Bodies, Books, Babies & Baggage: Life as I Live It

Better Things for the One Million Moms To Think About or They're Just Schweddy Balls, Baby!

2011-09-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

So, for the past few days I've been laughing at the Schweddy Balls Ice Cream that Ben & Jerry's came out with. Every time I think about it, or hear someone else talking and laughing about it or read about it, I laugh. It's funny. And the skit on SNL that birthed it is funny. Good on ya, Ben & Jerry for having the balls, er, guts to have fun with this.

Then I read about the One Million Moms and their call for a boycott of Schweddy Balls. In their words, Ben & Jerry introduced a "...vulgar new flavor has (that) turned something as innocent as ice cream into something repulsive. Not exactly what you want a child asking for at the supermarket."

Oh, boo hoo (and don't even get me started on their issue with Hubby Hubby flavor). Seriously, this is what you spend your precious time on? This is what you want to rally your the power of One Million Moms about? What a waste. There are so many more important things that you could be doing, gettiing press about, creating solutions for. And I'm not saying that these are mutually exclusive--I'm saying that there are many, many more issues that deserve your time and attention. So many in fact that you could multi-task your little brains out and still not get to all of them.

So, because I hate to see such a waste of resources, I'm going to share a few ideas I came up with on my 10-minute drive home from work.

1. Visit, clean up and put flowers on the 4,683 plus graves of the men and women that have given their lives in our current war(s).

2. Collaborate on a solution for our horrifyingly broken Child Protective Services and Foster Care system.
(You know, according to NCMEC there is an estimated 800,000 kids that are reported missing each year and children missing from care fall into three groups; those who run away, those who are abducted and those whose whereabouts are unknown.)

3. Give blood. (The Red Cross needs 1/2 a million blood donations in August/September to meet patient demands.)

4. Work with local and federal governments to put a stop to the human trafficking of young boys and girls for the international sex trade.(Worldwide, it is estimated that somewhere between 700,000 and four million women, children and men are trafficked each year, and no region is unaffected and an estimated 14,500 to 17,500 women and children are trafficked into this country each year.)

5. Talk to your children about why Schweddy Balls is so funny and then why you don't think it was a good idea. Get their opinion on it. It's called teaching your child "critical thinking" skills.

6. Spend a few minutes thinking about some other mom's son, Troy Davis, and the issues with the death penalty in this country.

7. Start and staff a voter registration drive with the goal of getting all eligible Americans ready and able to vote according to each states rules.

8. Work with Skype to make their "Skype in the Classroom" vision of a million connected classrooms a reality.

9. Gather a million of anything (mosquito netting, childrens books, pennies) and do something with them.

10. Go to http://www.avaaz.org/ and find one or two, or heck, maybe even three issues that your One Million Moms can make a real difference on. A difference that makes a real impact on people's lives.

11. Go to http://www.kickstarter.com/ and help someone or a group of someones realize a dream.

I left myself a voicemail on the way home telling myself these 11 ideas for this post so I wouldn't forget them. Literally it was 10 minutes. Which means that anyone else can spend 15 minutes and come up with 16 better ideas.

But it's not really about the ideas is it? No, it's not. It's about the fact that you have built an amazing resource and in this country you do have the freedom to do anything with that resource. All I'm asking is that you think about the responsibility that comes with that freedom and be better than worrying about something as silly as Schweddy Balls.

Purposeful Writing: Mine and Others

2011-09-13T15:36:00.001-05:00

I took an unintended break from writing this summer. I thought it was because I have having a 'word' issue. I was writing a lot for work. I had started writing a lot on two book projects of my own. And I was reading a lot of other people's words--books, articles, news stories, blogs, tweets, status updates...you name it, I was inhaling it. And somewhere in all of this, it felt like I lost 'my voice'. I sat down to write, but it all felt a bit strange. So I just stopped, thinking that the urge would return soon enough.

"Soon enough" turned into about 5 months. I was getting an itch to write again, but not the usual obsessional pull towards the computer. So I wandered around the book store and the internet and found that a favorite writer of mine, Kristin Cashore of Graceling fame, had a post on writer's block just last week. Three things I liked about her post. First, she brought Philip Pullman into the discussion and I love his anti-precious attitude about it, especially when she quotes him as saying, "Plumbers don't get plumber's block...." which is both true and false (from a literal interpretation of their job) and made me giggle. Anyway, so Mr. Pullman doesn't believe it exists. Ms. Cashore breaks her thinking about it into two areas of feeling: The whiny cop-out of the, "I don't wanna" feeling and harder to admit, yet more honest, "I literally just can't" feeling. I definitely, after putting my own experience up against her definitions, fell into the "I literally just can't" camp.

I, it turns out, needed a break. Not because I was tired of writing. Just the opposite, actually. I loved the writing, but in retrospect, I believe I was tired of writing without Purpose. Not in the little scheme of things--I had something to say every time I put fingers to keys. But in the bigger scheme of things I needed to ask myself, "What is the gestalt or the collective take away from all of this?"

Funnily enough, this is a question I ask myself everyday in terms of what I write at work, but I had yet to apply that same framework to my own personal work. This really came clear to me after I fell into editor Dennis Cooper's Little House on the Bowery series. These books are a complete left turn from what I usually read and yet I find I'm hooked mostly because I find that there is a larger theme or purpose behind all of them. Matthew Stokoe focuses on the theme of following and failing the American Dream in his writing. Cautionary tales to be sure, both Cows and his earlier High Life are both powerful statements about what drives us to want more and very hard reads. They are gritty and exhausting with a spare, almost throw-away brutality to them. But they make you think, even though the more dainty of you might actually want to throw up here or there. In Derek McCormack you find another dark author, but this is a funny, wry and surprisingly clever writer who looks at aspects of our culture through a vastly alternative lens--and, he wrote vampires before vampires were cool . In both The Show that Smells and The Haunted Hillbilly Derek gives us an unvarnished, under the glitter look at Hank Williams, Coco Chanel and others.

Now, obviously story tellers entertaining us while also creating consistent arguments about a culture or an idea/ideal is nothing new, it's just that these books were there for me when I was searching for an answer to a question I didn't know I had. So I'm a bit indebted to them.

In terms of my own purpose when it comes to my writing, I'm dancing around an answer. I've got something that feels true and interesting, but I'm just rolling it around in the back of my head, testing it out so to speak. So we'll see how it works itself out as I continue to write it all down and put it all out there.

I thought 1 was a lonely number but 11 is painful OR A Parental Dilemma

2011-03-23T12:27:00.000-05:00

My tiny baby boy turned 11 recently. And it's been like a light switch has been thrown for him---he's been in his room more, out riding his bike more, less communicative more often, more teen-like in some of his mumbled "asides"--and in his not-so-mumbled ones. I'm missing him and his innate sweetness more. Now it could be I'm just imagining all of this, but I'm not, he's pulled a way a bit and it is hurting.

So I am reveling in the current situation....he lost another tooth and, as he told me last night, he has been waiting patiently for the Tooth Fairy to arrive. Feeling bad that we hadn't had the tooth fairy scheduled, I reminded my husband to take care of it while Max was at school. His reply?

"HE'S ELEVEN!" Meaning, I guess, that Lowell believes he's too old for this type of thing. Bah Humbug! I say. If my son still believes in the Tooth Fairy, I want to support that believe in the magic of childhood.

Lowell then explains that my son is probably just angling for some cold, hard cash...and that, and I'm directly quoting him here, "I think he should pay us back for the perfectly good tooth we bio-engineered for him which he had the gall to wear-out!"

Which brings me to my current dilemma--this would be funny. Actually very funny and my son would totally fall for it, which means a lot of fun for my husband and I while our kids sit there trying to figure out if we are pulling their leg or not. We could spin this out for a good hour or so over dinner. Good fun. Good times.

But I have to weigh this against the possibility that if he were to get $1 from the Tooth Fairy he'd revert to the sweet, cuddly boy of yesteryear.

Arghhh! Why is parenting so hard? Do I go for the definitely funny or the possible cuddle?

Hell, there really was never a true choice...the definitely funny is going to win out every time in this family. Besides, I can get a cuddle when he's not paying attention, or sleeping, or in front of his friends, which will achieve both! OMG--that's the ticket.

In honor of International Womens Day or 10 Things Every Girl Should Know

2011-03-08T11:41:00.000-06:00

Most of the time I don't know what to make of days like these, where we are supposed to honor a group of people or things...except for Veteran's Day...I get that one. I don't get International Waffle Day or stuff like that. I did find that there is an International Mens Day as well and that it was started in Trinidad and Tobago in 1991.

FYI: International Womens Day was started in 1911 so this year is a Global Centenary. Each country has a different theme and in fact different organizations within that country can have different themes which I find confusing and if I were King (err, Queen) for a day, I would change that. Anyway, if you are interested, the United Nations global theme for International Womens Day is: "Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women."

In celebration, there are over 1000 activities across the world. England is host to 464 events, the US to 246. And China? Just 1. Which is amazing considering Iraq is hosting at least 3. But I digress.

I think the reason I have such an issue with days like these is that they seem too big, too vague...I don't know where to look or what to do or how to help. So, I'm going to focus where I can, on those closest to me and the ones closest to them. So here goes, please forgive the rhyming at the beginning, I couldn't help myself.

10 (+1) Things Every Girl Should Know
Yes, thank Heaven for little girls.
...for those I know and love and for those I don't.
...for those I will know someday and those I won't.
...for how you grow, for how you change
...for thinking, but almost rarely commenting, that Mommy is strange.
...but most of all for really listening when I say these things:

I love you
There is nothing you can do or say that will change the fact that I love you.
Do the right thing, not the easy thing.
Be confident in who you are.
Never be afraid to have a voice.
Never let anyone else, including me, force you into a decision you are uncomfortable with. (see #4)
Love and own yourself, your body, your hair, your nose, your butt, your breasts, your thighs and your decisions about each of those.
Be loyal and loving to your friends and family, but never blind.
Be safe, do safe, act safe
Always know that me, my ears, my brain and my heart are here for you.
(And because we should always have a Spinal Tap moment, my number 11 comes from Willa Cather, a great author to cite on International Women's Day.) Try and live your life with this in mind: "Happiness comes from dissolving yourself into something complete and great". Please never settle for anything less. Never stop working to achieve it. And when you find it, dissolve and just let yourself be joyous in it.

So, while it's no "100 Things to Celebrate about Belarusian Women", I am comfortable that if I manage to get my daughter, my nieces and their friends to know these things, something grand for women will have been accomplished. And for that, I do thank Heaven for International Womens Day.

Heart of an Artichoke, Brain of a Scarecrow

2011-01-05T14:56:00.000-06:00

"Heart of an Artichoke And Other Kitchen Journeys" by David Tanis is the first book I picked up seriously since 'the episode' on September 30th. Yes it was a Christmas gift--albeit an amazing one. And yes, I love, nay, seriously love artichokes. But I have about 30 books that need to be read, especially Karen Armstrong's "Buddha", something I've been really wanting to read since my need (yes, need) for Yoga has grown. So, it's a bit of a mystery to figure out.

Now, having thought about it for a minute or two, I think, actually that it was the word 'journey' that made me pick it up first--because I feel I've been on a bit of my own journey these last few months. As you all know from past posts, my head is giving me fits and starts in the form of a constant headache...the result has been interesting and surprisingly full of silver linings. However, one of the big problems has been my inability to read--lack of concentration, double-vision, etc...keeps me from really digging in and when I read, I tend to read for hours. And, now that I'm back at work, I'd been using my reading time up on things I need to read there.

So, it was with more than a little hesitation, that I got into bed the other night with this book. I figure I'd thumb through it, drool over the recipes and pictures, get frustrated and then put it down. But nope...there was some seriously good writing to pour over here...and writing I could identify with--it seems he and I share a 'lingua franca' if you will...although unfortunately not a love for Chocolate Chip Cookies...anyway, his recipe for getting the reader engaged in the food is with memories of tastes and smells, nostalgia via other peoples stories, and a simple view of what a meal can be--whether that meal is a plate of potato salad and a beer (yes!) or a deconstructed turkey.

More than all of this, though, this book served as a reminder to me that Rome, or David Tanis as it were, wasn't built in a day, and that I needed to apply that same reminder to me and my own current journey, a deconstructed turkey if there ever was one.

So, instead of seeing the restricted diet, the need for exercise, the meds, the yoga, the knitting, the naps, the embroidery and the slower brain as a phase to get through and forget, why not see it all as seasoning for the finished dish that will eventually be Rene? Hopefully not the finishing touches, but definitely things that will stick with me, and be a part of me as I make them my own, for a long time to come.

The night before the night before the night before....

2010-12-22T22:13:00.000-06:00

My daughter is fascinated by the idea of "eves"...the naming of the night before the big day. Of course, as some fascinations are wont to do, it's gone a bit too far. Right now she is making a list of the 'eves to come in 2011'...we are up to 22 and she is only through March. Next, she says, she will make a menu for each of the eves. I ask her, what about the next day? "Those days take care of themselves, Mom. But someone has to take care of the eves..." Interesting theory--or just another reason for her to ask for baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, blue cheese, brie, olives, salami and the rest of her "best of" menu.

In any case, I share her delight in the night(s) before, there is something to be said for the cuddly anticipation, the quiet innocence of the unknown yet to be that comes before the loudness of the 'day', whichever day it happens to be.

And of all of the eves, I, probably like thousands of others, have a special place in my heart for Christmas Eve and all of the eves that run up to it. The nights of Bing and Rosemary, with the lights off, the candles lit, the soft lights of the tree in the corner. Hot Chocolate to my right, a book to my left and a pile of wrapping in the middle. The fun of shopping with the kids for each other and their Dad, always ending with hot chocolate, even when it's 75 outside. The hopeful whispers upstairs talking through the 'what if's' of boxes that arrive daily. These are the eves of my adulthood.

The eves of my youth are distinct with memories of serious cold, of tires crunching across snow, of signing every carol we knew while driving up the hill to Butte Falls from Medford. The heater in the old blue station wagon making you drowsy so the singing becomes that wonderful drone in the background of your dozing--until one of your four brothers and sisters yells that you are in their seat space...and then inevitably, the magic dissapated for a bit, sometimes for good, as the night became not so silent. In our case, the irony of multiple instances of taking the Lord's name in vain on the heels of 'Oh Come All Yee Faithful' often got lost in the ensuing melee.

Which, as it happens, is history repeating itself as upstairs, the soft silence of my eve of the eve of the eve is broken because the older brother caught wind of the "Eves of 2011" production that is occurring and is repeatedly telling his little sister that "...it doesn't work that way, you are making all of this up..." and I'm waiting for the....yup, there it is, "Mooooom! And, ooohh... I just heard a 'dammit'.... Here is an eve memory we'll all remember for different reasons.

Luckily, the hot chocolate to my right goes well with the Peppermint Schnapps in the cupboard.

Oh, My Body, My Body, Part Deux Or Headcase, Anyone?

2010-12-22T13:00:00.000-06:00

So, I havent' written since I've been back to work. I've been struggling with how to manage it all...but here is the kicker--The struggle is all in my head. Irony.

The work itself is easy. I'm good at it. I love it and it energizes me in a way that I'd taken for granted. I've had no problem working up to my own standards. I've had no problem setting boundaries as to how much I'll allow on my plate at any given time. And, I've been just as, if not more effective. Awesome.

The taking care of myself? Yeah, not so much. I find it easier to fall back into the craptastic schedule I was keeping before September 30th. So disappointing and disappointed...actually more than that. I'm totally pissed at myself. But, like horses, bikes, bulls and relationships, you just gotta jump back in and/or on and that's where I'm at now...jumping back in/on.

See, the first week went great. I got up, walked three or four miles, got back, ate a good breakfast, took my meds and got to work at a reasonable 9 am. Worked, had my banana/slimfast shake and almonds for lunch. On the way home did my yoga or rowing. All of this in the service of managing my chronic headache from Occipital Neuralgia....the weight loss was a bonus.

Realized quickly that all night exercise will have to be moved to the morning....I'm too exhausted after work to get anything good out of the rowing or yoga. So, figure out the new schedule, no problem...plenty of options for me. Feeling good. Feeling upbeat, yes, even a little cocky.

Second week, Monday. Sabotage....Self-Sabotage. The voice inside my head that was saying, "heya, the pain is managed, don't worry about it"...so I slept in and scurried out the door without being able to look my husband in the eye when he asked if everything was fine. "Totally Fine", I said. Which is actually code for "Totally fucked".

Second day followed the first day. Except I did the utterly unthinkable and stepped on scale....gained a pound back. Spent the fourth day talking to my therapist about how I am so angry at the self-sabotage and reminding myself that this is not about weight, it's about my head. Nothing changed over the next few days....except Tuesday of Third week, I wake up with my head pain at about a 8 or 9 when I had it consistently down to a 4 or 5.

My fault. No exercise, wrong food, not enough sleep. So sucked it up, went downstairs and jumped, okay, shuffled, into family life. Later, a nap, shower and pain pill and we were out and about.

All of these years, it's been about the vanity of weight, with good intentions wiped out by evil little voices, laziness and fear...the justification of "I can still do anything." Of, "I like being a little cuddly." Of "Reuben had it right, red hair and curves."

Except it's not about that anymore....exercise and diet are just a way for me to manage the real issue with is chronic head pain--something that actually does keep me from doing things with my kids, my husband, my self...now and in the long term.

So, back in the saddle, old girl. Or as my daughter said to me the other night, "My brain gets me into trouble too Mom. You just have to wait until the right moment when it's not looking and then do the right thing."

So, for the next six weeks or so Brain, "look away, look away"!

Subjective Pain, Yo Yo Ma, Porcupines and Soofganiyots

2010-11-29T22:23:00.000-06:00

photo by Lowell Lipton

I have found just enough amusement in the words "migraine pain is subjective" to just let it go. 60-some days in with an unrelenting headache/migraine I find myself on the cusp of going back to work in a week--there are a lot of questions I'm asking myself about this, but the main one is, "will I be able to work up to my own high standards?" Will I be confident and comfortable with the product I put forward? God, I really hope so.

I often thought I'd go crazy at home not working, but I found that to be an artificial construct I created to make myself feel better about not working. The reality is I needed these two months and quite frankly I need more time to work out the kinks in my pain managment routine--you see I can get to about 3 pm right now with the pain at about a constant 5 (with 10 being the worst). If I take a nap, then I can extend that to about 7 pm...but at that point...zoooey mama...it ratchets up and I'm wanting my pain medicine, a dark room and a comfy bed. All of this is in the context of me not reading, driving or being in any stressfull situations. Add those three things back in and well, I'm not sure what it going to happen. Someone once told me to "get comfortable on the edge of the unknown--to be curious about what is coming...". I think that lesson was for right now.

So, since the FMLA folks find headaches and migraines "subjective", I'm back to work a few weeks earlier than I had hoped. It will take a lot of planning and management on my part to make going back to work, well, work--both for myself and my teams--not to mention my clients and I want it all seamless, hidden from them because it's not their issue and I don't like feeling weak or "less than" in front of others. Of course, this is silly because I'm not even back to work and I'm already adding stress. Excellent. Good Plan.

So, we'll see. Curious about the unknown and all of that.

During these two months off I struggled early on with the idea of not having a "purpose" other than getting well and I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish. Of course, I wrote that list in a journal and thought I could journal all about accomplishing this list. Oh, belly laughs for sure. Serious hysterics at this one. The list mocked me from afar because I didn't touch the friggin' journal past week two. That, however, does not mean I did not accomplish a few things.

First, I did learn how to knit. It is not calming for me, but I did it anyway. I can knit basic scarfs with one stitch...if I try to pearl it all goes to hell. So, all the scarves I'm knitting are knitted, no pearls. For those of you getting them for a holiday gift...deal with it.

The office, after two years, did get organized. It felt good, but not as good as I thought it would. Big let down. Basicially I realized that now I have to keep up the organization. Not so much a silver lining for me.

And, I did go through all of the kids schoolwork from the past three years and put the items we thought 'keep worthy' into their memory trunks...along with tiny underwear, baptism outfits and the pregnancy diaries I did keep when I was "round for a reason". Now my daughter is creating 'memory boxes' for Big Spitty our deceased cat, for her favorite stuffed animal and for the 'first grandparent to die'. Lovely. "Monster creation" was not on my list, but I could go back and write it in and then immediately cross it off just to feel that sense of accomplishment.

I've gotten into an exercise routine...walking, yoga-ing and rowing...I feel so much better for it. And my iPhone is chock-a-block full of new music for this new 'Exerciser Rene'.

Which is how I figured out that Yo Yo Ma is for Fall...especially Fall mornings that are kinda foggy. He works really well then. And, I found that I prefer walking to singer/songwriters and alternative music as opposed to rock, pop or techno (unless it's Gavin Froome and then it's good.)

Speaking of techno, that's what my 8-year old daughter wants for Christmas. That and a giant (bigger than her) stuffed Penguin. My son wants "30 books and a porcupine". Seriously, 30 books! He didn't even get to put the Mac Air on his list...it was no sooner out of his mouth than the laughter began. First time in a while my husband and I laughed so loud, so hard. We had to thank him for that.

