeks. But I can’t control where her father drives with her in the car…

She kept asking to go, and I kept finding reasons to not go, and then she pulled out the “I’ve-never-been-on-a-Ferris-wheel-and-I’m-ready-now” card. The icicles around my hard heart melted and I agreed to take her first thing Saturday morning.

Here’s the deal, though: I had never been on a Ferris wheel either. Ever. (See bumper-car-only rule above).

The conversation in my head went something like this, “Eileen, it’s been long enough. You’re an adult now and have made it through far worse events in life than a possible death from Ferris wheel. Woman-up and take your daughter to the fair.”

So we went. And my plan was to pay for us to get in, pay for one trip on the Ferris wheel, go see the animals in the barns and avoid all other rides.

But when we got in line for the tickets we discovered it was bracelet day, which meant that for $23 we could ride all of the rides we wanted until our hearts were content or we lost our lunch. Huzzah!

So, we got the bracelet and lined up for the Ferris wheel. As we approached the line I got excited when I saw that you had to be a certain height in order to ride the Ferris wheel. Could it be possible that I didn’t yet meet the height requirement? Fear leads to fanciful thinking, apparently.

I blew away the height requirement and stepped into the line. The next 10 minutes were a blur as I talked non-stop to calm my fears of getting on the death trap. Poor Lily nodded, while looking at me quizzically, wondering where her usually-sane mother had gone. (Those of you who know me please stop laughing).

Before I knew what happened we were getting into a gondola THAT ROCKED and heading upward. Let me clarify: We were not only going around in circles, but rocking back and forth. “This was not in the brochure!” I wanted to yell.

Instead I pulled out my phone and started snapping pictures of Lily to keep my mind off our impending death. At one point I realized we were at the tippy-top when Lily said, “Look how pretty it is from up here.”

She was right. It was gorgeous. The views were breathtaking, but in a good way. More importantly, I was at the top of the world with my favorite little girl.

Every rotation found me calmer and calmer until I was …. wait for it … moving about the gondola to get a better camera angle. Yeah, we Burmeister girls totally rocked the Ferris wheel.

And after that? I followed Lily on every ride she wanted to go on. We spun, we flew sideways, we slid down a huge slide, and we created a wonderful memory. Me and my girl.

Eileen Burmeister is a freelance writer who lives in Winchester, Ore. She can be reached at burmeistereileen@gmail.com or you can follow her on Twitter at Eburmeister.

Heading to Rio in 2016, with a quick stop in Bermuda

My sister Peg, a high school English teacher from Ohio, came for a visit during her time off this summer.

This year, her trip coincided with the Summer Olympics. So in between road trips to Seattle, evenings on the river, and drives through the 100 valleys of the Umpqua, we’ve been watching a lot of Olympic events with the family.

The other night we watched the U.S. Beach Volleyball team of Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor. There was one point where Misty dove to save a ball and missed, and I said, “I would have gotten that ball.”

After their win, the interviewer asked them both how they felt about being older. Kerri quickly said, “I’m 33 and Misty is 35, so I don’t think of us as old.”

“See?” I said to Peg. “It’s not too late for us. We could totally do this event in the 2016 games in Rio.” Granted, we are a little bit older, but still. Just last week we hiked to the top of Multnomah Falls. Yes, it took us two hours but WE DID IT. Plus, Peg played volleyball in grade school and I played three years in high school, so, you know, we know our way around a volleyball court.

What I’m trying to say is we’re qualified.

Never mind that we were sprawled out on a sectional couch eating a bowl of cherries during this conversation. We knew in our hearts we could be ready at go-time.

Our main concern quickly became the volleyball uniforms. They would have looked good on us in, say, 1985, but today … not so much.

However, after thorough research (Wikipedia), I found out that the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball allows female beach volleyball players the option of playing in shorts or a one-piece swimsuit. We’re going with the shorts option, and make them Bermuda shorts, thank you very much.

Seeing that we had only played indoor volleyball, I checked on the differences between indoor and beach volleyball. Here are some of the distinctions between the two, and my response to those differences.

1. Playing surface is sand rather than hard court. Well, growing up in Ohio, we are no strangers to sand because of all of the beaches…Okay, so we spent some time in sand BOXES, which totally count.

2. Team size is two rather than six, with no substitutions allowed. That’s okay; we don’t play well with others anyways.

3. Open-hand dinks are illegal and hand-setting standards are tighter in the beach game. I don’t even know what “open-hand dinks” are so we’re good.

4. Coaching during matches is not allowed. Which means you have to be quiet, Mom.

Now the distance between Ohio and Oregon could pose a problem for our training, seeing that we live 2,600 miles apart. But I’m pretty sure that if we commit ourselves to doing the Jane Fonda Workout video a MINIMUM of three times a week, we’ll just need a week or so together before the games in Rio to find our groove.

If you or someone you know is interested in sponsoring us, let me know. After all, we’ll have more than enough clothes covering us, giving your logo plenty of air time.

And just FYI, Peg and I are big fans of Starbucks and Diet Pepsi, respectively, so send those sponsorship dollars our way.

After all, nothing says “athlete in training” like Starbucks and Diet Pepsi, right?

USA! USA!

Eileen Burmeister lives and writes in Winchester, Ore. She can be reached at burmeistereileen@gmail.com or you can follow her on Twitter at EBurmeister.