Back to the porcupine. His best friend has two ground hogs and a hedgehog, so my son figures, what is better than that? Obviously, he got his critical thinking skills from the other side of the family. :)

Tonight, the eve of Hanukkah, I made Soofganiyots or Israeli Doughnuts for the kids to take in to their classes tomorrow. While my Jewish husband had never heard of these, I know they do exist and that they are for Hanukka because they are in "1000 Jewish Recipes" cookbook that was given to me when I married my husband. So there! My son, who was helping me for a bit, did ask why we didn't have a "1000 Catholic Recipes" cookbook for me, so I quickly took the conversation back to the porcupine...much safer and easier discussion.

It's about 10:30 pm...we sent my daughter to bed about 2 1/2 hours ago. She just peeked down the stairs and asked me about Mad Cow disease.

All I can think right now is, thank goodness I learned recently that pain is subjective.

The Paper Chase: Things to be Thankful For And The Sergeant's List

2010-11-18T21:49:00.000-06:00

So I was going through all of the paper floating around our house today--paper that our children create on and with in their various activities throughout the day. Not just school related, it was found falling out of backpacks, stacked on desks and chairs, under beds and yes, even (and already) in the bathroom on the floor by the toilet.

At first, it was just a regular chore, me the memory keeper sorting through what goes in the trash, what each child might want to keep and what I might want to put in their memory trunks for later, you know, when they are grown ups and I want to embarrass them. However, about half-way through I found myself sitting in the craft/music/sports room reading through some of these--some making me laugh, others making me cringe and some just plain old confusing me as I couldn't 'see' the child that created the thing I was looking at...it wasn't a child I was acquainted with obviously. Even if it was my kid.

First, I'm happy to see in the "Things I like About" booklet by my daughters classmates that all of them find her funny and amusing. A few of them even find her awesome, wierd, nice and terrific. I agree with all of that (although the spelling was changed to for the sake of her second grade friends) and I 'm happy to see all of these great descriptors. However, I was most impressed by two of the children who said that she is a 'good friend". These are not children that my daughter mentions much or has play dates with and I only knew them from the class list or the mentions on the class blog. So when I asked my daughter about it, she just said that some of her classmates aren't that nice to these two kids and she "kinda takes care of them' sometimes. I asked her to tell me more about this and, with a good amount of impatience, she just said, "I make sure that no one is putting rocks in their shoes at recess, and that they don't get pushed out of line."

Rocks and recess lines...I remember when making and being a good friend was just that easy and without getting to sappy, I told her she was a good kid and that I was proud of her and gave her a hug. "Whatever, Mom. Are you sure you didn't take too many of your headache pills today?" And......scene.

Not that she knows it, but she somewhat redeemed herself later when I read her "Things I am Thankful For" list, because it was pure "her"...sweet, funny and a little wierd. And here it is:

1. Food
2. Making Food
3. Uncle Charlie

4. Air

5. Mom and Dad
6. Teachers
7. Brother
8. Cousins
9. Hearts
10. Life

And in her own "Spinal Tap" moment, she added her own number 11. More Food

I'm just glad I made the list and I've used logic to be okay with the fact that we came after "air".

Later, I came across an oddly important looking document entitled, "Sargents Test" (sic). It was obvious from the writing that my daughter had written the questions and my son had answered them, part of some game they had been playing in the park earlier. According to the document, he passed his "Sargents" test, although the "tester" told the "testee" that he still needed to come up with a better "Sargent" nickname. But I'll get to that later.

Page one of the test was the stuff that threw me--although I don't really know why. Boys, even boys like ours who have not grown up around guns, and who aren't allowed to watch movies like "Kill Bill" even though their friends get to, play their version of soldier, cowboy, lawman, etc. It just blew me away that either of them knew enough to ask and answer questions about "flanking maneuvers" or that the 'stock' is the main body part of a gun.

I was happy to see that he had only 'killed' 4 men and that he'd left (or kept...it wasn't that clear) 69 men alive. That made me happy and hopefull...hopefull that he could see the 'human' factor of a war and not just the 'cool stuff' like guns and flanking maneuvers. Happy in that he might have actually listed to some of the talks we've had when we thought the 'war' stuff was getting a bit too intense.

We've seen him grow into a solid historian about WW II. He's read "Band of Brothers", "Diary of Anne Frank" and about a million other fiction and non-fiction books about WW II. He has looked up his Grandfather, Rear Admiral Charles Beasley who was in the Pacific theater of the war on a destroyer and he idolizes my father, Lt.Commander John Huey, a fighter pilot off carriers through 1968. And, because it's who we are, and because we want him to be able to understand and discuss war and soldiers on a different level, my husband and I make sure to talk to our kids about the wars they've grown up with--the why's and how's of Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan and especially the human factor of the war in terms of our troops and their families, as well as the civilians who are living through all of this on the other side of the world.

I knew all of this, had participated in all of it, but I don't think I knew what it meant to him, or rather what it meant to his character. And I'm not sure I do now. But I'm going with the fact that "men killed to alive" ratio was 4 to 69...that my sweet boy values life even at this pretend level. This is something we'll keep talking with him about--that both as a budding historian and a boy who plays war in the park, it's easy to read about shooting and killing and it's easy to play at it, but he can never forget that it all comes down in the end to two things...his understanding of the value of humanity and the choices he makes about that value as he continues to build his character..

On another note, I have to agree with my daughter (the "tester") about his choice of nicknames: Fish Eye and Dead Claw just don't have any, well, meaning or panache. He'll have to work on that as well.

Melancholy, Baby Or The Soundtrack of A Painful Morning on Short Term Disability

2010-11-15T11:46:00.000-06:00

It probably doesn't help that I'm listening to Holly Golightly signing "Slowly But Surely", or that it's a grey, grey day, or that I'm still at home with a migraine/headache that has been constant since September 30th.

This is a new and unpleasant experience for me...me from the family of "no blood, no foul" and my personal favorite, "you can find sympathy in the dictionary between shit and syphillis". Me of the marriage to the man who is disabled with a chronic pain/neurological issue for the last 6 or so years and deals with it well. No matter what, I was always the type of person to get up, find a way to fix things and move forward...that is what I do.

But right now I feel stymied by the cage of bureaucracy I find myself in--stuck between the bars of doctors and insurance companies and short-term disability organizations that all move on their own timeline regardless of what the other company, or patient needs. I thought since I've been diagnosed finally with Occipital Neuralgia things would get easier with the paperwork, but actually not. Go figure.

Am I receiving good care? Yes, I believe my doctor has a firm grasp on the issues and is working a conservative, but smart course of treatment. And, as a bonus, I like and trust him.

But I'm realizing that "care" is a complex entitity for me. Just like with your children when they are sick, medicine is never enough--they need the right blanket, the right stuffed animal, the right lap to be cuddled in. The right story at night, the right whispered conversation in the middle of the night and the right silly movie from the couch in the middle of the day.

I doubt it's just me, but adults on short-term or long term disability need our own version of these things:

My own version of my "blankie": a call from the boss to check in on you, to let you know that you are still a part of team. Calls and notes from friends and families...not about getting well, but about connecting you to things outside of your own head and body.

Things you can count on: like the right records being faxed to the right entity without having to check and double and triple check. Promised updates on your 'file' coming through when they are supposed to. Knowing when you are going to get paid so that you can take care of your family.

Things you can accomplish: whether it is cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen or trying something new like knitting. I've spoke of this before on this blog, but it's about having a "purpose", whether big or small, aside from getting better or well.

(Egads, now Richard Thompson is singing "Beeswing"--I've got to play something a little more chipper.)

Luckily, I have a great "blankie" with my friends and family, and I've got a good list of "purposeful to do" things that don't make my headache worse. The "things I can count on" are a bit more problematic and cause anxiety which then rachets up the old headache....viscious circle.

(Okay, Lords of Acid, "Let's Get High and Have Fun" sounded better in theory than practice...Now I'm back to Nina Simone, "Four Women".)

The worst part of it all is feeling like you are being judged for taking Short Term Disability for something like a headache....even when I explain that it's been constant since the end of September. Even when I explain the double vision, the nausea, the speech dysplasia, the pain that makes me want to grind my knees into a rocky asphalt road while hoping for a car to come by and just clip me a little. It didn't help when my first doctor asked my husband, in the context of the FMLA paperwork, "How many times has she tried this?". Me, a 60-70+ hour worker, who is always there for the people I work with and for! Lowest point, definately.

But I know where to find sympathy, right? And relatively, I've got it easy...there are bigger problems in the world and people more worthy of an "emotional blankie" than little old me. Besides, I've got Yoga tonight...that's good for at least two or three good giggles at myself.

So, I'm ending this with Hello Saferide and "Last Bitter Song". Fitting.

Yoga Made Me Cry, And The Rest of the Week

2010-11-06T15:59:00.000-05:00

About 60 minutes into the 75 minute class, the teacher asked me to "grasp my sucess" or something of the like. I couldn't. In fact success wasn't just eluding me, it was fearsomely mocking me. I felt like crying or puking, knowing me probably both at the same time. We had just got done doing this meditation that required me to fold my right hand together with the thumb under (think about it as the exact wrong way to make a fist when you are punching someone or something), squeeze it tight as you can while attempting whistling and focusing on the end of your nose at the same time--and I think there was a special type of breathing that was supposed to happen at the same time. For me it was like trying to tap my tummy and rub my head at the same time--nothing came together and at the end of the 11 minutes I felt like a complete and utter failure. I can't whistle, I kept forgetting to look at the end of my nose and I think I was breathing in when I was supposed to be breathing out. The only good news is what I could hardly unclasp my hand and it hurt, (Yoga Claw!) so I gathered from the feedback that this was a good thing.

The teacher, who was actually amazing, soothing, funny and more made some mention, in general, at the end of the class about being a pre-beginners class and I' m pretty sure it was meant for me. But no, I'm going stick out the regular old beginners class, so next Saturday I'll be there, fire breath, yoga marching and trying to direct it all to my third eye. Oy vey.

The rest of the week had ups and downs, but overall I'm feeling, finally, like I'm moving forward through this whole migraine from hell medical leave.

UPs:

The Austin Weather! Cool, crisp with the scent of wood fires in the air. At night, there has been the hint of moisture, so a little fog. To me, this is perfect weather and I could live year round in it. It makes for especially nice walks, both in the morning as a workout and at night meandering around the neighborhood with my husband.
The Fushigi Experience: my daughter had been asking for the Fushigi (an anti gravity ball from a long-form commercial that promised magic, delight and it was theraputic! After three months of mentions, she gets it for her birthday. Twenty minutes later, the screams of "It's a rip-off" bounce around the house. You ask why this is under an "Up"? Well, first, it's funny as hell to hear your 8-year old ranting righteously about the magic ball being a rip-off. And secondly, it's a good lesson for her to learn. The Fushigi Ball now holds a place of prominence--a silver, glowing sphere on the mantle under the television.
New Neil Diamond album! "Dreams". I'm not an undercover fan at all. I love Neil, especially the stuff from the last decade or so.
Deep Relaxation Yoga. I have to admit that I've allowed myself to fall off the edge of curiosity when it comes to yoga and I'm comfortable building my wings, mistakes and all, on the way down. I even went so far as to by a CD and a lavender eye-bag so when I can do it at home. The first time my daughter was interested in joining me and it was going well until the voice on the CD asked us to direct our energy to the "right buttock, the left buttock". Sophia, standing up from her little rug, snorted and said, "I can't learn anything from a guy who doesn't know that people have just one butt!" and marched off to her room. I wasn't sure if I should let that energy expand into the universe, but I figured it couldn't hurt.
Halloween was fun!
Something Is Working: Whether it's the medications, the cortisone treatments, the better eating, sleeping, exercise or yoga...or all of it together. My migraines/headaches seem to be leveling out. They haven't gone away yet, but the seem to be settling into a manageable mode. I'm looking forward to the next round of procedures and what positive outcome they can bring!

Downs

In one of my first Deep Relaxation Yoga classes, the teacher asked us to think of and talk about a person in our lives, but who had passed away, who we tried to model ourselves after. The majority of the women in the room, of all ages, and including me, brought up our Grandmothers and described them as "fearless, fierce, confident, strong, takes no bullshit". It made me wonder if this generation would be described the same way by our granddaughters. I'm not sure--I think we have a lack of good role femal, pracital and strong role models, quite frankly and are afraid of the "bitch" label. When I think of strong and practical women, I have quite a few in my personal life--but only two in my global life (Hillary Clinton, Rachel Maddow and Eleanor Roosevelt). I must find more, or as Eleanor said, "You must do the things you think you cannot do."
I'm sick to my stomach and heart about this 'sound bite' society we live in now. We all want things fixed faster than fast--the economy, healthcare, jobs, education, etc...yet we don't take responsibility for the fact that we all had a hand in creating the fiasco, and it took us a long time to screw things up so badly. So instead of sticking to the person we voted in, we start searching for the next group of people who, regardlesss of their good intentions, won't be able to satisfy the needs in the time we give them. It's a vicious circle that concerns me more and more and personally, I blame anyone 40 and younger...we should be smarter than this and we should have the determination to work the hard work to get it done right.
Finally, and related to above, after living through this mid-term election I look back to something else Eleanor said and find it even more true today, "Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little." I think we all know the side we are erring on.

So, no books yet, obviously, but I'll get there. As I will with the Yoga...hopefully without tears or arguments over whether there is one buttock or two with an 8 year old. I just gotta keep remembering...in the future, I'm awesome.

Things That Are Supposed to Relax Me Actually Do The Opposite

2010-10-30T21:26:00.000-05:00

Okay, a month now of consistent migraine, cluster headache, occipital neuralgia or whatever it is. New Doc, new drugs, new possibilities, day by day I'm muddling through.

I'm trying to read each day, but it makes the headache worse more times than not, so it's a crapshoot.

I was able to sew up my daughter's school Halloween costume (Hobo)--as opposed to the one she is trick or treating in (skeleton), which was fun. And we made two cakes together for her class Cake Walk at the school Fall Zamborree. Loads of fun in the kitchen with frosting---thanks to Top Chef: Just Desserts we even carved and other fancy stuff. The pumpkin looked like a nice carved pumpkin. The skull? Not so much. It was probably the last cake forced upon some wary winner. Oh well, we are pretty sure it tasted good.

But these are very small moments in between a lot of sleep and a lot of cursing silently in a darkened room. Not the way I want to live my life even for a short period of time.

There are two things I've been told time and time again by literally everyone that will help keep my brain free of pain: exercise and things that relax you. I now believe that "litterally everyone" hates me.

I walk because running is out...anythiing that bounces my head up and down or back and forth is out, which is problematic on a whole other level, becuase THAT relaxes me. Irony much?

So, on the manufactured relaxation front I'm trying two things. One, Yoga. Not the bendy yoga for reasons mentioned above, but a deep relazation yoga and one called Kandalini (sp?). Secondly, I'm attempting to take up knitting.

Knitting. Or as I call it these days, 'Fucking Knitting". Edvard Munch once said, "No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.". If he was painting me, he could paint a woman knitting and suffering! A two-fer for old Edvard...what a bargain for him except I think he already painted it...you know, The Scream.

I did the right thing...I bought what the internet said to buy in terms of needles and yarn and then I picked up Knitting for Dummies because someone said it had the best pictures. It might. In fact it probably does. But the fact is that I didn't shoot low enough...I should have bought Knitting for the Absolute Idiot and maybe then I would, after a full week, be able to do more than cast on a few stiches before it goes completely to hell, along with my language. This is neither satisfying nor relaxing and I end up back, cursing silently and possibly more inventively, in a darkened room.

In fact, this whole knitting debacle is so pathetic my husband is out right now at Wal-Mart attempting to get me a different set of needles and a different type of yarn...I love him for it, (and lord knows, this proves he loves me) but I'm not holding out much hope. He also found and showed me the best apps on the iPhone for knitting, probably in the hopes that I'd stop muttering on the couch like a crazy woman. I even went so far as taking my 8-year olds advice and called my Mother because as my daughter put it, "She can knit and talk to people, including Grandpa who is deaf, so she must be good." I called, she was out, but my Dad got a great laugh out of it.

I will continue to work at knitting. Probably, knowing myself, for the sheer need to conquer it although I do hope to find some sense of accomplishment and moments of relaxation.

I'm not ready to talk about Yoga yet. I'm trying to give it time. All I have to say is that Deep Relaxation Yoga is painfully like what I do the rest of the time: lie down in a darkened room cursing silently.

The Blessing of Double Vision!

2010-10-14T21:29:00.000-05:00

I was trying to read the NYT online today, and it didn't go as well as hoped--glary double vision and all. However, in the Fashion & Style section of all places (hello, Sports?), it did ask me "Can Paul Rabil Make Lacrosse Sexy?".

Do they need to ask, seriously? It reminded me of a line I read a while ago in a romance book that made me giggle: "He smiled then and made her heart spring like a lemming flinging itself into the sea." Best. Line. Ever. And I could see it applied to my double-visioned person of beauty.

And, maybe he'll be the one that will bring some positive press to the sport.

I know It's All Relative: I Cheer for the Chilean Miners, but Me? I'm Angry and Icky and Bookless!

2010-10-13T22:42:00.000-05:00

Twelve days ago I got hit with my first migraine ever. Knocked me on my ass...hard. I drove myself to the hospital. Not the smartest move ever. I don't remember much but some honking, so am assuming I drove really slow. Cause that's how I was feeling...sloooowwwwwww, distorted, like a off-kilter sound-wave.

I got to one hospital and got transfered to another and then spent five days on Dilauded (sp?) ...lots of it. Dreamy. I gotta say that for the first time I understand the whole addiction thing.

Got sent home cause I was "healed"...but unfortunately still have migraine. Saw some new doctors and they want me to wait for their new meds to take effect--up to two weeks. This makes me angry...I'm taking notes on how their meds are affecting me and I've got some suggestions, but no....I'm just the tottering, squinting, slow-talker they will see next Tuesday.

There are a lot of sucky things about this...first is the fact that I don't know when this is going to end. Everyone says it won't last much longer. Everone else says they can't believe it's lasted this long. So, I'm trying to stay on the edge of curious, but I don't do well when I can't see what's out in front of me. At all.

I guess it's not all bad. My son did get some laughs telling the story about how Mommy projectile vomited all over herself and the passenger seat of the car when we were all stuck in rush-hour traffic on the way home from the doctor. He did not like giving up his shirt to me so I could wipe my face off, but that's the price you pay for funny.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone tells me to not worry, about anything. Is that possible? Seriously? How do I not worry about how the pressure is affecting my husband who is disabled and about how tired he looks, that my son has suddenly developed a lot of tummy aches, my daughter is suddenly obsessed about fairness in terms of good and bad people, about falling behind at work and putting pressure on an already understaffed department. I am not the type of person who can lie still in a dark room not worrying about stuff even though her head would feel better if I smashed my hand in a car door. Twice. Hard.

Along with the pain in my head, my body feels gross. I'm eating less because chewing hurts. I can't stand the taste of my elixir of life, Diet Pepsi anymore, so I'm drinking more water than is possibly good for you. Yet my skin is blah, my nails are cracky, my hair is so-so. I find myself getting weepy when shows like Criminal Minds and NCIS use emotional quotes. So you can see I'm a disaster.

Personally I think it's because of two things...First, I got no 'purpose'...it's not like I'm taking time off to "be at home" or anything, so short of trying not to puke when I move, or playing my new favorite game, "guess which of the double-vision objects is real", there's not a lot of reason in my life right now. I do NOT do that well.

The second thing is that I can't read right now---I have multiple books just waiting for me to read them..and not just books, magazine articles, web articles, etc. They are calling to me...all of that knowledge, all of those ideas that are waiting for me to find them. All of those wonderful phrases, sentences...the tempo of a beautifully written paragraph. Sigh. All of those bits of information that I put aside until they are ready to be useful for a friend, a client, my family. It's driving me batty!!!! More importantly, I feel lost without them on some level. I do get to listen to my daughter read to me from "Alex and the Ironic Gentleman" by Adrienne Kress. A really fantastic book for girls of all ages.

So, three hours later, I finish this one tiny blog...more than twice what it usually takes. Mainly because brain is slow and cranky and double vision typing sucks...and I'm still without...without an end in sight, without an answer as to what to do and dammit all, without a book to read.

But the fantastic news is that tonight when I totter off to bed, I will quietly kiss my kids goodnight, both of each of them

Guest Post by Luke Sullivan: Never Shop At A Book Store When You Are Stupid

2010-09-13T12:19:00.000-05:00

NOTE: I am lucky enough work with Luke, so I get to read his stuff all of the time. I thought this was a nice partner to my previous post, so I asked him if I could publish it on my blog and he graciously agreed. Luke is the author of "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This", his take on creating great advertising.

You’ve probably heard that saying: “Never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry.” Well, it makes sense. You end up buyin’ all kinds of junk food that looks yummy, or buyin’ way more than you planned on.

Which reminds me of that time I went to a liquor store sober.

Dude. Big mistake. (“Awww, man, gotta get me some of this vodka. And this gin. Get some gin. Ooooo, tequila, get that.”)

Well, wouldn’t you know it, just the other day I walked into Book People here in Austin…. and I walked in stupid. Because there is so much that I don’t know, well, suddenly I’m reachin’ for every stinkin’ book on the shelves.

(“Gotta get me the new Franzen book. Oh, man, and lookit this new Blackwell title, ‘Outliers.’ He’s so smart, gotta git that.”)
Man oh man, I nearly flattened the embossed numbers on my Mastercard.

You know what might cure me of this book problem?

The new Kindle. Reason I say that is because the ads say the new Kindle can store 3,500 titles. Three thousand five hundred titles?

Here’s the thing. I’m a pretty fast reader. On vacation, I’ve been known to put away a book a day. But even at my best, … 3,500 titles? Polishing off that digital bookshelf would take nine and a half years of constant speed reading. Even Evelyn Wood, the speed-reading queen herself, man, at around book #1,954 … wouldn’t she just blow up?

Do I really need to carry 3,500 books on vacation? A guy named Barry Schwarz wrote a cool book called The Paradox of Choice. His main thesis: “We assume that more choice means greater satisfaction when it fact it means less.” He posits that a massive number of things to choose from can make a person feel bewildered, then anxious, and ultimately less satisfied after taking a purchase decision.

I think I know what Mr. Schwarz’s talkin’ about. Can you imagine if the first iPod’s commercials promised “A Trillion Songs In Your Pocket.” Man, I’d just tip over at the concept of a mathematical eternity burnin’ a hole in my pocket. I’d blow up.

Don’t get me wrong, I happen to love my e-reader (an iPad). But I don’t think the main promise of a Kindle or an iPad is a Brobdingnagian memory. Just gimme a digital L.L.Bean tote’s-worth. Just enough books to get me through the Labor Day weekend.

Reading Requires All 5 Senses!

2010-09-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

I read today, online ironically enough, that the Oxford English Dictionary will NOT EVER be printed again--only being available online from the 4th Edition forward. (see amazing note at end)

Last night, my 10-year old son looked up from the book he got from the library earlier and asked for a Kindle. (Such a funny kid)

The apocolypse is upon us...no one will have to burn books anymore, they'll just have to delete them. Not as dramatic for those doing the burning/deleting, so hopefully satisfaction in that will go way down and thus will go away...but I digress.

The point is that with the move towards electronica, we risk losinig the context of touch, the meaning that comes from the visceral nature of books and not just from the act of reading it. I agree with Anna Quindlen when she said, basically, "...that she'd be happy if her kids idea of decorating is building enough bookshelves."

Books have a feel, a smell, a heft, a non-biological warmth to them that not only adds to the experience of the read itself, but they add a context to the space they reside in as well--reading Anna Karenina would not have been the teenage pivotal experience (trite, I know) it was for me if it weren't for my ability to remember the weight of it splayed on my stomach as I dozed on the couch in the sun thinking about what I had just read, the feel of the pages under my hand. Those visceral memories are a direct link to my growing understanding of language, literature, love, loss, and family--and now, simply knowing it is there in the house, occupying the same space, gives me comfort among other things.

George Robert Gissing said it best: "I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things."

Later, giving my son a back scratch before bed, I ask him why there are so many books in bed with him, on his bedside tables, under his bed. "I don't know Mom, I just like the feel of them, knowing that they are there with me."

"Would you feel the same way if there was a Kindle next to your lamp or on your bed?" I ask.

"Mom", he say disgustedly, "sleeping on a Kindle would be painful. Besides, I like seeing them around me."

"Exactly." I smile and kiss him goodnight, knowing that when he has his own house, he'll have lots and lots of bookshelves in it. And that makes me happy.

Amazing note: The 3rd Edition of the OED has been in the works for 21 years and will take approximately 80 lexographers another 10 years to finish! Wow!

Ch- Ch- Ch- Ch- Changes, or Not

2010-08-23T21:20:00.000-05:00

On the way to her first day of second grade I was a-joshin' and a-jokin' my daughter because she looked and sounded grumpy. She sounded grumpy a little louder and so I told her I was trying to get her to smile and be happy on this, her first day of second grade.

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen, Mom." Sarcasm, drip, drip, drippin' with each of her little steps.

Ahh....I guess things haven't changed that much. Because that's what I was afraid of...things changing. So, with her attitude firmly in tow, my daughter left me at her classroom door feeling happy and secure.

At the dinner table...even more security! My son made new friends and could tell us that they were all democrats and were into music. My daughter's new friends set themselves apart, one because he dressed really cool and the other because they had a "cool dead tooth". She with her red striped hair fit right into the little group.

And now, my son is singing about going to school tomorrow and my daughter is grumping about getting up early. He's reviewing his math, she's writing her reading minutes in her reading log. She's got tomorrow's outfit selected and he's only planning on changing out his socks from today's outfit.

Sighhhh, normality. Happiness is me.

You see, I'm not actually that good with change. It makes me feel uneasy, out of control. Not necessarily a good thing either as a parent or in, well, any career. I first noticed this when I was in school. In elementary school, I felt I would get used to one teacher and then the next year, a different one with a different approach. I would worry about not doing well, that I would do something wrong.

Then, as I became a bigger reader, I found I was more comfortable with historical novels (still am today) than with those that "looked forward", like Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. All books about a dystopian future--places I know I wouldn't do that well, quite frankly. I hated reading them...I could never get comfortable in their skins.

And while time and experience has taught me that change isn't as scary as I make it out to be, making it easier for me to work through, I find myself happier when I'm realizing that things haven't changed as much as I've feared.

This is not the best role-modeling, I know. And I definately don't want it to be one of the things I pass on to my kids. But then I glance at my bookshelf and you can see Rubicon by Tom Holland and almost any biography of John Adams, Jefferson, Roosevelt and more. With fiction, I see The Children's Book by AS Byatt, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, heck even the romances I read are typically Regency. I'm surrounded by the past, very little present and absolutely no future.

Now I know these two things probably are loosely tied, if at all. Or maybe not...maybe they are very closely tied together. Who knows? Regardless, it is the way I am and is my comfort zone.

So, baby steps...new school year, new things: tonight, my daughter and I have embarked on reading Gregor the Overlander together. While ostensibly set in present day, I can pretend it's set in the future and feel like I'm going hog wild in the change department.

Which is all I can handle given that my son didn't turn bright red tonight when asked about new girls in his class...a definate portending of big changes a-comin'.

Gulp.

This Week, for What It's Worth: A Worthy List

2010-08-18T22:50:00.000-05:00

My list for this week, in no particular order:

I miss tiny babies. Mine are older now and I miss their tiny, squishy, cuddly, cooing, baby-powder smelling bodies.

Looking at kids looking at art is awesome.

1/5th of Pakistan is under water. How can that be? 1/5th of an entire country! It's hard to think about that, Haiti, the Gulf, the Middle East and troops in harm's way without becoming overwhelmed and upset.

Being Muslim is not equivalent to being a terrorist. Not all Christians, nor Jews, Budhists, Russian Orthodox, Sikhs, Hindus, African Diasporics, and/or Neo-Paganists, etc., are the sum of the worst acts of those that practice their religion. C'mon America...let's get this right—there should be mosques and temples and churches, libraries, museums—places of beauty and learning and freedom to help us deal with the horrible things/honor the people that died on 9/11.

I would like to elect people that govern and not politicians.

Funniest line in a romance novel ever: "He smiled then and made her heart spring like a lemming flinging itself into the sea." Best. Line. Ever.

Best advice I gave my son this week: If a girl sees you picking your nose, you can never, ever, ever recover from that with her...or with any of her friends.

I'm re-reading the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters. So well written, such well plotted stories.

When my daughter wears her Scharfen Berger chocolate t-shirt that states "Extra Bitter" on the front...it's a statement of fact.

Read the Mistress of the Art of Death series by Ariana Franklin. Stunning historical novels with a protagonist that puts any modern day forensic scientist to shame. Sorry Bones!

My kids hate it when I sing everything I say to them. I'm funnier than they realize.

I have good friends. I am lucky. This week was the Clay Pit in Austin and a bottle of good wine at 50% off.

We do get better at some things with age and practice. I'm just sayin'. Sighhhhhhh.

I am anxious to read "The Blasphemer" by Nigel Farndale. One of the best British books of 2010. Second chance stories...they make me hopeful.

The Economic Security Index says that 20% of American households are facing "utter economic devastation". Look around folks, we are them.

I love the Allstate "Mayhem" commercials.

School starts next week. Happy and Sad.

I love Laurell K. Hamilton and her Anita Blake, Vampire Killer series. Great suspense novels that happens to have multiple and complicated love triangles among Anita, a Christian necromancer, wearwolves, vampires and the such.

My daughter believes that my life gets better every time she enters a room. She told me this when she woke me up the other day at 1:30 in the morning. Ta-dah...my life was better.

Where You Are Affects Who You Are, or Back To "The Geography of Bliss"

2010-08-06T17:38:00.000-05:00

After every vacation the kids will talk about their favorite moment and this time was no different.

Elephant seals, dolphins in Santa Cruz, the Musee Mechanique in San Francisco, surfing and boogie boarding in Encinitas, riding horses north of Santa Barbara, the safari tents, Bart's Books in Ojai, marbles with Uncle Ethan, Aunt Heather and Grandma Bonnie and betting the ponies at Del Mar.

These were the agreed upon highlights, and when they ask me what my favorites were, I agree with them that all of those were great, but my super favorites were moments like the one in this picture. Sitting on Moonstone Beach near the tide pools sifting through the stones, all of us finding "the one" over and over and over again.

If Eric Weiner, the author of The Geography of Bliss is right, then as he stated in an interview (http://www.twelvebooks.com/) you can "change your environment and you can change your life. This isn’t running away from your problems but simply recognizing that where we are affects who we are."

I agree with him and even though his book is about more than the vacational-geographic moments of bliss attached to a fleeting experience, I think the idea holds just as true.

As a working mom I don't often have the variety of experiences with my kids each day in which I can be a variety of people with them, but on vacation I can be "professor mom" at the California Academy of Sciences, "silly mom" at the Musee Mechanique, 'football mom' on the beach in Encinitas, "tickle monster" in the pool and "fire cooker mom" at El Capitan Canyon north of Santa Barbara, "crazy betting mom" at Del Mar....I love these experiences because it is the geography that allows me to be completely free of expectations other than my and their own.

And, no longer how many years go by, I know I can look at the picture above and feel the blissful person that was me in that moment, in that place.

"The Wonderful O" or Freedom Is Just Another Word...

2010-08-06T16:39:00.000-05:00

Who knew that a horrible accident with a porthole of all things would drive a man to become a pirate and outlaw freedom, love, honor and valor from an island nation. Actually he just outlawed the letter "O", but without the words, the ideas, ideals and people didsn't exist any more either.

This is the premise of a book I've been reading and re-reading with my daughter lately. Both of us love the story and the surface silliness of it all...trying to talk without o's is quite funny. And, as she tends to ask insightful questions, I think she gets the deeper idea of the book and how important that is. But most of all, we love the act of reading it...it's a fun, sometimes rolicking, always lyrical expereince. Take this excerpt as an example...the pirate Black, having outlawed the "O", hired a lawyer named Hyde to put it into practice and this is one of his rulings (read it fast and fun and loud):

"Almost all the fruits are yours to eat, from the apple to the tangerine, with a good two dozen in between. I'll stick to those that start with P to show you what I mean: the pear, the peach, the plum, the prune, the plantain and pineapple, the pawpaw and papaya. But you will yearn for things you never ate, and cannot tolerate - I know you women - the pomegranate, for one, and the dull persimmon. No grapefruit, by the way. I hate it's bitter juice. I have banned it, under its French name, pamplemousse."

The first time we read it we got to the place in the book where the people were gathering in secret, planning to overthrow Black and his pirate pal, Littlejack. Led by the poet Andreus and the beautiful maiden Andrea, they were talking about all of the important things they were beginning to miss now that the letter "O" was no longer and the most important things they would get back by defeating the pirate Black They had listed Hope, Love, Valor and were trying to remember just what the fourth word was and they couldn't quite get there. As the characters were making their list for the fourth word, so was my daughter--here is her list:

1. Dog
2. Soup
3. Soccer
4. Potty
5. Pools
6. Horse

And on and on...the only word that overlapped between the book list and my daughters list was "money". And, when we got to the part where they unveiled the fourth word, "Freedom", my daughter was slightly underwhelmed. She liked some of the words the characters came up with....

"None of these is right," said Andrea. "I'll know it when I hear it." And so, until the setting of the moon, they tried out words with O — imagination and religion, dedication and decision, honor, progeny, and vision. ... And they spent the rest of the night searching for the greatest, trying youth and joy and jubilation, victory and exaltation, languor, comfort, relaxation, money, fortune, non-taxation, motherhood and domesticity, and many anotherhood and icity. But Andrea shook her lovely head at every word the people said, rejecting soul and contemplation, dismissing courtship and elation, and many anothership and ation.

As we talked about it some more, I tried to explain the importance of freedom relative to the other ideas they and she listed. She just rolled over and asked, quite snarkily I might add, if she was "free to go to sleep now".

I sighed and said yes.

"Just Okay"

2010-07-22T00:08:00.000-05:00

"Just Okay".

The answer my son gives to everything so far on the 3rd Annual Lipton Family Driving Trip. From the absolute wild splendor of Big Sur to the quiet dusky golden hills above Santa Barbara from a tent right before the sun ducks behind the far hill. The only times he's been enthusiastic are: 1) in the Musee Mechanique on Pier 39--a pier full of mechanical games from Europe in the 1800's; 2) Everything about Point Lobos; and 3) the breakfast at Deetjens Big Sur Lodge.

It's annoying, especially when I'm having such a wonderful time, but like the book I've been reading "The Geography of Bliss", it's all relative to the person who is experiencing the place. My husband and I are satisfied by the beauty of mile upon mile of craggy cliff...to a 10-yr old, probably not so much.

But today it all came together on the pier at Avila Beach and later at the safari tent at El Capitan Canyon...I cooked our dinner over a campfire, aided by a nice bottle of local Pinot Gris, and smores rounded out the night as the kids played with the kids from the tent next door. As we settled down for the night our kids asked questions about the bears and cougars the signs warned about. We told them that's why they were in the bed next to the tent opening...ahhhh, the lol on their little faces.

Tomorrow is horse back riding and sea kayaking...while I will be happy in both places, I'm not holding out for more than an "okay" from my son...and a chicken cluck from my daughter (which is a whole other story), but of not, then I have no doubt that his bliss will be found a mile or two or 100 down the road.

We all have a geographic place of bliss in each of us, even when we don't know it until we are right in the middle of it.

Where is the Fisherman Dwarf!

2010-07-18T00:34:00.000-05:00

My daughter was extremely disappointed to find out we'd been saying "wharf" and not "dwarf" today. It's 5 hours since the "realization" and she's still pretty bitter....although good food at dinner might have dented the haze of disppointment that surrounded her most of the afternoon. I haven't asked her what she was imagining...quite frankly I'm a little scared...so we'll all just keep our own fisherman dwarf pictures in our own heads.

I love a restaurant that meets you at the door with a glass of good wine. That's what we found tonight at the Pacific Cafe on the Inner Richmond tonight. Amazing staff, great food---the salmon bisque, calimari steaks and Turbot cooked in paper was all to die for...luckily we walked around for 8 hours today because the food was big and yummy.

The kids had a great time working on a three-masted schooner this afternoon--raising the anchor and singing old sea shanties was pretty cool for all of us...that's the power of our National Park service...right down among the crowded tourist muck of the wharf is a national park with all kinda of refurbished boats from schooners to paddlewheel tugs and more...the presentation of information kept both kids interested, not to mention both parents.

No books today but found two culture magazines that I promptly subscribed to: Giant Robot, which mostly focuses on Asian pop culture and DAMn which is about international contemporary culture. Both arecworth looking into.

One kid is asleep , the other just asked "If you had a piece of chalk and were drawing a line, how long would a minute be?". I swear we didn't hit The Haight again today, but from where I'm sitting right now, I kinda wished we had. Off to answer the unanswerable.

24 Hours in San Franciso

2010-07-17T12:42:00.000-05:00

Ball pythons. Ghosts of swimmers a Sutro Baths. $88 of fun at Cal Academy of Science. A poem about food at corner of Haight & Ashbury. Dinner with family in the Castro. Book stores, coffee, and chocolate!

The Art of Embarrassing Your Children

2010-07-12T15:44:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, my daughter and I were talking about our upcoming trip and she was talking about meeting kids to play with and so, I started to paint a picture for her. The family on the beach, other kids her age nearby, me cuddling and kissing her, calling her monkey-butt and tickle-butt and various other names, playing tickle monster and World Federation Baby Wrestling, followed by our verions of "So, You Think You Can Dance?", and then, the culmination, me kissing her dad in front of everyone.

"Mom, you have totally lost your kid memory", she said. "That would be just evil to me if you did that."

"What is kid memory", I asked her. "You know", she said. "It's like when adults forget how to be a kid, or what it was like to be a kid."

Ahhh...my Kid Memory. Yes, on some level the years have blunted the impact of those moments thrust upon me by both parents and siblings alike...the rough edge of mortification and the drowning feeling that it was just going to keep getting worse.... but not so much that we as parents don't get quite a bit of joy out of heaping it upon our children..probably too much sometimes if truth will out.

The whole topic came up again last night while she and I were reading in bed. She decided that the only books she was going to take on our trip were books that would remind me about Kid Memory--her logic being that if she reminded me every day I wouldn't do anything to embarrass her. Silly, silly girl. I feel for her, really I do.

But beyond that, I have to admit that her list of books is practically perfect--and here are her "Top 5":

5. Ramona and Beezus

4. Fudge, SuperFudge, DoubleFudge

3. Junie B. Jones (any of them)

2. Babymouse: Queen of the World

1. The Penderwicks and The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

So, here is to my daughter and her dream of an embarrassment-free childhood. I wonder what she'll say when I tell her that to me, these books are just ideas waiting to happen?

I Will Never Laugh Again!

2010-07-07T14:53:00.000-05:00

This, of course, is coming from our son who until recently was the nicest, laughing-est kid around. His laugh is infectious and goofy and you can't help but smile back at him.

Until recently.

I've mentioned this before, but it bears mentioning again: 10-year olds can be moody little so-and-so's. This morning's incident was because he couldn't find 'the most important game in the world' for his Nintendo DS, so he was stuck playing something "boring and worthless" when he was 'powned' in my office for a couple hours while his sister was at the dentist with Dad.

Of course, I'm like, "Dude! Read...you have the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there...one of the funniest books around."

And of course, he's like, "I haven't laughed yet and I won't...not even inside."

And of course, I'm like, "Whaaaaaa! What do you mean you haven't laughed....hello? 42? Doesn't that get a giggle? What about the whole conversation between Arthur and Ford about the monkey's doing Hamlet?"

He just stared at me. Reminded me of the time we took him to Chinatown for "chickenfeet and squid"...there was a joke that really backfired on us.

So, instead of torturing him some more, I set about jotting down the books that make me laugh, outloud and at length. A few of these books I've mentioned before, but they're worth repeating.

So, in no particular order:

Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving: My friend Christy Gardner and I read and re-read this in the halls of Butte Falls High School, sitting and laughing hysterically.

The Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole. All I can say is, 'the hot dog scene'.

One for the Money (and the rest) by Janet Evanovich. Stephanie and her pals crack me up!

Lamb. The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. by Christopher Moore. I laugh because I can go to Confession and make it all good again.

The Wrong Venus by Charles Williams. Best noir about Americans in France, bodice-ripper genre and kidnappers. Don't ask, just get it, read and laugh your ass off.

P.S. Your Cat is Dead. by James Kirkwood. I don't know how this got into my parents bookshelf, but it did and I would read it in secret...hard to do when everybody can hear you laugh.

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins. There are three lines that get me every damn time. First, "They're no threat to me. I have a black belt in Haiku. And a black vest at the cleaners." Second, "Sharks are the criminals of the sea. Dolphins are the outlaws." And last but not least (and I'll mis-remember this one)..."She lunched on Papaya Poo Poo or Mango Mu Mu or some other fruity thing with overripe tropican vowels." Classic!

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Duh!

A Porcine History of Philosophy and Religion by James Taylor. This was at a friends house when I was growing up. I had no clue who Kierkegaard was at age 12, but there was something about these drawings of pigs that made me giggle.

I could go on and on...from Rivethead to Catch-22. And Bill Bryson to Nick Hornby. But these books above are the ones that I remember laughing with and can look forward to laughing with again someday. Hopefully my son will be there with me on some of them...once he decides to allow laughter back into his life of course.

The Rolly-Polly Dilemma or "Let the Great World Spin"

2010-07-06T18:00:00.001-05:00

My daughter has a fascination with the rolly-polly or pill bug. She likes how they look and what they do, but mostly she likes to care for them, her little body all folded up in an effort to get closer to them. When I see it, it is one of those moments as a parent where you want to laugh and dance in the sunshine or where the back of your throat get's all tight and achy.

As the majority of our rolly-polly live in an area where we also have quite a few lizards, frogs and toads, a lot of my daughters time is spent worried that they will run across each other and what will happen at that point. Quite a few of our midnight conversations have her working out, in detail, the possibilities of a rolly-polly meeting up with a toad or a lizard--their conversations, the adventures they might have or about those times when things go horribly wrong very quickly. In the background of these stories is our family, especially her father who spends time on the porch at night smoking and reading. His footsteps have both saved and doomed many and various of the rolly-polly much to her delight.

It is a small view, the barest of understandings, of her and her friends place in the world and how they are effected by larger forces, but sometimes as her stories play out, I get the sense that her curiosity about cause and effect drives more of the action than just straight imagination. Her little voice in the dark huffing out, "Oh, well. Harold (a rolly) would have preferred to be eaten by the toad, but of course, Daddy's foot drove him right into the Lizard. Poor Harold...", makes me laugh--She has total control over the story, yet her bitterness at the outcome is biting.

All of this reminds me in a way of the book I'm reading now, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. I orginally looked at it because it was set around Phillipe Petit and his inspiring and petrifying walk on a wire between the World Trade Centers in 1974. I love the documentary, Man on a Wire and wanted to know more. However, I found that this was just a background and catalyst for the real stories--small lives intersecting to create bigger things..sometimes horrible, sometimes happy.

The beauty of these lives are in their convergence where singular becomes plural and the ripples more interesting than the drop that preceeded it. As with my daughter and her stories of the rolly-polly, this book is lyrical in how it swirls in and out of the chance versus fate philosophy of life.

And, regardless of whether you are a "chance-ist" or a "fate-ist", you'll love this book, only don't get it on the Kindle as I did...it is a book worthy of the visceral feel and weight and smell of a book. Just like my daughter gets in close and personal, pets and pauses, thinks and re-thinks, so to will you, I think, with this book, whose story, like those of the rolly-polly to a parent, can inspire a throat to both laugh and ache.

In the future I can see it on my shelf, its raggedness speaking for how much I cherish it... much like a droopy rolly-polly in a small hand on a hot day.

Ear to Ear Combat

2010-06-29T14:48:00.001-05:00

I read somewhere that we actually have a "National Listening Day" on May 16. This annoys me for a number of reasons, but mostly because it seems to be counter-intuitive...my whine about this type of celebratory day is the same for this specific one: we all should be working on listening to each other everyday or we will be engaged in, as my daughter called it last week, "Ear-to-Ear Combat".

As part of my nightly conversation with my daughter, we were laying in the dark meandering all around the listening subject and I asked her about her earlier comment that listening is 'ear to ear combat'...she said it's like when she's playing war with her older brother and his friends and she's always put in the corner of the yard as the "POW" so they can ignore her while saying they are playing with her...she said as the littlest person in the household her words always seem to lose out, or as she sees it, "...put in the corner", especially by her brother, and that they have to fight to be heard.

She went on to say that mostly he only hears what he wants to hear from her.

I agree with her--not just about her brother, but in general. We all have a problem with only hearing what we want to hear, regardless of who you are listening to.

Sometimes it is because you want them to be saying something different, or saying it differently. Sometimes it's because you will only hear a certain thing, no matter what they are trying to say. Sometimes it's because you are so busy trying to figure out what to say next, you just hear what they are saying in the best context for your comment.

Regardless of why, not truly hearing what the other person is saying rarely leads to happy moments for anyone.

I am on this subject because it's summer which means the kids are thrown together a lot more than during the school year...and being 7 and 10 they each have a strength of will that would put Napolean or Ghandi to shame. And because my husband desperately needs to be heard by an adult by the end of his day and I'm not always available as that's all I've been doing all day. Not surprisingly, it's on his mind as well, as the post on his blog (http://carnefelize.blogspot.com/) the other day (A Parentalogue on Process), talks about it from his perspective.

Needless to say, there is not a lot of listening happening right now so it's something we are working on..sometimes painfully. When my son asks for the more expensive but three-row rental car for our driving vacation, I'm almost tempted to spend the money. But no, we'll get the two-row car and we'll have fun, dammit!

So ironically it's in the midst of this that I find I chose as part of my summer reading pile, to re-read for the umpteenth time "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. Which, at it's heart, is about a situation where people only heard and saw what they wanted to hear--Boo Radley and Tom Robinson were only known by what others said about them, except for the children who seem to hear the truth of and behind everything. Most people say that this book is a lecture on the sin of killing people without a voice. You can also flip the penny and say it is a sin to, as my daughter said, only listen with blinders and hear only what you want to hear.

On the lighter side of listening, I'm reading for the first time the Vish Puri mysteries by Tarquin Hall...an investigator after my own heart as he is very much the Perry Mason/Precious Ramostwe-good listening type of crime solver. They listen with their heart and head, often leading to the right, but "grey-ish" decision. There are two books about this Indian private investigator and they are a fantastic read.

For children, a favorite book in our house is Hepcat, by William Bramhall about a musician who has 'lost his groove'. He's told to 'cruise the scene and find his music' and while wary at first, he let's himself go and finds his music again in the sounds around him from the thunder to wind in the trees to birds and more. It's a fun, lyrical read and the illustrations are really groovy. But most importantly, it's a light but impactful way to talk about the importance of listening and what you can lose if you don't.

My hope is that by the end of our driving vacation we will all have gotten over this phase in our various relationships and will have moved from Ear-to-Ear Combat to something less aggressive and in nature.

Hmmm, maybe I should get the three-row car just to help that process out.

Me, Myself and I: A Trigger Happy Wife or Bookless in Austin

2010-06-24T11:15:00.000-05:00

There is a giant gaping hole in my bookshelf. Right between Truman and Tryst...right about the place books on Trust would be. I figure that Karma, who is a big fat beeeyatch, is laughing her ass of right about now. Har-fucking-Har. But I digress.

Here's the deal...my husband is a recovering addict and alchoholic. Almost 4 years clean and sober. I'm proud of him. I love him. I adore him. I crave him. But there are many times during the week that I don't Trust him. These moments, these seemingly tiny, insignificant moments slay me...they turn my fucking world upside down--wobbly knees, nausea and all.

It used to be, during the years sub duco, when I finally realized what was going on, or the moments of crises that followed, my famed fight or flight mechanism would be flooded with adrenaline and I would fight, fight and fight again to get him back. The idea of, or issues of Trust, oddly enough, weren't present in those moments as it related to us as a couple....maybe as it related to him as a driver or a parent, sure...but those were moments I had to solve for...moments I could solve for very easily in fact.

Now that we are in the years tersus quod siccus I find myself trusting him less, or rather, I find myself able to trust him less. I know, it sounds crazy, but here is the deal: Before, when all of this was happening, I was in "fix-it" mode...get him help, sell the house, find a house, take care of the kids, work, pay the bills...the moments I had to myself to think were spent doing things or, pathetically enough, spent sobbing in the shower, yes, sometimes with ice cream (I don't recommend it...messy and unsatisfying) and feeling sorry for myself.

Now, that I have the time because I have him back full-time as a partner, I find myself studying him and being hyper aware of "the triggers". It's incredibly complicated with all of the medical issues he has, but there are four triggers that immediately put me in "OMG HDA" mode. They are, in no particular order:

Increased level of smoking: For two reasons....he smokes when he's anxious and anxious leads to the need to medicate, and he has to smoke outside...where he would previously hide 'the bad stuff'.

Increased Telephone time: When he was using he was practically giddy with talk...given that he's rarely giddy and not a really talkative guy outside a small group of people, all of those hours on the phone to my mother should have been a big frickin' clue.
Long Walks: To the liquor store...but hidden by the need for exercise for his Type II diabetes. Good and Bad at the same time. Diabolical.
Droopy Eyes/Asleep in the Chair: The worst...because he rarely gets enough sleep because of his chronic pain and neurological issues, and all of the meds they have him on do make him somewhat droopy...but I tell, ya, that eyelid slips a centimeter and I am on red alert.

Looking at this list I want to punch myself in the head. He can't win. And therein lies the rub...he can't. Not until I've worked it all through for myself. It so sucks to be him right now.

And here is rub number 2--there are no good books on this! I had/have counseling and that is very helpful. But I like to read, study, re-read...and have real life examples....and yet, nothing, nil, nada in book form. I am, like an anchorless boat, bobbing here and there with nothing to grab onto to stablize me.

But there is a silver lining--there always is you know. Without a book to fall back on I am forced to turn to people...my friends, my family and most of to him, my husband...where trust is being built one conversation at a time.

Living like Alice Munro writes or I am who I am Now

2010-06-05T22:43:00.000-05:00

I found out I was a 'loud talker' in a western hat shop surrounded by quite a few hunky cowboys. Not exactly how my imagination had things progressing at that moment, but then again, I chose to wander into the store with my husband and 7-year old daughter. Daydreams about hunky cowboys in that situation is just wrong...and I paid for it. At least a few of them had the courtesy not to laugh...too loud anyway.

Not that I believe I'm a 'loud talker'--and a poll of selective friends confirmed that I am not--but I was startled to find out that both husband and daughter believe me to be one. Personally, I am blaming it on the stuffed ears I had left over after my recent bout with double pneumonia.

Anyway, this brings me in a round-a-bout way to the discussion my husband and I have been having over the past 9 months or so. The basis of these talks is that after 16 years neither of us are the same people we fell in love with and married--instances of illness, addiction and depression combined with the joyous aspects of life like children, friends, family, as well as the normal growth we all experience have re-shaped each of us. He's no longer just the calm, solid and thoughtful thinker and I am no longer just the energetic do-er buzzing from idea to crises to 'must get done'. We each have work to do to be comfortable in our own singular skins, as well as in our combined skins of being a couple, lovers, parents and more.

But like a snake shedding it's skin, the changing of who we are is rarely smooth--there are wiggles, pushing, scratching and more, all interspersed with long moments of quiet repose or resting. I think people understand the action of the changing, even people looking in from the outside. But it's those moments of quiet or resting that are difficult for everyone...all of those involved in the change and those just viewing it. Personally I find these moments, days, months of quiet tend to invite questions I'm unable or unwilling to answer--because mostly I feel I am resting in order to keep moving forward...the changing isn't done yet.

A friend mentioned recently that she's noticed some changes, but it was hard for her to reconcile those changes with who she knew me to be. When she got done explaining it, I felt a bit like that painting that George and Nick discuss in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"....a quietly noisy relaxed intensity. After being battered with that description, the same friend said she is eager to see how I come out the other side...so am I, I told her. So am I.

It's after discussions like the one with friend that I find myself turning to stories by a fantastic Canadian writer, Alice Munro. She graces her work with characters struggling to live between the lives they have made and the dreams that still pull them. Like onions, her characters are peeeled, each layer showing a new depth and complexity, which always gives me hope. But what I like best of all is that it is never linear for her...because life isn't like that...there is meandering, wandering, pauses and jump-starts. My favorite book, and the one that I'm currently re-reading is Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. It is good at reminding me to just be...too much resting on 'shoulda, woulda, coulda' often ends painfully.

In the end I come away comfortable in the 'in-between'....the time of who I am now, which is between who I was and who I will be, whenever that happens.

And if who I am now is a loud talker, well then that's who I'll be for a bit. I have no doubt I'll be something different down the road.

A Burgeoning Interest in Boobs, My New Motto, and a Book List for When Life Pushes You Hard.

2010-05-14T14:58:00.007-05:00

Ugh...what a week. Up and down, across and sideways, back and forth. And a nasty cough to boot. There are just times when life pushes you along and you have to let it. Don't waste physical or emotional energy trying to push back...just go with the flow, so to speak.

I say this knowing that while there are a few times a year I let this happen, I'm not good at feeling okay about it. I usually get to the end of the week and feel a lot of guilt---how I should have tried harder. How I could have changed things. blah, blah, blah. Guilt...jeesh...I'm a Catholic married to a Jew...the guilt is built in at this point.

So, it is at these times that I look to two things that get me out of my head--my kids and a certain group of books.

So here is the first thing I realized this week about my kids, or one of them, that knocked me for a loop and out of my head. My 10-year old son is really starting to notice, well, I'll use a less than "PC" term, "stacked women". I guess there is a mom at school who has been favored with large and perky ones, and who only dresses in little tank-tops (don't know her, but hate her). Our son, according to my husband, is constantly scoping her out with these little side looks, while trying not to walk into the flag pole and such. So once forewarned, I too started noticing and boy howdy! After seeing him do this to a young runner in the neighborhood, I mention it as subtly as I'm able--while laughing--and while he does get appropriately embarassed, I also see that the embarrasment of being caught ogling doesn't completely wipe away the curiosity that compels him. OMG...the boy is growing up. We did however, have a talk about respect and women and bodies that mostly was about making me feel better, but hopefully the right bits will get through to his little pre-adolescent brain.

I have a new motto for life, courtesy of my 7-year old daughter. We were walking, holding hands, into dinner and she looks up at me and says, as serious as she can be, "I wish it was the future." I, of course, ask why, and she replies, "Because in the future, I'm awesome." Yes you will be, mon sweet petite. But now I have this new motto, perfect for those weeks when absolutely nothing goes according to plan...."In the future, I'm awesome." No doubt less awesome than her, but still...it's a worthy goal.

Tonight though, I will go home to a house full of kids--both are having sleepovers--and when they are fully ensconced in a movie, I will have a glass of wine and pick from this group of books. Because they make me laugh, cry, think and sometimes all three. Whatever, they take me out of my own head...and that's a good thing.

The Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving

Cod, Fish That Changed the World, Mark Kurlansky

Anything by Lisa Kleypass because I love a good lusty, funny romance

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen

Push Not the River, James Conroyd Martin

Rivethead, Ben Hamper

Geek Love, Katherine Dunn

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

And, if it's a really, really, really bad day.

The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts about the Worlds Greatest Human, Ian Spector

What a Way to Go: The Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of Putting Someone to Death, Geoffrey Abbott

And, if it's a really, really, really, really, really bad day...Movies:

In Search of the Holy Grail, Anchorman, the dinner scene in Talladega Nights, Airplane, Reno 911 The Movie, Office Space, Support Your Local Sheriff, any of the Bourne movies, the first and second Mummy movies and finally, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou

R.I.P: Big Spitty

2010-05-12T11:30:00.000-05:00

When we got him about 5 years ago at the age of 10, his name was just "Big". Because he was, well, big. Big and fat and cuddly.

Unfortunately, he had a penchant for hair balls. Lots of them. So our daughter renamed him "Big Spitty". Fitting...and funny.

His meows sounded very much like talking due to an accident when he was a kitten, his previous owner told us.

His favorite places were: under our bed, on our son's bed, on our daughters bed and lately, on the new cushiony foot rest in the living room.

He liked to head out into the night...around 10:30 pm. And would wait patiently until we opened the door.

He was gracious about three houses, two moves, two dogs and various war games. He typically played a POW in the games the kids played, although there was an incident where they tried to mount a nerf gun to his back. That did NOT end well.

He went softly as the poem goes. And for him, the clocks are stopped, and the dog is not barking with a big juicy bone.

He was old. He was content. He was a favorite. He was well-loved. He is being well-missed--as indicated by the two valiantly soft voices stating unequivocally that they should not have to go to school today given the fact that "I could break out crying at any minute."

Well played. But no deal. I'm sure there are books on this subject, but we don't have them and for this, we don't need them. Cuddles, stories over dinner and time. That'll do it.

See ya later, Big Spitty.

Staredown at the Oval Table, A Dinner Too Far, or Hush Up and Eat!

2010-05-10T15:32:00.000-05:00

We've all been there. At the dinner table staring down a plate of something you find objectionable, as well as the stone-cold stare of the meal maker. A battle of wills where there is rarely a winner.

For me as a youngster it was cow tongue and roasted pumpkin...one night I made it to midnight...my four brothers and sisters already off in dreamland. My mother and I angrily facing off...she gave up/in and I was jubilant and smug. Only to face it the next morning for breakfast--cold. I shiver just thinking about it.

Now as a mother, I find myself facing this more and more. I don't serve tongue or pumpkin or liver & onions, but a nice range of foods from a nice range of cultures. So I don't see the problem. My kids however, see a big problem, each from a different perspective.

For my son, it turns out we can sometimes be a bit too fancy. This was in repsonse to a garlic chicken and raosted brussels sprouts in a pesto sauce over rigatoni.

For my daughter, it is the opposite. A self-proclaimed "foodie" at seven, my cooking can be a bit dull for her newly refined palate. Sweet and Sour Chicken, Roasted Pork Chops...when these are on her plate being ignored, we ask what's wrong and her answer, like the other night is invariably in the vein of: "Mom, I'm all about food. Good food. Better tasting food."

And she leaves this hanging, waiting for me to 'get it'. I choose, often, to ignore her mom-baiting.

Rather than have it turn into an epic standoff, our children are asked to put their leftovers in tupperware, and to make themselves a sandwhich. For my son, it is the classic fallback...pb&j and a giant glass of cold milk (like mother, like son). For my daughter, she puts together a plate of self-made 'amuse bouche'...strawberries upon gouda, brie wrapped in turkey, grape topped almonds, apples and chedder.

They eat, but I find it irritating and wasteful. So, in order to stave off these utterly frustrating evenings, we have started family cooking--sort of like our version of the family bed, but with knives and fire.

Our guide is either the original "Art of French Cooking", which is surprisingly simple in it's writing. Or, a great cookbook for the family, "The Family Kitchen" by Debra Ponzek. Easy to follow, but with a sophisticated grouping of tastes. The product description on Amazon.com says it best: ...simple enough to please kids, refined enough to satisfy parents..., chapters include 125 flavorful crowd-pleasers such as Pan-Seared Pork Chops with Green Apple–Cranberry Compote, Honey-Glazed Carrots, and Double Hot Chocolate with Homemade Marshmallows. This is food you and your kids will want to eat every day—and not a smiley-face pizza in sight!"

Evenings are not all sweetness and light, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The kids do tend to enjoy the food more when they've had a hand in it. And, I let them name it. Let's face it, what kid isn't going to choose "Green Eyed White Dragon" Soup, over Zucchini and Leek Soup. Or Bloody CreepLoaf (kay, which made me not want to eat....).

However, I have found nothing, including sound effects, which have turned brussels sprouts into a favorite. Oh well, more of Jolly Green Giant brains for me and hubby!

Mother's Day, With a Twist

2010-05-05T22:51:00.054-05:00

There were two things I said I'd never do when I started this a while ago...first, no writing anything about work and second, that I wouldn't write things like this--a blog about Mothers on Mother's Day or Fathers on Father's Day. You know, the ones that seem to cheesily overpopulate the blogosphere in May and June. But here I am, breaking one of my two rules....oh, well.

I started thinking about this today because I was told that my daughter couldn't finish her 'state sponsored' Mother's Day card at school because, in her words, she had developed 'writers block'. And, that because of this she had to miss recess! She was not happy...and somehow this had turned into my fault. Great---I broke my rule because my daughter was pissy at me because I wasn't interesting enough to write about for a 7-year old. What's next...a gallon of JeanNate Body Splash and Bonnie Bell Lip Smacker from the Walgreens up on the corner? Happy Mother's Day! (Seriously, would love the Lip Smacker...never developed a liking for JeanNate, so matter how many gallons we bought my Mom....)

But the thing I focused on was the writer's block...not that I didn't understand it. I did, I do..completely. I write a lot for work (Shit! I'm now two for two) and for pleasure and I get the mocking silence that comes with the blank page. I asked my daughter about it at dinner and she said that it was not only too noisy in her classroom, but that she didn't think she had the right words in her brain to say what she wanted to say. She slays me. She also made me think of my own mother, and her mother, my grandmother and how we pass down both the good and the bad to our children.

My mother is scary smart--not that you'd know it. She has the art of self-deprication down to an art. I have that same trait. We employ it the same way--usually when we are being recognized for something and totally ruining whatever people are trying to say. My daughter and my grandmother? The exact opposite. My daughter owns her greatness, as did my Grandmother...both to the nth degree. Big, bold personalities with brains and confidence and charisma, oh my!

However, when it comes to writing the gene pool did some rearranging. I get my chops from my Grandmother for whom I'm named...we both love/loved writing and put pen to paper (or in my case, fingertips to keys) often for both work and pleasure. We find/found joy from having these ideas and words in our heads and the process getting them down in the right order, with the right tempo...and to have it feel the same way on paper as it did in our heads.

With my mother and my daughter though, they fear the words themselves, or rather their perceived lack of them. One will email me a letter she is writing on behalf of someone--usually a high schooler she is helping, with the plea to help her get the words right. I read it and it's honest and simple and perfect in it's straightforwardness. The same thing happens with my daughter when she is trying to get her thoughts down on paper..neither of them wastes time and paper with a lot of useless adjectives and the idea they are trying to get across is much cleaner and more powerful because of it. But because they fear the simplicity of simple words they lack the confidence and joy found in words and writing. Silly wabbits!

There are many more ways the three of us are intertwined with characteristics and mannerisms popping up in the oddest combinations...not to mention our penchant for hair dye...but that's for another day.

But in celebration of my Grandmother, the incomparable ball-buster Lorene; my Mother, the stunning and stunningly strong Karen; and my daughter, the unbearable lightness of Monkey, and for our love/hate relationship with words and writing, a list of words on or about Mothers and Motherhood...Not the definitive list, sadly lacking in international titles and in no particular order and NO self-help books allowed. Also, I tried to list the ones that aren't that well known, or you might not think of right off the bat, with the exception of anything by Amy Tan because of course, she gets it.

The Bonesetters Daughter or the Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan

Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat

Mary's World, Richard N. Cote

Victoria's Daughters, Jerrold Packard

The Fifth Child, Doris Lessing

Ladder of Years, Anne Tyler

Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott

Paula, Isabel Allende

Girlwood by Claire Dean

Vengeance is Mine, Brandy Purdy

A Mountain of Crumbs, Elena Gorokhova

Ramona and Her Mother, Beverly Cleary

Dumbo (Duh!)

Getting a Life, Helen Simpson

Why Did I Ever, Mary Robison

Choke, Darnella Ford

The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gillman

Troubling Love, Elena Ferrante

Movies: Mildred Pierce, Mask, Terms of Endearment, Mother Goose (yes, I mean that one)

"Of all of the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable"

2010-04-27T17:48:00.000-05:00

Thank goodness for Plato--he puts it all into perspective you know? My 10-year old son is an enigma wrapped in cranky jackass rolled in brainy-ness dipped in goofiness and finally layered with sweetness and light. I'll throw in a heavy coating of conditional hearing loss while we are at it (although let's face it, they don't grow out of this trait).

I've been told that's this is pretty normal for kids who are 10, with boys just being a bit 'more' of everything--I agree, with my definition of 'more' being the daily dose of performative drama that is the basis for all activities in their life--whether it is asking them to set the table, to come in for dinner or to remind them to not pass the pile of clean clothes on the stairs for the 57th time. Every interaction at this point in their life comes with dramatically large interpretive body movements, vocalizations and handy props. It's exhausting just to watch, much less engage.

There are days when I look at my husband and wonder where this angry dervish came from...who is this whiny, pissy boy stomping up the steps and slamming doors because I asked him to feed his cat. Wait, he's back and he's dressed up at Hillary Wan Knobi and he's fighting for freedom everywhere until he knocks over a bunch of stuff with his light saber and stomps up the stairs, slamming his door because it wasn't his fault. Wait, now he's playing his electric guitar singing about cows and world peace, until I compliment him and he's slamming his door and yelling about privacy. Wait. He's offering to ride his bike with his sister...nope, that's over now too..something about her telling him what to do and yup, back up the stairs. So close..... Now he's mad because we want him to read instead of playing his DS...or is it the other way around, or because he can't have the 4th cookie, or because I made ________ for dinner instead of _________ or because he has to wait and watch the Pacific on Saturday or because I asked him about a girl, or his socks, or his underwear....

I asked him once if he every yells at me in his head to just "shut up Mom" and his answer was a sweetly phrased, "All the time Mom, all of the time." I tell him I feel the same way and that we know this is a phase and that we love him and that we are never going to stop talking to him about emotions and choices and responsibility and family and.... I look at him and he at me and I know that he knows that I know that he's doing that thing inside his head again. So I shut up. And now it's me getting the 4th cookie cause I'm feeling like I like him a little less right now.

And yet, everything is colored by the fact that he is my sweet, sweet baby--and I remember the joyful abandon of his first "big boy pee" (off the back porch, of course). Of knowing that he is absolutely amazing with his sister and always has been. That we love to fish together. That he's funnier than shit most of the time. He loves his pets deeply (don't ask about Greyback the Russian hamster). And nice? There hasn't been a sport he's played where a parent from the other side hasn't made a point of telling us what great sportsmanship our son has. He loves talking to his Grandpas and Grandmas. He is a keen reader like his mom and a poet/songwriter with phrasing that I cannot comprehend. He stands up for his friends at school, loves to talk about democracy and US history and even has set up a number of 'votes' in various classes about issues and races he's felt strongly about. Like his Grandpa John, he's never met a stranger in his life. Like his Dad he feels and thinks deeply and strongly. Like his Grandpa Marty he is a keen recorder of life through photos and video. Like his Grandpa Dan he loves his sports and history and science shows on TV. He is, I am proud to say, an amazing kid.

Even when I find his socks in the kitty litter box, his army men in the washing machine and that he's only worn one pair of underwear all week. After all, he's 10. And a boy. Right?

Debating God(s) at Midnight

2010-04-22T12:22:00.001-05:00

He had her at 'polytheistic'.

My husband sat on the edge of the bed at my request, as mine and my daughters' conversation had deteriorated to a series of "Nu-huhs" and "Uh-uhs". He was attempting to clear up some confusion that he had caused earlier in the day about the historical reality of Christianity versus Judaism versus Buddhism.

My part of the conversation started only a few minutes earlier when she turned over and asked to ask '...just one more question'. It had to do with the Holy Trinity and that God was a man, but then what were the other Gods, and so on and so forth. I parsed her commentary and went with what I thought was easiest...that there were many religions in the world and they were all different and good, but that Christians/Cathloics believed that there was only one God.

"Nu-huh...Daddy said Christians believe in many gods."

"Well," I said carefully. "I think you might have heard him wrong, or be confused by his answer because that isn't right."

"Uh-huh" she said. Now I was confused...was she Nuh-huh and I was Uh-huh. Or was it visa-versa.

"Dad!". We'd go straight to the source. Looking back, that was a bit of a mistake.

I explained the issue quickly and he, this loveable man of mine, launches into a discussion about the the difference between polytheistic and monotheistic and how religions throughout history had changed over time and that.....

She was, ironically, in heaven...this is what her questions in the deep dark were meant to do--commence a conversation that kept her intrigued until she tired out, typically far later than the rest of us. I harrumphed and turned over and let them, my own little Colbert and Carell religious debating duo, go at it for a while. She was crossing herself like crazy and talking about what "he" looks like because 'girl gods give her the creeps', oy vey.

While they "chatted" I thought about it and I knew it was time to bring the books back out...you see, we are a blended faith family. I am Catholic, my husband is Jewish. We each follow our faiths in our own way and we are together in trying to teach our children about each religion and those of the world.

This results in lots of questions that we can't always answer, or in a situation where we (she says snarkily) don't answer the questions in a manner that is in any way helpful. Polytheistic. Wtih a 7-year old. Really?!

So, the two books that I think do the best at explaining the conundrum that is religion to children are Old Turtle by Douglas Wood and What is God? by Etan Boritzer. Old Turtle comes at it from a naturalistic fable point of view, with a wonderfully strong plea for universal acceptance. What is God? does a fantastic job of explaining about the different belief systems, their similarities and differences, their persona, their 'books' and more. Separately they are great and beautiful, with wonderful illustrations to boot. Together, they are fantastic--especially if you want to ground your children in knowledge, but not close down their natural curiosity about such a vast subject.

Anyway, back to last night. Finally, they wind down, we shut it down, and, with a combined heartfelt plea, beg for her to go to sleep! Kisses all around and then dark and quiet and cuddly, just the two of us again.

And then I heard her whisper, "I am smarter than you".

And then it was my turn to talk to God. Harrumph again

One Is NOT the Loneliest Number. Well It Is, But That Can Be A Good Thing

2010-04-16T09:20:00.001-05:00

Being a "one of one" and "one of many" has been a constant struggle in my life. Early on I grew to love the act of being alone. You'd think being on a ranch miles from anyone and anywhere it would be easy, but with two brothers and two sisters and constant chores it was rare. But I was driven and sneaky and found ways to slip away with snacks and books and discovered, as listed in an earlier installment, a number of great places on and around the Ranch where I could just be alone and quiet.  Angst or anger would drain away and then I could go back to the pentultimate "loud" family and play my role as loud and happy as the rest.

At college it was practically impossible--and then I grew to love the comraderie of a small but wonderful group of people who were able to see more than my periodic bullshit.

After college I found the quiet again...then lost it with a vengeance, thinking that I shouldn't like being by myself so often.  I found myself at places and with people when I really wanted to just be at home...and at times, I really should have listened to myself on that one.

Looking back I married the perfect person--as he himself will often say to this day that he doesn't actually like people much, which is so wrong, because he is a charming and thoughtful conversationalist. Pre-children we were close and cozy, very happy to be just the two of us.

Now with two active children who Karma has vengefully decided are social animals (and with friends come their parents...who knew?!) and after we make time for us as a couple (which according to our counselor, we maybe shouldn't be in each other's pockets so much...what?! I love his little pockets.), we sometimes find ourselves competing to see who can have that hour or two, or a real 1/2 day or (gasp) full day alone. A-lone. aLOne. Alllloooooonnne.

Not only because we want the peace and quiet...although it definately is a part of it. But because sometimes you need both the physical and emotional space to just get certain things done. Not shopping or errands. But real things--things that matter. Personally, I do my best 'self-editinig' as I'm organizing the office or doing bills. Walking through the house alone and fiddling with the bookshelves is when I'm best at figuring out why I'm on-edge for no apparent reason. Dead-heading the flower garden without being asked to time this race or watch that amazing skateboard trick or answer whatever odd question popped into my daughters active brain is when I can plan the various household movements of the next month...getting it emotionally organized so to speak. When I'm travelling, I love eating alone in a nice restaurant with a book and a place to make a list...this is when I create my own "big ideas for my life" list. It is satisfying on many levels.

And, we are trying to teach this to our children. Far past the age where any of their friends are forced to endure "quite time" it is something we try to do a couple of times per week--everybody needs to find a space, no electronics except music, and just "be". It's easier for our son than our daughter--she fights it like she fights sleeping--but eventually she gets there and it's amazing. The creativity or self-reflection we see later is a thing of beauty--and quite often hysterically funny.

I mention all of this because I ran across this article in the New York Times yesterday: Embracing a Life of Solitude. While they focus on the extreme cases--and the only young person mentioned quit for lack of women--you do get a sense of the pleasure these folks find in a life away. And's for me, that's the key thing--a life or a moment or two away is a good thing--especially in today's overly connected world. (I say this while mocking myself as I've got one eye on the damn Facebook chat bar where I have three people pinging me.)

Anyway, so while I don't have full day to myself until September 17, 2012 at 3:45, I am looking forward to the 15 minute drive home, and Saturday morning from 9:45 to 10:30 when hubby will be out picking up the children from their sleepovers. I have big plans for myself then. Big Plans.

Woe is Me (And Daughter)!

2010-04-13T16:26:00.002-05:00

So, the other day our daughter was having one of "those" days...you know the one. The one where you are not liking her much...nor she you. The one where she's pushing her brother, crying on the cat, venting to the neighbors and crying to the sky all about how unfair her life is.

Ha! Unfair is having to listen to all that and not being able to mock her relentlessly. Harsh? Possibly. But sheesh. I tried the "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I'll eat some worms" song while dancing goofily around her and all that got me was "It's not funny!" in a super-sonic screech that would make the Furies proud.

I tried another tact and offered to give her brother a wedgie (which would usually totally work), but she was dug in and just cried harder.

I offered to cuddle her but my first two mistakes backfired and everything went horribly, horribly wrong.

After a time out and chocolate for both of us, we sat down to chat. I asked her why she was so upset that day...what about that day was so bad.

"It's not today, Mom. I'm just like this naturally."

Really? I reminded her that for her actually these days were really few and far between

"Mom, I'm a wo-child," she told me, shaking her head like I was insufferably dense.

"A Wo-Child? What exactly is that?"

Giant sigh on her part. "You know, the poem that tells all the kids what type of kid they are."

Egads, I knew exactly what she was talking about. You see both my daughter and I were born on Wednesdays (I hadn't realized that until this conversation) and someone somewhere at her school they told her that this meant she was 'full of woe' and defined it for her as "mad and sad". Personally, I like to tell them what I thought they were full of, but that's another day.

I regrouped and told her that I was born on a Wednesday as well and see, I wasn't full of 'woe'. Another one of her glances had me re-grouping yet again.

"You are what you want to be...just because a poem says you are 'full of woe' doesn't meant you are or that you have to be. And," as I pulled out my iPhone and did some quick research, "your Dad and brother are both Thursdays child (who have far to go)...do you think they are exactly alike?

That got us into a conversation about all of the ways they were NOT alike, which led to laughter and cuddling. Of course, with our daughter, that's never the end of it. That night, another bedtime conversation, she asked why she had to be 'full of woe' and not someone else.

Trusty iPhone and Wikipedia research to the rescue and we learned that this poem, first recorded in A. E. Bray's Traditions of Devonshire in 1838, came from a long custom of fortune telling by days of birth. Quite the thing during that time in our culture. We also learned that for a poem that isn't that popular, it has become quite the source for the artistic and literary set, found in everything from Beatles music to Star Trek episodes and more.

Importantly to my daughter and I, we learned, that at some point in time Thursday and Saturday and exchanged fortunes, and Sunday had actually been Christmas Day and, drum roll please, Wednesday and Friday had also changed fortunes so, I read to her, "...we had a pretty good chance of being "loving and giving".

"Jeesh", she said. "they didn't get that right either." Ouch! So I asked which we were supposed to be. According to her, she is Thursday, her brother is Wednesday (duh), her dad is Friday and I'm Saturday.

Well, what can I say...I was at least hoping for Tuesday!

Wednesday's Child

Mondays child is fair of face,

Tuesdays child is full of grace,

Wednesdays child is full of woe,

Thursdays child has far to go,

Fridays child is loving and giving,

Saturdays child works hard for his living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

The Sound Of Music/MotherF*$#! I'm Awesome!

2010-04-08T11:04:00.003-05:00

Music was not a big part of my life growing up...the generator (yes, a generator) wasn't on during the day and at night, it was busy with things like dishwashers and washing machines..so the radio or the record player (yes, a record player) wasn't in use a lot. When it was on and not overloaded I listend to two things--Blondie and South Pacific...maybe I had a thing for blondes, who knows?

In high school I listend to The Cars. And I went to my first concert, Rick Springfield, when he played the Jackson County Fair where I was showing cattle in 4H. ("Jessie's Girl", sigh). College was even more pathetic. By the time I met my husband, way after college, I had 5 cassettes (yes, cassettes), the two I remember were the Counting Crows and Billy Joel, Glass Houses. I just didn't understand it's importance to and for people.

As mentioned here before, my husband is exact opposite of me, so he came into the relationship with a lot of knowledge, experiences, opinions and records/cassettes (hundreds, if not thousands)...I thought it was hot, but I also felt like a total loser because more than half the time, I had no clue what he was talking about...ahh...love.

But it was last night, laying down in the dark, trying to get my daughter to go to sleep, when I realized that for our kids, music is a constant. In fact, it's hard to get away from in our house--from the Bose in the bedroom, to the iPods, to the big stereo downstairs, to the mobile iphone speaker stations that travel around the house, to the iPod boom boxes in each of our kids bedrooms....at any given time, there are 3 or 4 places in the house all with different music playing. For someone who grew up 'quiet' it can be overwhelming. As a parent, it can also be both wonderful and painful.

The wonderful comes from listening to my son falling asleep to the Beatles, Bob Marley, The Clash, Ethan Lipton & The Ethan Lipton Orchestra, Coldplay, and a bunch of stuff I don't know (yeah, big surprise there); or listening to him play his electric guitars (he has 4) while he sings his own compositions ("Psychotherapy Sister" was an interesting tune). He and his friends are doing ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" for their schools talent competition...I just hope their hair and outfits dont' distract too much from the music.

The wonderful also comes from late nights reading with my husband while listening (Richard Thompson, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, "Please Read the Letter" ) car trips while singing (John Prine and Iris DeMent, "In Spite of Ourselves") and goofing around and dancing with the kids ("My Sharona" and anything by the Dropkick Murphys).

Regardless, it is amazing, and I can see it helping to form their personalities, and for my son especially, giving him a venue for venting as well as figuring--and providing a deep connection with his father.

So, while I've learned to love music, enjoying the spreading of my wings, so to speak, I was curious about it's role in people's lives. As usual, to the bookstore I went. Two books caught my eye and as I read them, my interest. The first was Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, by Oliver Sacks. A great blend of musicology and science, Sacks uses his typical tales of others to highlight all of the different ways we are a musical species. Some of the stories are simple, some are fantastical, but all relateable on some level. It enforced for me just how important it is for kids to grow up with music in their lives.

The second book, The Music of Life by Hazrat Inayat Khan, is from the Sufi perspective and while I had to read many sections twice (I read too fast and was missing important things), and am typically very wary of religious/philosophical books, I found parts that made sense to me on both an emotional and rational level--the law of rhythm, the creative process and the emotional power of music. I have no idea if whether it's correct, vis-a-vis Sufi teachings or any of that, but it was worth the read.

By the by, while searching, I also ran across another book, The Music of Life: Biology Beyond the Genome, by Denis Noble. Not about music specifically, he writes about the "symphonic interplay between genes, cells, organs, body, and environment". I've only started it, but so far, it's keeping my interest...and I found the cover art beautiful.

Ahhh...so yes, I've covered the wonderful part. Now onto the painful part. Simple...my iPod on shuffle, I wasn't paying attention to what was on (we've all been there), until my children starting signing along with an artist called Spose and his great and funny (seriously) song, "I'm Awesome". Yeah, it starts loud with a pretty big BAD word. Which they loved, while my husband laughed and I cringed...yet another BPM (bad parenting moment).

Sigh, you take the good with the bad and just hope the bad never leaves the house.

On Completing A Childhood Milestone: Bike Riding! (Whew)

2010-04-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

One of the things that both my husband and I had been feelting extremely guilty about over the years was the fact that neither of our children knew how to ride bikes. He is physically unable to teach them and I, it turns out, am a "bad bike riding teacher"...the only thing I was able to create were tears and frustrations.

So as spring came back to Texas this year, so too did the guilts about the bike riding issue. But with a long weekend coming up, I was going to make it happen come hell or high water...no matter how bad it got, I wanted them to feel the rush of freedom that comes with riding a bike--I had it and loved it and they would too, dammit!

I didn't tell the kids this as I figured it would just create angst and drama throughout the week--I would instead create angst and drama for only one day by unveiling it on Friday morning: "Tah-dah....we're starting the long weekend with pain and suffering...whoo hooo"!

With plan in hand I drove home on Monday to find my son riding his bike around our neighborhood like a pro! Happiness warred with confusion...how did this happen? Little did I know that we had a bike-riding teacher genius in the form of an 8-year old neighbor boy who, it turns out, spent 10 minutes with my son and got him not only up and going, but zooming around with a confidence that was inspiring. As I watched him race around with a giant grin on his face I did a quick internal check and found (thankfully) no guilt or resentment about the fact that it hadn't been me who created this happiness and happily gave our neighbor a big high-five and oodles of compliments and thanks.

Inside the house though, I found Mt. Vesuvius in the form of my daughter, raining hellfire down upon the resigned head of my husband. It turns out that her bike tires were flat, there was no time left in the day to teach her how to ride and, according to her, "you all hate me and it's not fair". After getting my husband out on a walk and spending some time listening and cuddling, we decided that we would attack it the next day.

And again I came home from work to find my daughter riding around grinning like the proverbial fool...the neighbor boy had struck again! Happily. I was voluble in praise for him as were my kids for their friend--he felt happy and confident and as my daughter said, peddling by, 'Mom I feel the free-est I've ever felt!".

She then tried to high-five her brother and immediately they crashed into each other, falling over, with one grumbling and the other laughing, laughing, laughing.

Which reminded me of a book I had read about a decade ago sitting on a small stool in the children's section of a bookstore: "The Epiplectic Bicycle" by the wondrously wierd Edward Gorey. This is the story of brother and sister Embley and Yewbert who, after whacking each other with a croquet mallet, have a fraught adventure on the bike the book is named for. Time, chapters, ideas and phrases are all out of order, which makes for a surreal sense of freedom in this oddly uplifting tale. I can remember feeling extremely happy for having found and read this book, leaving the book store with a big grin and a light step. Exactly how my kids looked that evening as they came in for dinner, flushed from their exertions. And exactly how my husband and I felt seeing our happy children and feeling quite giddy ourselves about their newfound abilities.

The bike, as my daughter intoned, "...is a wonderful thing".

Yakety-Yak: Patience, Timing and Clarity

2010-03-28T10:49:00.008-05:00

It happened again the other night. The house was quiet. Husband was outside having a smoke and I finished up some work, packed up the computer and settled deep into a book. Ten minutes later, I look up and realize that my husband has come in and started "a conversation". He's got no idea I'm not listening and honestly when I figure out that he's talking about the difference between Irving and Updike, I'm envisioning bloody self-mutilation as the only viable way out. That's how painfully frustrating "instant" conversation is to me when I'm not in the right state of mind or in the middle of something else.

For him, it's a bit different. Here is an example.

ME: We need to think about our summer road trip....I was thinking either Novia Scotia or Montana/Wyoming...what do you think?

HIM: Novia Scotia sounds good.

ME: Great.

And 2 weeks later, I'll come back with tickets, rental car, two weeks of driving maps and all hotel reservations all in a labled 3-ring binder complete with all possible activities we could do on any given day. I'm all puffed up and excited and he'll look at me and ask, "When did we decide this?"

See...to me, when he says, "Nova Scotia sounds good" I hear him making a decision. But in his mind he is saying, "It sounds good to me, but let's think about it for a while and then we'll get back together and we will discuss it again and decide together."

As you can imagine, either one of these scenarios is not in any way satisfying for either of us.

Ironically, our communication mayhem stems directly from one of the things that drew us together in the first place--we are absolute polar opposites. There are a million examples of how opposite we are, but I'll stick with the pertinent one: To him, any discussion and/or decision is a thoughtful, circular, integrated process. To me, most are a fast, linear means to an end.

In the beginning, we defined it differently: I described it as "he calms me". He talked about "liking my energy". Yeah, the first blush of love might have distracted us a bit from what we were really trying to say.

I thought he calmed me? Well, looking back, it might have been a slight coma induced by a 77 minute treatise on Sun-Ra's "Seven Minutes of Silence". (huh, irony.) And it's not just me. When he and our son came back from the park and the first "bird and bees" conversation, I completely understood our son's glazed over eyes and comment about the "forty-five years of talking" that went on during that thirty minute session.

My "energy"? He was probably stunned in submission by the sheer volume--as well as the sheer volume of actionable items that came out of any conversation--most of which were rediculous in nature.

Fifteen years on and we've gotten comfortable with the issues these differences bring. And we've gotten comfortable with the fact that every 5 years or so we find ourselves sitting down with a communications counselor so we can remind ourselves of the little tips and tools we need so that our conversations don't turn into the Cold War.

And so we find ourselves in one of those cycles now, sitting together in a room with another person, trying to get back into the groove of good conversations. It's good and fun...we laugh a lot which is great. And it is a nice feeling knowing that even in the tensest of moments, we know we are both working on something that matters.

This time I decided to write down the three key things I need to remember as a bit of a cheat sheet for me/us, in the hopes that a reminder will lengthen the cycle just a bit:

MY PATIENCE: I know how he likes to and needs to think through things--and the inherent benefits of this process. When I ignore this and take his first response as his answer it's because I'm either being lazy or taking the easy way out. Busted!

HIS TIMING: He knows that he can't spring a conversation on me if I'm in the middle of something else.Typically it works better if we engage in the long discussions when we are cooking, driving, planting---I can keep busy with my hands while giving him my full attention--and even then, we keep it to 30 minutes increments so he gets to the point and I don't wander off.

OUR CLARITY: For any conversation, it helps if we establish up front if we want each other to:

A) Just Listen
B) Listen and provide totally biased feedback and comfort
C) Listen and give unbiased, unvarnished feedback (he tends to go straight to this one so I need to really be clear about whether I want number 2 or 3, or it can be dangerous for him)
D) Listen and then do something to help fix the situation

I know that there is no rocket science here, just plain old common sense tools for each of us to apply. Which doesn't mean that these tips are any easier to remember when he's blocking my view of Mark Harmon on NCIS and wanting to talk about the meaning of Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore". I mean, really.

Futuristic Amazing versus Awesome : Self-Confidence In the Making

2010-03-17T20:11:00.001-05:00

Did the unthinkable the other day and went shopping with my daughter. A bunch of you will read that sentence and think to yourself, "that's all you need to say...we get it". But I'm figuring to add insult to injury here, so I'll just keep on writing.

To me it was a lazy day...so comfy clothes, light makeup...you get the idea. Memo was not received by daughter...to give you a hint of how she felt about how she looked, she looked at herself in the rearview mirror, "I'm so beautiful..I'll be the superstar, you be my guard."

I focus on the first part, and we talk about confidence and self-confidence on the way into the mall. I mean, she did look good. She had paired her black skinny jeans with a oversized suit jacket with a fedora...both in grey pinstripes. Hightops and her red-striped hair completed her look. As did her lil' hipster swagger as we moved around the mall. I loved it.

As she received compliments from the various sales people--especially the guy at the Aveda makeup counter, I could see her shoulders pop back even more and her smile, typically beautiful and reticent, was both beautiful and right out there in front for once--self-confidence shining like the sun.

So, having time before the movie, we try on clothes (seriously, what the hell was I thinking) for me in a packed Nordstrom dressing room. Not surprisingly, it turns out that she is not shy about sharing her point of view. Loudly.

"Mom", she drolls. "That is so futuristic amazing, but you are not futuristic amazing...you are just awesome". Okay. Looking at it, she was right...the zippers at the shoulders, sides and hem, looked awesome, but not me...still wanted it though. Sigh.

I move to the next piece. I get it on and she is like, "That is awesome...and it hides your tummy." Hmmmm.

Next. "Oh god, Mom...that is so 48 minutes ago. Even if we were here 48 minutes ago and you were trying it on it would still be so 48 minutes ago. You have got to just take it off."

At this point, all of the dressing rooms have laughter coming from them--and they are not even trying to hide it.

The next piece, a blue thing with ruffles, she just laughs and says, "Mom, you are not that shirt and it isn't you...it's sillysexy."

What is 'sillysexy' I ask? "You know, when people try and dress like people who are much, much younger and littler....like __________". Oh god. I couldn't take it off fast enough while hoping ________ wasn't in the dressing room with us.

We find two pieces that she approves of and the thing is...she is right...about all of it. As we gather our stuff to leave, she was like, "Mom, when you put on those two things you are buying you looked like you, but you didn't with the other stuff. How come?". As I put on my shoes, I reminded her about the conversation we had earlier. "Oh," she says. "So confidence is trying new things like zipper clothes and escargot. Self-confidence is having the guts to say no to things that aren't you, make you look sillysexy or that you don't like."

God. Sometimes I just want to be her. And I'm not the only one who thinks so...some lady down the dressing room yelled over the wall and asked if she could borrow her for the day.

Hah! As if!

I'm not sure I'll venture out with daughter the next time, but I'll definitely remember her definition of confidence and self-confidence. Even though I'll always want the shirt with zippers on it.

Beauty, Gardening and Food: Perfect Austin Weekend

2010-03-14T21:04:00.000-05:00

There are two specific reasons this was the perfect weekend...the first one is my 7-year old daughter. The second on is my 7-year old daughter.

Our men (son and father) were off in Detroit for son's 10th birthday trip...yeah, don't ask. He was born there and it's been a dream of both of theirs for a while. They've been having a blast, which is all that counts. So, anyway, this ended up being a girls weekend, and we tried to fit in all of the things we both wanted to do--as well as all of the tastes she has on her list.

For a couple of years now our daughter has said that she is going to grow up to be a 'food taster', which sounds perfect to anyone she tells this to...their eyes go a little dreamy, and you can tell they are thinking to themselves, "God, that sounds so good.". They are, to a person, just a little jealous of this dream.

So us girls spent yesterday getting our hair done (she got red stripes), having lunch (great veggie burgers at PTerry's), then dessert at another place with an old friend (blueberry chocolate brownie with almond ice creme, THUMBS UP), then massages at Milk & Honey--they were awesome. We stopped by Whole Foods for big bakers, avacados and cheese (blue and gouda), then home for dinner and a movie.

Today we got up late, breakfast ala Starbucks, then to "The Great Outdoors" for plants and then we spent a very happy afternoon planting about 25 plants in various pots...beautiful weather, and according to daughter, the "best work day ever!". Shower, lotion and getting 'prettied" up, and then out to a "fancy" dinner at Olivia on South Lamar. She had gotten her chocolate and cheese, but wanted "...to try some more new things, so everything has to be new to me at dinner".

Our daughter had the grilled escargot skewer with mashed potatoes (THUMBS UP on both), then we shared the cheese plate (surprisingly THUMBS DOWN on the cheese...). Here is the thing, she loves blue cheese, and any other cheese with big taste...for some reason, the Brazos Valley Blue and the Tarentaise didn't do it for her. I, however, was very happy.   I had the beef carpaccio, which we both thought was excellent...definately THUMBS UP. For our mains, she had the Kobe Shortribs with Truffled Risotto, and she was in heaven...especially the sauce..."Oh, my god this is so amazingly awesome." I had the rabbit-mascarpone ravioli with brussel sprout greens and pancetta creme...OMG...so very, very good. And she loved it as well. I had a lovely la valentino peccorino and she had a peach juice/sprite concoction which was excellent. The owner or manager came over and complimented her palate and actually applauded her sense of adventure, which I thought was fantastic--earned my everlasting gratitude for supporting a growing 'foodie'.

All in all it was a 'high-five" dinner--and while the escargot were not technically new as she's had them before, "these are on a skewer, mom" and so I caved.   We both came home with that great day, warm planting muscles, food coma feeling.  Next, our jammies and settling down for a movie. She keeps talking about little things from the weekend--the too big robe at the spa, the stick the escargot were on, the ladybug we found on one of the plants...and all of the different tastes...to her these are the things that made the weekend so amazingly wonderful.

Then she asks me what made the weekend perfect for me,  I, honestly, say "you, mon sweet petite". She rolls her eyes and tells me I'm a goof.

Seriously perfect weekend.

Failure in the morning, Failure in the Evening...Ain't We Got Fun!

2010-03-11T09:06:00.000-06:00

Questions, questions, and more questions...and no obvious answers. Last night, during the time I love/crave/adore/fear, my daughter came into our room looking to talk, as usual. "Mom", she said as she crawled up onto the bed. "I know I'm supposed to walk a mile in my brothers shoes, but his shoes are too big for me, so it's not going to work."

"And", she said, like I should know what's coming next. "I have a sprained toe, so it's going to hurt too."

You've no idea, I said to myself as I cuddled her up. No idea at all. Outloud, I told her that it was just a saying, a way of getting people to think about how the other person feels. 'I don't have to think about how he feels about me", she said. "He always tells me that I'm bugging him".

So, as it technically wasn't a question she asked, I fell back and told her that walking in his shoes could wait awhile, until she felt more up to it. I would though, when she was older, make sure she read the book of stories edited by Charlotte Wood, Brothers & Sisters.

Cuddle, cuddle and off to bed she went. Safe for another day, I fell asleep.

Then, this morning happened. On the way to school (husband was up and willing, I should have let him take them--he would have had better answers).

"Mom," said boy in front seat. "Are all prophecy's poems?"

"Ahhh" (That's me hedging for time)

"Mom," said the girl in the back seat. "Why don't you hear the word 'prophecy' used a lot?"

"I don't know why it's not used more, but you are right in that it's not used a lot." I said, honestly...the best I could do with her question.

"And," to son in front. "I think a prophecy could be a poem if it were written that way, but not all prophecy's are poems. Why do you ask?" The old answer a question with a bad answer/question combination...I knew I had him on the ropes.

He turned to me, which was a bad sign as it connoted excited engagement. "Ares..." (or at least I think he said this...Poseidon and Zeus were also mentioned at some point in his answer...as was the fact that this god was the god of poetry and prophecy's and/or had a lot of prophecy's about him. And that in the Percy Jackson books, the gods liked Haiku "you know those are from Japan mom" because he/they always wrote in them how awesome they were and that it was a good thing that poetry could be used to make people feel better about themselves and then, when I was pretty sure he was winding down and I would not actually have to answer any more questions...

"Why isn't Poseidon king of the Gods?"

Technically, again, I can say that my answer was on topic as I'm sure that my answer had the phrase, "for the love of God" in it...after that, it was a blur. Nothing tramatic must have happened to/for the kids as they bounced out of the car happily saying, "I love you Mom, you're the best. Good answers"

Okay, only the older son said that. Younger daughter did what she always does which was grunt sarcastically at me and walk away.

Guess what? Only 12 more hours until bedtime. I want a martini...extra dirty, Kettle One, straight up. Please?

Boy, Wierdness

2010-03-05T09:58:00.000-06:00

This morning on the way to school, my son informed me of about a billion facts about left-handers. Not because he is a left-hander, mind you, but because he has been "...infiltrating the left-handed database", as he put it. This database, as far as I can tell, consists of his left-handed friend Henry and one book, "Lefties" by Jack Fincher. He might have also perused a left-handed web site, http://www.lefthandedportal.com/, but I didn't get all of the details on that before he got out of the car at school. That, and the one about BB Guns at friends houses, are conversations we need to come back to this weekend. I'm expecting sighs and eye rolls.

But getting him to focus will be difficult as he and his father are about to embark on his 10th birthday trip to Detroit. Yes, Motor City, where our son was born and lived until he was three-months old. They are going back primarily to bond over the tree in the front yard of the house we lived in where my husband and his brother buried the umbilical cord after it fell of our son's body. I never asked much about that little ritual, still not that interested quite frankly, but they got a kick out of it. And so now, for a period of about 15 minutes, my husband and son will stand on a sidewalk in Detroit and talk about rituals and babies and love. Then, knowing them, they'll be off to every museum in the area, happy as clams. The one they are really looking forward to is the Henry Ford Museum. From all of the Presidential limousines to the house of the future and everythign in between, this is a wonderfully odd (in the best way) museum. They are both very interested in seeing the chair that Lincoln was sitting in when he was assasinated, as well as all of the engines in the "Made in America" section.

Upon their return, there will be the sleepover with about 4 of his friends for the actual birthday party and they will dress like this--a cross between a young Obi-wan and well, I'm not sure what else. Pillows for shields, socks for ear covers and clown shoes, along with a sword and a hero name I cannot pronounce--times that by 4 and you'll have the main activity for the sleepover. Between bouts of saving the world, there will be Lego building, a movie and possibly a convoluted football game in the park. In other words, heaven.

It's amazing though that in just under 3 years I'll be looking back and wishing frantically for the odd and innocent simplicity of this time as girls, a growing social life, a reticence to share anything and everything that flows through his brain, and a million other things I don't understand will be the new world order for him and his friends. And he'll believe, wholeheartedly, that wierdness is something I alone hold the patent to, because let's face it, he'll be too cool to chair dance with me in the car to the They Might Be Giants version of "Istanbul" like we did yesterday on the way home from my office.

So, I guess I better make good use the time we have left in this phase of his life, lord knows there are quite a few more odd facts to learn, sword fights to have and songs to boogie-down to.

Go To Hell. I'm Reading

2010-03-04T11:29:00.000-06:00

I looked up from my book last night and here is what I saw. All of us, heads buried in a book, TV off, music playing (yeah Joe Ely), cat meowing (Big Spitty wanted out!). It was perfect.

The youngest, reading one of her Magic Treehouse books was reading outloud because the words "sound different in my head". The oldest was reading a fantastic kids sci-fi book I had got for him...."The Roar" by Emma Clayton. He had read all 400 or so pages in about three days (we try to catch him at night, but he outfoxes us sometimes). Husband was reading something brilliant and I was reading absolute crap. Yup, I was very much escaping thinking about anything, so I was, I am ashamed to admit, reading hardcore shifter romance...not even a genre I knew existed a year ago and now I find there are thousands of titles...who knew?

Regardless, the rest were shoring up the family cultural capital by reading acceptable 'good' books and I was only mocked a little. A pretty typical night all in all.

After about 45 minutes, the night disintegrated rapidly when our daughter saw--and read outloud, very loudly--her father's bookmark which read, 'Go to Hell. I'm Reading." Hilarity ensued. Which was fine, it was a school night and it was time for bed. Giggled whispers of "go to hell, i'm walking upstairs...go to hell, i'm brushing teeth, go to hell, i'm washing hands"...floated down to us as they got ready for bed.

At first I thought I should go up/yell up about their language and to settle down, and then I said to myself, 'Go to hell...they're laughing, together." And sometimes, that's the important thing, regardless of how we got there.

The Tensile Strength of Family or Becoming A Rubber Band Ball.

2010-02-22T16:39:00.003-06:00

I recently read an amazing book, "Crazy for the Storm" by Norman Ollestad . A memoir, it is the story of the pivotal turn in Norman's life--at age 11 he not only survived the plane crash that killed his father and two others, but he then had to climb, injured, down a treacherous mountain to reach help. There are a lot of lessons, both little and big, in this story that make it worth reading, but the one thing that stuck with me was the idea of tensile strength--the idea that there is a maximum stress a material (a person, a realtionship, an organization or a community) can take without pulling apart or breaking.

I'd been thinking about something along those lines for a while now--mostly because we see it all of the time--whether it is a bad relationship, a difficult client meeting or the earthquake in Haiti--but I hadn't figured out the language of what I was trying to say until this book help me put it into words and then apply it on a more personal level.

For the past six or so years, our family, like many around the world, has had our tensile strength tested time and time again, each time seemingly extending the amount of stress we are able to take without ripping apart. Our stress factor was an ongoing and connected combination of things--all of which manifested around our family's emotional center, my husband. Illness, horrible chronic pain, addictions and the resulting 'side effects' of fear, debt, anger and so on. The critical stress factor of addiction is gone now, for over three years, the resulting issues of debt, anger and resentment have been, we're proud to say, worked through successfully. And, because we learned to and because the chronic illness and pain are still present, we are always working to ensure that our tensile strength is equal to our current needs. And for the past six or so years, that is where I thought my focus should be, on ensuring our tensile strength was enough for us to face anything life threw at us.

Oh, so, so, very wrong.

What I've recently had to face is that our tensile strength isn't our weak spot--it's not what I have to worry about. Rather, it is the slack moments of rebound, when life is wiggly and uncertain...The moments before the next step puts you on solid ground. The moments you think you are the safest because the 'hard' stuff is in the past. These are the moments that scare me the most--and are when I'm at my worst. Because instead of being thoughtful about what we should do in this moment right NOW, I'm always looking too far forward, aniticpating the next, hard thing we need to get through.

And there is the heart of the issue: I've set myself up as the fixer--the only one with the tensile strength. I do this because here is how I currently think: If there is nothing to fix, then what is my purpose? I have been living as if my only purpose is the happiness and well-being of three other people--which if I was Mother Theresa would be laudable and honest. But I'm not Mother Theresa and so this set up doesn't really work for anyone--and here are five reasons why:

It's not conducive to raising confident and capable children.
It's not conducive to a fully realized life for me.
It's not conducive to a mutually satisfying partnership.
It sucks to always be placed as the fixee/It's arrogant to always be the fixer.
My initial premise that we as a family unit have a tensile strength is incorrect. The reality is that I have a tensile strength and they each have their own different tensile strength. That we've survived as a unit, is, well, surprising.

What have I learned? Here is a simple visual for those of you who need them like me:

An individual tensile strength is like a single rubber band--it has only itself to rely on. Which is fine, until it breaks.

A collectives' strength is like one of those cool rubber band balls you get for your kids teacher every fall. In the rubber band ball each singular rubber band lends its strength to the whole--so even if one breaks, the ball itself still exists, still works.

And so this what it boils down to for me-and where my focus needs to be--on working towards the rest of my life being spent as part of a big rubber band ball.

A very colorful, very fun, very bouncy and ultimately very long lasting rubber band ball.

A Few Fantastic Days in New York City

2010-02-21T21:07:00.000-06:00

Let's face it, I can't imagine the recap of any trip to NYC starting off any other way than: It rocked! And so this one does, because it did. Rock, I mean. Totally.

We started off with the childrens opera, "The Enchanted Pig" at the New Victory Theater....an amazing theater and a fun performance, regardless of way too much gold lame for my (rather limited) tastes. And, there is nothing better than seeing your daughter and her grandpa rocking some plastic pig noses

The next day brought the MOMA and the American Folk Art Museum...first time to the latter and I absolutely loved it. My daughter liked the Thomas Chambers paintings of Niagara Falls and I liked the Finster and the quilts. More than that though, the building itself is brilliant, reminding me of the Rothko Chapel in Dallas--amazing on its own and in its ability to let you engage the art on your own terms. Too often, like my experience at MOMA, you are forced to experience the art on someone elses terms because of crowding, like at the current Tim Burton exhibit. Best of all though, according to my daughter, was the giant couch at MOMA in the room that houses Monet's Water Lillies..according to her, it is the best, most comfortable couch in the world...and she should know, she laid on it for quite a while. In an attempt to engage her in the art we were supposedly looking at, I asked her what her impression of them was...her answer? "My impression is that this guy needs a different art teacher."....Genius, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Okay...the whole reason for the trip...The Westminster Dog Show! I am not sure what I expected---but it wasn't this. I was blown away by the whole thing--the casual nature of the day that allowed us to wander from our seats to the floor, to the 'benching room' where the dogs get ready, to the place where all of the dogs and their owners hang out after they win or lose. The people with dogs were incredibly nice and open and giving, which meant my daughter got to see/touch/kiss many of her favorites. As did I. And the people we met and/or listened to in the stands were incredibly nice as well..sharing information and stories without hesitation. We met a wonderful woman in the bathroom (of course). She was 78 and this was her first trip to the dog show--after saving for years--and she came to see the Corgi's...a dog she remembered and loved from her childhood. And to me, that was the overall feeling of the show...a sense of loving dogs because of a childhood joy in them. Because of that, the whole experience was a softer, simpler one than I think I was expecting...all for the better. For my daughter is was, in her words, "totally awesomely cute and cuddly". (If you say it really fast and in a high-pitched voice, you get the idea).

We capped off the day with a long walk back to Grandma and Grandpa's place, interrupted by a stop-off at City Bakery for the best hot chocolate ever. Seriously. EVER.

On the way back to Austin the next day my daughter wondered two things. First, did the people on the plane know that the food they were serving us was really bad? And secondly, would I remember this trip when I was really, really, really old? Yes, to both my sweet petite.

Best In Show: Love in the Big Apple

2010-02-12T12:56:00.000-06:00

"Where is Busy Bee?!?!?! Where is Busy Bee??!!?"

One of the best lines in one of the best scenes in one of the best movies ever--"Best in Show". This is on my mind as my daughter and I are off to the Westminster Dog Show this weekend with my mother and sis-in law. (All due to and many thanks given to V.C. for making this happen.)

We are all very excited, as you can imagine, but my daughters excitement is palpable--the ever changing lists of dogs she wants to see, pet, buy, play with etc. The park, toy store, museums she wants to see on our free day. (Okay, I made up the museum part, but I'm ever hopeful).

The excitement ratcheted up a notch or two when she realized that we would be in NY over Valentines Day. She picked out an outfit (black skinny jeans, black and pink high tops, black small paul t-shirt and a black and red sparkly rocker jacket/hoody ala Avril Lavinge) and asked to wear it to a 'fun & funky' place with good food for our Valentines Day Dinner. She begged me, as only a 7-year old can, to wear something "non mommyish" so that we could be "cool chicks" together.

Which then immediately led to my own "where is Busy Bee?" moment in my closet yesterday as I tried to find something that fit, was 'non mommyish' and for a 'cool chick'. As with Busy Bee in the movie, this outfit was not to be found--ever.

So, dog show? Check. Fun & Funky? Check. Good Food? Double Check. Park, toy store and museum? Checkity-check-chek. One mommyish semi-cool ~~chick~~ dame in comfortable earth tones? Abo-friggin-lutely!

Watch out New York. Here we come.

A Perfect Day/A Dream Day

2010-02-03T09:10:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday to me! So I turned a year older yesterday. Woke up happy. Kids dressed, fed (technically) and drove them to school. Kisses, kisses! A little down on the way to work, saved by AC/DC "Shook Me All Night Long". Good times, good times.

Work, work, work. Calls from my hubby (love you/miss you). Read funny messages on Facebook from my friends. Downloaded some Simon & Garfunkle and Lady GaGa. Flowers from my sister...a phone call full of laughter, same sis. Went across the street and bought myself two books: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot and Flirt by Laurell Hamilton.

Meetings, fun, frivolity. Tiny chocolate cupcakes that I DON'T EAT (Nutrisystem....argh). And then home. Taken out to dinner by kids and Dad. Good food, fun and outrageous desert that I DON'T EAT (see above, argh). Fun and cooky presents from kids. Nice watch from parents. Lovely art from Hubby. Kids devolve into general crazyness. Daughter pretends to be "Francoise the Frenchman" on the phone with her Dad, hands phone to me with an introduction of "...and here is my hefty assistant.". Son gasps and says, "...you can't call Mom that, don't you know hefty is a garbage bag!". I'm feeling the love here folks. Everybody laughs hysterically.

Put kids to bed, daughter, after channeling an old tent revivalist for a bit, climbs into bed with me. Conversation about her taste buds (with visuals). Read a book, long-distance crossword with hubby. Sleep.

Now that's a pretty perfect birthday in real life.

HOWEVER, in my dream life I would wake to kisses from same hubby and kids. They would be out the door, the house would be perfectly pristine and smelling wonderful. I would lounge on a perfectly proportional super-comfy chaise lounge in cashmere lounge clothes and then I would have a day of books and movies (Dirty Dozen, Love Actually, Brothers Bloom, Once) a few of my favorite foods (mashed potatoes with gravy and a pear, walnut, blue cheese salad with a blueberry vinigarette and a GIANT, really cold perfect diet pepsi. For dessert, a perfect slice of Chocolate Mousse pie with raspberry creme and GIANT really cold perfect glass of milk.

Gorgeous hunky men would come in, give me some wine and cheese, a 90-min hot stone massage, a mani/pedi (no color, but a nice buffed shine). Hubby would come home (kids over at friends) a date night of movie and book store--with comfy couches where'd we'd sit, drink coffe (mine a decaf, venti, non-fat, with whip Mocha). Home, candles, music, a crossword or two done together, a Neruda poem (Ah Vastness of Pines) and then ......(see fireworks in background, oh la la).

There is much to be said for both, but thankfully the reality was so much fun, I'm not missing the 'dream' birthday much. On second thought, I might switch my little homegrown Francoise for the gorgeous hunks and massage. Oh well, what is it that my kids teachers say? "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit". I'm good with that.

And to my husband, who I miss terribly and will continue to miss until you get home tomorrow....a little Leonard Cohen...

"...And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A Thousand Kisses Deep."

Holden, Bitches, State of the/our Union, 4, Staying Strong, and Cream: A week in small paragraphs

2010-01-29T09:41:00.000-06:00

J.D. Salinger died yesterday. Author of THE bible of dissaffectation, Catcher in the Rye, Salinger will probably get more ink about his being a recluse than of someone who was able to brilliantly capture in Holden the coming culture shift among youth--so much so that it still resonates today. I know why we are all fascinated with his backing away from celebrity, but I wish we were all just happy with his contribution to culture and let that be the overriding story.

Elizabeth Edwards is getting a bit of a beating in a new book by Andrew Young, depicting her as an angry, obsessive bitch. Well, let's see--if I was dying of inoperable/incurable cancer, my husband was cheating on me, siring other children and so called friends were in on it, using it and hiding it...I'd be royally pissed off too. I'd say and do things I wasn't proud of. As for the Youngs, you can't be that involved in something so miserably wrong and then whine if it bites you in the ass. Well, I guess you can...then I guess you can write a book about it to make money off said misery of others. Unless no one buys the book. I won't. I would just like us all not to--just to say, "Enough! We are better than this and we've got real problems to focus on."

In any relationship there comes a time when one of the people has to hold up their hand during a fight and say, let's just re-focus here on what is really the basis of the disagreement and solve for that...all of this other stuff is silly and it's getting in the way of our moving forward. In my relationship, the person that does that is my husband--he keeps the state of our union on an even keel. On Wednesday night, during the State of the Union, President Obama was that person as well. Although, he could take a few lessons from my hubby in being a bit more direct, a bit more intense in a good way. President Obama was good about taking responsibility for his mistakes, but I would have liked him to call others out a bit more directly as well. And for those of you in the that building the other night: sneers and rude, whispered asides don't play well on TV...I'm just saying...a bunch of you looked like petulant little boys.

4 lbs. Thank you NutriSystem. Except for the meatloaf with mashed potatoes 'gravy'...seriously? Somethign went horribly, horribly wrong in your tasting kitchen.

Hubby is in LA for the next week with his Mom who is fighting cancer. As per usual, she is amazing. The kiddies are missing their Dad who never travels without them, so a learning experience for all of us. I have to remember that their extreme reaction to this is not about me. It was especially hard when they wanted to stop watching their :30 minutes of TV to actually talk to him on the phone...something they don't do with me since they 'have to' do it a lot when I'm on the road. And, I didn't pause the show quick enough so we had to rewind and watch the last few minutes of "Modern Marvel" on the potato. Who knew!? Stay strong B & D, we love you!

Finally, to put it all in perspective: On the way to school my Son loves to listen to classic rock. We had been listening to Cream and the "Tales of Brave Ulysses" until I just couldn't take it anymore. I flicked it off to his dismay. "Mom", he said, ovbiously dissapointed that I was missing the point here, "It's rock AND history!"

Yup. I had forgotten that. I'll do better next time.

Ahhh, Beautiful Words

2010-01-21T09:29:00.000-06:00

Last night we were out to dinner (Guero's on Congress, always good for a nosh and a walk) and our daughter ordered "smacked up avacados". Now I realize that guacamole is the better title for this concoction for a number of reasons, but I have to say I liked what she came up with. It's honest and it's fun to say--food should be fun to order and if I had my choice I think I'd rather order Smacked Up Avacados than guacamole.

Thinking about this last night as I got ready for bed, I fired up the trusty iPhone and looked on Amazon.com's Listmania service (totally awesome if you are wondering) and yes, someone else had put together a list of books on the origins of words, phrases, etc. And, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I had read at least two of the 19 books, and with a quick glance, I know that quite a few others will soon be gracing our shelves.

The first one I had read was The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. It is about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary and is, as one reviewer said, a "well told yarn". It was astounding and oddly pleasureable (for me anyway) to realize through the reading of the book that something like the dictionary was only completed with the help of someone who was certifiably mad. Mad, I say!

The second book I had read was The Disheveled Dictionary: A Curious Caper through our Sumptuous Lexicon by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. For anyone who loves to have fun with language, this is a book for you. I knew her as the author of the Transitive Vampire, the only book on the crafting of language I every really understood. But I loved this book--it's funny and yummy--and useable. In fact, it helped me put into words the antagonism I have for the recidivist crepuscular mammalian who has been excavating our garbage. Her examples will actually leave you laughing, but one must start somewhere.

(If you want to see all of the books on this list, here is the link: Listmania Books about Words)

In any case, creativity, as they say, is all about hiding your sources. So I will continue to listen to my daughter and her verbose wit, while we both coninute to love our Smacked Up Avacados.

Rocks, Barns, Beds and Corners. Or, the Top 10 Places to Read on Three Link Ranch

2010-01-19T18:01:00.000-06:00

We spent our Christmas Holidays in Oregon on the cattle ranch where I grew up, about 35 miles from Crater Lake outside of Butte Falls (pop. 450). It is stunning in all seasons, simply one of my favorite places in the world. Miles from anyone else and surrounded by forest, it is compellingly quiet, enough so that your senses reach out on their own, engaging in the little world that exists in the small circle around you--the sounds, smell and sights, all of which change with the seasons.

Once we were old enough, us five kids all had chores and work to do--ranging from clearing the garden of rocks each spring, to haying to feeding said hay to the cows in winter, to digging irrigation ditches, so on and so forth. Between that, school, sports and friends, there wasn't a lot of time for ourselves, but what time I had I spent reading. And that was another thing that changed with the seasons, my secret reading places, of which I will now share my top 10--knowing that every reader probably has their own list to rival my own. I would love to hear some of them.

10. Below the big field, across the fence, along the creek, under a big oak there would be these groves of low, white flowers among dense grass.  It was soft and soothing--and in the summer, a perfect place to read yourself to sleep, lulled by the dappled light on the pages. I read Sounder there, as well as my first reading of My Antonia, from which my all-time favorite quote comes from..."Happiness is being dissolved into something complete and great".

9.  The barn. There is practically nothing more comfortable then a chaise lounge made from hay, especially as it comes with it's own lovely perfume--an earthier, heavier dried grass aroma. I read Animal Farm there for a reason, although in hindsight, probably not the best idea I've ever had.

8. The corner behind the wood stove. Whether it was winter or not, it was strategically important, keeping me literally under the view of my Mom. If quiet, I could read there for hours without being bothered--which was perfect when I went through my Michner phase.

7. The Bouncy Tree. In another field, an old tree bent low enough to scrabble on to it, with one perfect branch as a back rest. You could read and bounce-away the afternoon and it's where I would read about Satchel Paige, Amelia Earhart and other amazing people.

6.  The hay fields. When the hay was about yay-high, ready to be cut, you could lay in the middle of it all, nothing but gold and blue around and above you. No one could ever find me there--except mice and snakes..but they never told. Perfect for the Little House on the Prairie books.

5. In bed under the covers (after the generator was off for the night with a flashlight):  Quiet perfection-- for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.

4. The hammock. duh! This is where I would read anything resembling romance novels--which were few and far between in our library. But the few Joan Collins books I snuck outside were illuminating to say the least.

3. Behind the ranch, up a logging road, off a little side road, there is a small, almost octagonal meadow of moss, surrounded by downed trees, all covered with moss. When I was much younger it was my secret emerald forest, and it was perfect for reading Lord of the Rings.

2. My parents room. For some reason, their bed was always more comfortable and the room was always cooler or warmer, depending on the season.

1.The Rock. Way up the logging road behind and above our ranch, there was an outcropping of rocks from which you could see the entire property and then some. With a pbj, cookies and a jug of water, I spent probably hundreds of afternoons up there, reading everything from Hotel New Hampshire to all five volumes in the Hitchhikers Guide (I especially liked the third book, 'Life, the Universe and Everything'), dreaming of what was out beyond the horizon of trees.

So, there is the list...if I close my eyes on a late January afternoon in Austin, I can smell the hay or the pine--or the woodsmoke. I can feel the moss or the breeze and I can remember what I felt as I read and dreamed in my own perfect corner of the world in Oregon, each of these a building block, some big, some little, to who I am today.

Thanks Mom and Dad. It was amazing.

Would You Rather? or Reading your way through the Health Care debate

2010-01-05T10:05:00.000-06:00

Last night at dinner (at the great new diner in Austin, "24"), me and the fam were playing one of our usual dinner time games, "Would You Rather?"--the game where either choice is rarely a good one. Besides being a great peek into where your kids heads are at, for us anyway this game is a fun and effective conversation starter--which, as most parents know, is a toughy.

While the son and I typically go for the "would you rather eat 100 raw oysters or 100 snails"-type questions, my husband and daughter always go for the odd/existential/serious questions, like last night's kicker, "Would you rather be a doctor that has to tell someone their Grandfather died, or be a manager that has to fire 100 people on the same day?"

My daughter picked the doctor and when we asked why, she said in her typical "I'm channeling a very cynical 40-year old" voice, "Doctor. They say it, they fake cry and they walk away..it's easy." Maybe I should have said the voice she was channeling was a "very, very, VERY cynical person", or maybe she listens more than we give her credit for because outside of my doctor and my brother-in-law, I'm not a big fan of doctors or the system they work for. We've been in a lot of offices and hospitals in the last five years and I can easily say that I hate them and the system. At their/it's best they made me hopelessly hopeful. At worst? A quivering mass of sobbing doubt.

Anyway, the question and subsequent conversation reminded me that over the past 7 years or so I've had to do a lot of reading about health care for my job. And, given the current debate/debacle I went through my books and found what I considered to be the best of the best in terms of giving you a fully rounded picture of the issues we face as our elected leadership try to solve the problem that is our health care system.

First, let's get in the right frame of mind...regardless of how you want it fixed, most Americans want something different--especially the 40 million or so uninsured. So, I'd recommend, "Sick" by Jonathan Cohn. I found it a compellingly devastating, yet judicious look at decline of our health care system--each patient story highlighting yet another reason that we all need to take this seriously.

Then we should ground ourselves in the history of what is a very unique system of care here in America..."The Health Care Mess: How We Got Into It and What It Will Take To Get Out" by Julius Richmond and Rashi Fein. Taking us from the post-WW II start of health insurance to the 'quest for profits' business it is today, they show the sink holes of a decentralized system and lay out their proposed fix. For what is admittedly a dry subject, they do a good job of cutting through the fat to the key issues below.

Then, a look at hard reality with "Can We Say No? The Challenge of Rationing Health Care" by Aaron, Schwartz and Cox. Using the British system--and their choices--as a foil, this book points out the nature of the choices we as Americans face if we want to keep it from being a financial drain to either business or ourselves. They don't offer their version of a solution, but I didn't mind knowing that this issue truly will take a combined, collaborative effort to solve (which does not give me hope for this round of health care reform either come to think of it).

Then would come the hardest read for me (I tend to shy away from anything written by economists--it's a personal failing I grapple with)--"Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: Five Steps to A Better Health Care System" by Coogan, Hubbard and Kessler. Examining the problem a market perspective, they come to identify root causes of the overall mess that I ultimately understood--it was, for lack of a better term, my 'aha!' moment. From tax code issues that force price distortion to the fact that there is no one measure of quality of either care or care information, they break it down and offer a solution for each. Whether their solutions are plausible or even smart I can't say, but the issues they identify are definately part of the problem and should be understood and solved for in the long run if we are truly to create positive change for all.

Finally, I'd wrap it all up on a high note with T.J. Reid's fantastic book, "The Healing of America: The Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care". Clear, insightful and often humorous, it shows that we can have a system that puts people, not profits, first without losing sight that this is a business.

And, if you only have time for one book...Reid's is the one to read: It gives fact-based and hopeful direction for a better system of care and we should all be armed with that because as Congress plays it's own game of "Would You Rather" with the future of American health care, you want to be ready with a good answer.

Sorry, Life Got In The Way

2009-11-19T14:01:00.000-06:00

I've been meaning to write for the past week, but life happens. Nothing major, just the little things--an errand here, a craft there. Dinner, the dog, laundry. It wouldn't be a problem, but I've been noticing lately (okay, pretty much for the past 9 years) that I don't let life get in the way, I seem to PUT life in the way.

What I mean is this--before I can sit and cuddle or read or draw with my daughter, I've got to vacuum up the dog hair. Before I can build the next great Star Wars gun ship with my son, I've got laundry or the bills. It's not that I don't want to do these things (I do!, I do!), its that I want everything else 'perfect' before I do them. For some reason I seem to think that "it" will all be better if I sit down to do these things in a clean house, glowing with soft candle light and smelling of lavender and Beef Bourguignon.

I think part of it comes from this self-induced perception that I don't pull my share of load at home. I work outside the house, my husband inside the house. And I get worried that I'm putting it all on his shoulders--the house, the kids, the dog, etc. The reality is that we've got a pretty equitable split of the load that is life: he does the dishes, I do the bills. Everything else gets done as we do it--sometimes its me, sometimes it's him.

I think part of it comes from another thing that is self-induced--the dream of perfect motherhood. I know, I know...I can hear the cackles and guffaws already. There is no such thing--and if there were, would we know it when we saw it? I don' t think so. Perfection, much like beauty, is totally in the eye of the beholder.

And let's face it, on this subject, my eye is totally skewed because no matter how much I may want it to happen, there is no way my kids would sit up after a marathon game of Monopoly and say, "This was perfect because the floors were so clean they reflected the candlelight, and the Chopin during my drive to build on Park Ave was instrumental in my success--and finally mother, the repast of French chocolate and Ladyfingers really helped me deal with being sent directly to jail, without passing Go and collecting $200."

It's just not going to happen. Ever. Unless they read this and then mock me about it over the Thanksgiving break. Now that would be perfection in their eyes. Good enough.

According to my phone, I may be pregnant

2009-11-11T17:39:00.001-06:00

I'm not sure how it came off to the other people in the meeting, but looking back I'm prety sure it was, without a doubt, a rediculous sight. Yes, the moment I nonchalantly powered up my iPhone during a meeting, as we all are wont to do when things get slow, only to have it flash a message to "see my ob" as I was probably pregnant. The eek!, the dropped phone, the scrabbling under the table to pick it up, the hitting of my head on the underside of the table, the stand up, the sit down (fight, fight, fight! say the cheerleaders).

Eventually I got out of the meeting, into the ladies room and, with a couple of deep breaths, assessed my reality. "I", I announce to the bathroom, "am not pregnant!" "There is no possibility I am with child!" I say again (dramatic language supplied by Regency Romances). "No friggin chance," I say, looking at myself sideways in the mirror--which was, quite frankly, not helpful at all.

Back to the phone, the message is still there. I do some sliding and tapping and voila! My phone now confirms for me that I am not pregnant. Duh!

But to be fair, it wasn't the fault of my iPhone. All blame, without a doubt, should be placed entirely on my husband's shoulders. Oh, not the pregnancy, because there isn't one, believe me. (He was getting snipped before our youngest was barely cleaned up.) But everything else? Absolutely! You see, now that he's got his iPhone, he is the King of Apps. He's always showing me this cool one or that helpful one and today at lunch, it was the one that "helps you with your period." Frankly, I should have thought this statement through a bit, mostly because on this subject, I define "help" vastly different than he does.

Anyway, this app, which I admit I promptly downloaded, tracks your cycle for you, complete with happy and sad faces for good and bad days---and lightning bolts for crampy days--just in case you don't notice them yourself. I tried it out by entering some data and then, realizing what time it was, scampered off to my meetings for the afternoon. Two hours later, because of this hurried, incomplete data, I scared myself--and probably a few others--silly.

Look, I love my iPhone, don't get me wrong, but haven't we gone a little ape with the apps? According to 148apps.biz, "the" reputable site on all things Apple, there are currently 98,401 ACTIVE apps, with another 10,156 inactive ones--created by over 23,000 unique app publishers. We spend, believe it or not, $2.4 billion per year on apps according to AdMob. I have to ask: Were we, as a human race, that needful of help or entertainment? Were we missing opportunities, experiences, or dare I say it, pregnancies because we did not have the right app? Or were we not maximizing, enhancing, tracking, journaling or mashing our lives up enough?

And how much more inefficient or stressed are we with all of this now in our lives? If I download enough apps, it makes sense that I'll eventually have to download an app organizing app, right? If I don't, I'll likely get stressed because I won't be able to find anything. But luckily for me, there are a number of highly rated stress-busting apps...which once I download, I'll not be able to find as I did not purchase the app organizing app.

aarrrgh.

Luckily for me, in my real life there is always the yummilicious husband at home who, when the time is right, the kids are asleep, the dog isn't barking and the shower isn't leaking, is my own free "de stresser app". And, if he needs a little kick-start, there is always the highly rated, fully customizeable foreplay game "Sexytime Fun Pro" that we can download onto my iPhone.

Which is, I believe, right where this all started.

Oh Body, My Body

2009-11-09T11:43:00.000-06:00

There are moments when I catch sight of myself in a mirror or a window and I do not realize who the person is staring back at me. It catches me off-guard rather stunningly each time. That's because in my mind I am thinner...much, much thinner. Or taller, much, much taller. It's not as if I'm actively fooling myself, but the physicality of "me" that I believe I am is vastly different that the "me" I actually am. I read a science journal once that described this situation and apparently I'm in good company--if I remember correctly, about 90% of people interviewed held a very different perception about themselves than what the reality was (whether this perception was about weight, wrinkles or the size of their nose).

As well, doing research for a client, I stumbled upon something called the "Teachable Moment", which is a moment when something happens that alters your thinking about a very important behavior. When it comes to women and their weight, these teachable moments supposedly happen up to 3 times a day. Which is good in that it provides us a lot of moments to learn from. But on the other hand, it's like our mothers got together and passed on their nagging capabilities to the inanimate objects in our lives...It's on the days that I find myself telling the store window, car window or dressing room mirror to fuck off that I've know I've reached my limit of teachable moments (on that subject and on that day anyway).

Here's the thing--most of the time I can laugh and learn from those moments and I'm happy to say that I'm actively engaged in creating a 'me' that won't be caught in front of a Nordstroms window cursing it with a string of profanity likely to cause the writers on Family Guy to curl up shaking in fetal positions. But there are moments that just fucking kill me--I mean grit my teeth, burst into tears, eat chocolate and KFC mashed potatoes with gravy kill me. Two examples to follow.

First, not too long ago my daughter asked me to come read to her class. I said I would and she went on talking about what I needed to know, do and not to do. I was nodding along until she mentioned that it would be her job to tell her friends not laugh and hurt my feelings. I asked her to re-wind and she explained that she didn't want her friends to laugh at me because I'm fat. Damn. I went from 'fluffy mama' to embarrasing in one single instant. These are the moments that remind me for all of the right reasons...health, family, responsibility.

There there are those like in example number two. This weekend, opening night of the Opera season, our 14th wedding anniversary outing to La Boheme and the (supposedly) extra special "Montemarte Experience". Strolling outside at intermission with a glass of champagne, looking at the skylights and the mini-Eiffle Tower they had put up, surrounded by caricaturists there to capture us in all of our black-tie glory-with a hint of humor. Well, he might of thought it was funny, but there was a reason my husband moved us away from the 'artiste' rather quickly. I went from feeling seriously curvaciously, Rubenesquely hot to Carol Channing drag-queen in two seconds flat. I mean, the guy took extra time to put in the four double chins and tiny beady eyes. These are the teachable moments that remind me for all of the wrong--or vain--reasons why I want to lose some poundage--how other people see me.

(Luckily, with a few well placed gropes and solid kisses from my tattooed hotty of a husband I was quickly back on track and we had a really lovely, funny, loving night despite said artist and some surprisingly bad food.)

But back to the issue at hand. Here's where I net out: These teachable moments, whether right or wrong, positive or negative, meant or not meant--they are a tool in my ongoing fight with myself and my body. I just have to learn which ones are more effective tools for me. Secondly, my weight is about more than me--it's about time I faced up to that. And finally and in some ways, most importantly, I need to get over it. For too long it has been too much a part in how I define myself and how I've let, even demanded, others define me. Seriously, I can imagine that for those of my friends and family who don't see the weight first, that it's downright boring.

So I guess the next time I catch a glance of myself in the window and wonder who that person is, the answer is simply, me.

Cry Love or Parenting through John Hiatt

2009-11-04T12:31:00.001-06:00

John Hiatt said it best, even though he was coming at it from a different context...tears of an angel, spilling all over your heart. That's how I feel when my kids cry 'that cry'. The one the comes from the deep, scary hurt of not understanding. When a friend, a parent or even a stranger does something (purposefully or not)that is so antithetical to how they view the world this pain pours out from them, sad and melodious, soft and old, fearful and yet searching for new, solid ground.

This cry, THIS cry, this cry! It slays me. I ache inside knowing that another bubble has burst for them, another lesson learned, a new understanding of the perfect imperfect. I want to fix it. I want to rail at the universe even though I know that in time--whether it's 10 minutes or 10 days--they will have forgotten or assimilated or whatever little ones do when they face such an experience.

In the face of this cry I push down my eternal need to fix, to help them run from the feelings by logically talking them through it--because those are my issues, damn it! Instead I curl silently around them, soft and squishy, surrounding them with the feels and smells of the familiar and safe. (I don't smell, according to my daughter, as good as the burnt toast smell as my husband, but I come in a close second with a 'donut powder' smell.)

Sometimes we just sit there quietly until they get up silently and run away to play. Sometimes they fall asleep, the wet, sobby hiccups making them feel smaller in my arms then they actually are. Sometimes, depending on the act that precipitated this, I'll feel my way into the subject, trying to put the pieces together for them, and me, and the other person (typically the other sibling).

But what I love the most is when they start talking--sometimes about the incident, most of the time not. Just quiet chatter, about nothing and everything. Eventually a few giggles, a more certain tone, a straighter back. It's not a 'teaching' moment, but at the same time it isn't not one. It's organic and self-directed and it--calming, and soft and lovely--grows, pushing the ache aside, leaving a bright, clean energy like what exists after a good, cleansing rain. And best of all, we both feel better for it, and life moves on with a different, better perspective.

John Hiatt says it best: have a little faith me...when the tears you cry are all that you believe, give these lovin arms a try...from a whisper start, have a little faith in me.

While obviously not written as one, this is a parenting mantra I can get behind--no matter what form or face it takes, families having a little faith in each other is a pretty good place to be, especially during times when a lot answers, time and certainty feel scarce.

Building a Generation with a Voice

2009-11-02T08:41:00.002-06:00

My son and I were looking at a recent picture in the New York Times showing a man spraying a policeman with milk from the teat of a cow. It definitely grabbed your attention--the physics of the act alone made the picture astounding, not to mention the skill of the man doing the spraying. It garnered a good laugh and the subsequent conversation about all of the different animal/policeman combinations was (disturbingly) illuminating to say the least.

Unfortunately the story itself wasn't as engaging to either myself or my 9-year old son--and that's the problem. The article--about dairy farmers taking to the streets in support of their livelihood--should have been interesting to us both in terms of the issue and the action the farmers took to try and create the change they wanted. But, as my son said as he ran out the door "...it sooooo isn't cool Mom".

But why not? We are a country started with the ultimate of all protests. Our founding 'bad boys' thumbed their noses but good at the powers that be. Rosa Parks, the march on Selma, the march on the Pentagon in '67 and Stonewall in 1969, Kent State, the Million Man March, the road blockades in January, 1991 against the first Gulf War--all of these were powerful, effective movements driven by a collective desire for an idea or ideal.

Today these ideals have been corrupted. We feel righteously cool just by 'opting in' to the Darfur group on Facebook or 'signing' the latest Move-On letter to our Congressman. We show up to a Tea Party organized and staged by others, stand where they tell us to and say that it is a genuine movement.

I'm not advocating for violence, but rather against President Lincolns 'sin of silence'. We should teach our children how to be heard, to feel confident in standing up for what they believe, to follow their heart--and feet--to a crowd of other believers. And they should know they can change the world that way.

I know--I better watch out what I ask for. I'll have little Parks and Kings and Ghandi's bringing my household to a standstill. But what they do to me today, is what they do for me tomorrow. I'm thinking it's a decent trade-off.

On Becoming A Woman or Why JC Penny Makes Me Shudder a Bit

2009-10-28T16:01:00.000-05:00

So my daughter asked me the other night when she would become a woman. Given her previous disgust at being a girl, I was actually excited by this question, thinking that we may have turned a corner.

Then came the flashback--Summer of 1977, JC Penny dressing room, Medford, OR. I explain to my mother that 'something happened'...she gets all flustered, runs out (leaving me in the dressing room I might add with no explanation for 20 minutes) to a store to buy "something", comes back, we do 'something' and we all leave. It's over. Thank God. Then we get into the street and my Dad gives me a hug and says, "I'm so proud of you, you are a woman now".

At the time I was just to embarrased to say anything--much less think this whole thing through. As the years went by my thoughts were mainly centered around "JC Penny?" I mean seriously, JC Penny? We had to have the whole giant pad discussion in a JC Penny? Not to mention the fact that I learned that I couldn't use tampons until after I was married...for "obvious reasons". Actually, at the time they weren't that obvious to me I am embarrased to say. I can laugh now, in a crazy high-pitched way, but at the time...

Now, faced with this question from my daughter (who had just turned seven) I realized on some level I had been thinking it through over the years and the fact was I didn't want to give that answer--because I think that answer is complete and utter shite actually. Pure bunk I wasn't a woman just because my body had begun to complete certain biological changes. I also didn't become a woman when I had sex for the first time (sorry Regency Romances). Or had my first orgasm. Or fell in love. Or had my heart broken. Or broke someone's heart. Or really fell in love. Or really, really fell in love. Or got married. Or had a child. Or another child. Or sent someone I love away. Or when I welcomed him home. Or in the million other moments in between these.

I don't understand the"tah dah-I am now a woman" moment. I do understand one of my favorite characters, Margaret Simon in Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (on the Banned Book list, btw) wanting to feel more womanly by getting her period. I get that idea, a moment/experience/event that is of feeling something more in terms of what you already are. I'd be interested in hearing from other women on this though, but for me, I don't believe in the "exact moment" theory of womanhood.

But of course it did happen somewhere in the midst of or in the culmination of time between 1977 JC Penny and This Minute. Somewhere in there or along the way, woman became more than a modifier...just like mother, wife, daughter or employee. And like each of those titles, I know there were moments where I felt more of or less of a woman. I also know there were/are/will be moments when I feel I am the woman I was meant to be--however I define it. And that's the thing I want to teach my daughter--that's it not about when you become a woman, but what type of woman you become. And, for once I'm not turning to books (only because I did once and I found the group of books telling me how to be the woman he wants, the woman God wants, a woman with a voice, a boss, not a bitch, happy, Mrs Potato Head, Barbie, sexy, fabulous, rich, thin, good, bad to be a tad overwhelming and angst-creating to say the least).

So, instead of telling my daughter when, I asked her what kind of woman she wanted to be. She said she wanted to be the kind with boobs--and a motorcycle. "Awesome", I said.

My Brain has a Brain of its Own OR Viggo, Jon and Chocolate

2009-10-20T13:33:00.003-05:00

Last night around 10:30 I informed my daughter for the umpteenth time that it was time for her to sleep. She said her brain wasn't tired. I told her to tell her brain to go to sleep—that she was the boss. She came back with, 'Mom, you know I can't do that, my brain has a brain of its own."

It's hard to argue when she thinks she is making perfect sense and according to neuroscientists at UCLA, she's kinda-sorta right. According to a recent WSJ article, these neuroscientists found that we have specific neurons in our brains that are each dedicated exclusively to one specific idea, person or thing. The examples they gave (they are from L.A. ya know), were people with neurons dedicated to people such as Halle Berry, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna and even Homer Simpson. (Doh!)

My daughter obviously has a nerve cell exclusively dedicated to NOT sleeping. It makes sense, she is never tired, doesn't nap, is extremely active and only needs about 7 hours of sleep per night as opposed to the 11 that the experts says she needs at this age.

'Mom, since you are up now, let's have a conversation." So I told her about these doctors and how they found these things in our brains that only 'thought' about one thing. And I asked her what were the things her brain were focused on. Here is her list of thing-specific neurons:

Chocolate, eating lunch, Daisy (our dog), playdates (or lack thereof), Esme/Jada/Emma, Grandpa John, Turkeys, Questions, Not Sleeping, Chocolate (yes, she has two things that think about Chocolate), swimming and finally, Commander Gree (who is a Star Wars persona that she 'is' a couple times a day…fun).

Given that the article stated that the researchers believe that the neurons were responding "to the distillation of an experience" -- and not pictures, per se – this list makes perfect sense for my daughter. This list is the distillation of her experience at this exact point in her life. It is inevitable that this list will shift and change as she grows and as her experience in total grows—but there are certain neurons that will stay only about certain things—in her case, probably chocolate and turkeys…which is a whole other thing.

Anyway, she then asked me what my brain thingies thought about. I found my list mostly not-surprising…here it is:

Daughter/Son/Husband, Chocolate, family, travel, work, friends, weight, books, creativity, Husband, cheese, 'what ifs' and then to be honest, Viggo Mortensen and Jon Stewart.

Besides the fact that she thought that it was gross that I thought they were "cute", I'm totally going with my daughters reasoning here—my brain has a brain of its own. And, there are days when my brain spends what is probably an inordinate amount of time on one or the other, or both of these men.

The thing is, if these neurons are about the 'distillation of an experience", then Viggo and Jon make complete sense in that they are simply the "face" to a distilled experience in total for me….in this case, the experiences of my husband that rev my engine the most, so to speak…the combination of the brooding artist and the politically-focused funnyman. Viggo, for me anyway, brings the brooding artist to life—the craggy face, heavy lidded eyes, the perception of being a 'loner', painting, poetry, music, a great ass (essential!). Jon Stewart—the smart satire, ability to laugh at self, the laugh itself.

That I've personified these experiences with people who are attractive to me is not out of the ordinary—Lloyd Saxton speaks to the personified ideal in his book, The Individual, Marriage, and the Family. And, you could say that our whole obsession with celebrity culture is about finding and associating with the ideal as defined by your specific needs.

So, back to the list—it's obvious, from a scientific point of view, that having Viggo and Jon on my list is just like my daughter having Daisy and Commander Gree on her list. Completely innocent with no reason to worry.

Until, of course, I have a neuron that is all about the one idea of "What if Viggo, Jon and Husband were covered in chocolate?"

Writing with My Son, Or Not.

2009-10-12T17:52:00.000-05:00

It is a rainy Sunday and Son and I are writing together while Dad and Daughter are out getting invitiations for her coming birthday party. Son needs to write in his journal more for school, something he doesn't like to do oddly enough, and so I told him we'd write together.

After discussions on various topics he decided on writing a poem about weather. Me? I decided on writing about how we both hate it when the person on the screen doesn't look anything like how the book described him or her. So while he went upstairs to get his almanac to help him with weather words, I started writing and now I fear I'm on to a different topic. Why? Because he came down and showed me the Kids Almanac and how on page 73 there is a list of books that are in trouble of not being read these days and the reaons why. He was using it to make the case that the reason he didn't want to read The Diary of Anne Frank is the same reason it is one of the most "attacked" books in recent years: Too Depressing.

Well, yeah. That's kinda the point--in an uplifing, let's never let this happen again sorta way.

It also says that Blubber, by Judy Blume is attacked because "the characters curse and the leader of the taunting is never punished for her cruelty."

Again...well, yeah. Because that's real life. Sometimes the mean people never get what's coming to them--or what you think should be coming to them.

Oh, I love this one. The reason that is given by people for why Shel Silversteins' A Light in the Attic is bad is that it has "suggestive illustrations that might encourage kids to break dishes so they don't have to dry them."

Really? I mean, seriously, Really? I read every Nancy Drew there is at least five times each growing up and I'm pretty sure my parents were never worried I was going to pair up with two of my friends and start solving crimes around town so I could become popular and date Mr. Wonderful. Although it is possible looking back that they wished I had instead of well, the other stuff.

The bottom line is that I will never understand thinking like this and I'm not sure I know how to explain it to others, i.e., my kids, except for the old fall back, 'they are idiots'. Logically I could probably spin a paragraph or two, but I'd look at it like I look at some of the writing I do and just want to slap myself silly because it would be crap.

So, I do what I do, trying to find a way to make sense of this for myself and so I could help my kids make sense of it. I was amazed to find that I had just missed "Banned Books Week" (9/26-10/3/09)! Go figure. I also learned that book banning is quite the little industry--no matter what side you come down on. Did you know that you can even shop Amazon.com by 'banned books'...yes, they have lists--which are both cool to look at, and scary as hell.

The whole thing kinda turned my stomach and so I stopped trying to make sense of it from a bigger picture point of view. I'm just going to do what I normally do (whether it's National Geographic or a book or a television show), reach/watch with them and then talk about it with them. Novel idea that doesn't cost me a thing.

My daughter is reading "If you Give A Mouse a Cookie", which we should finish fast before it gets banned for having words and pictures that could encourage children to be nice to rodents by giving them what they ASK for.

And, the weather poem turned into a battle of the wills, which I'm pretty sure we lost. So much for the entire plan.

So, in order to feel like I might have accomplished something, here is a list of the 10 most banned books according to the ALA. The wierd thing is, when I first saw it, I thought it was a list of the 10 books your child should absolutely have to read. Again, go figure. Happy reading everyone!

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
3. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
4. Harry Potter Series, J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
6. Ulysses, James Joyce
7. The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier
8. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
9. Forever, Judy Blume
10. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
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Bras! and Jocks! and Cups!, oy vey

2009-10-07T22:21:00.000-05:00

My daughter is fascinated by my bras. Me, not so much. I could go as far as to say that I despise them. From the training bras from JC Penny's to the lace demi of today, I've never found one that doesn't show under a t-shirt, fits perfectly or doesn't make me want to rip it off in the middle of an airplane after a day long up and back trip for work.

So it was with little to no sympathy that I faced my son who was experiencing his first jock strap and cup for his stint as catcher on his Little League team. First it was too big, then too small, then it made him itch and sweat. Ten minutes later he was still going on about walking funny and sounding funny. After telling him he wouldn't have to worry about sounding funny if he'd stop "knocking" on his cup, I tried to tell him that he'd get used to it, that he'd be experiencing a lot of new things in the coming years...blah, blah, blah. I mean it sounded trite to me and by the look on his face, it sounded more nonsensical than the parents in the Charlie Brown specials to him.

And then I found myself saying, jeez, it's a just cup for goodness sake--wear it! And then something to the effect of , "And look, the pain of not wearing it is far more than the pain of wearing it."

Not my worst moment as a mother, but not my best. The reality is that sometimes it's hard being a mom to a boy. I founder when trying to talk to him about 'boy things'...I fear I'm too soft, then I overcompensate by being too hard. It's a bit of whiplash for the both of us, rarely satisfying.

Luckily at these times I have my fall backs, two books that help me regain my equilibrium as a mother of a boy. The first, Raising Cain by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, has both depth and clarity on the issue of 'indoctrination' into the male culture, something I know/knew nothing about. The second, Boys Should Be Boys by Meg Meeker is a common-sense look at how all the 'snails and puppy dog tail-ness' of boys is fine and how to encourage it with purpose in mind. I've never been big on the self-help book train, but these are a life saver not only because they teach me new things, but they also remind me that I'm not marring him for life when I hover or share or whatever a bit too much or too little.

So, after practice and dinner, when he thrust his cup into the air and shouted, "let the glow of the cup light our way home", I was happy to yell back, "And the bra shall guide our way". I think at that moment both of us hated our respective garments a little less than before. And I'll take that as a check in the win column.

Smell and Memory/Joy and Trouble

2009-10-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

Last night our son was telling us about this book he is reading Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School and Other Scary Things, by Lenore Look. Alvin, our son explained, is trying to figure out how to do a lot of new things without being scared--and without talking. He is, as he tells us in the book, as 'silent as a side of beef'. (great line!) Somewhere along the way we get to the part where Alvin takes his dad's ultra favorite childhood toy--a Johnny Astro figure--to school and things go horribly, horribly wrong. At this point our son asked if I remember getting into trouble when I was little. I swear, as soon as he asked, both he and his sister sat up straighter in their chairs, their eyes bright with hope, their little ears wanting all of the gory, painful details. (Face it, your children love hearing stories about you getting into trouble--morbid curiosity at it's most innnocent.)

So laughter ensued when I told the story of when I was around 5 and I was playing Superman with a towel for a cape. I told how I ran into my parents room and up onto their huge bed--jumping and swooping, generally being the best Superman ever. I remember feeling perfectly joyful, light and bright and the next moment knowing that I was in so much trouble that nausea roiled and knees knocked. I had, in the midst of a perfect twirl of my cape, swept all of the beautiful bottles of perfume off of my mother's dresser.

I know I got into trouble, who wouldn't? But I don't remember the details of my punishment...my memories are of everything that came before.

The sound of glass breaking and the smell of the different perfumes blending together in a closed room are perfectly preserved in my memory. I can't smell White Shoulders to this day without being transported back to that room. To me White Shoulders is the color of the bedspread, the carpet, the drapes. It is the feel of the room, of being in that room alone, the indescribable perfection of jumping on a big, bouncy bed and watching myself float and fly in the mirror, my towel/cape fluttering behind me like the tail of a kite. It brings to mind a child feeling safe, surrounded by the sights and smells of her parents and yet also feeling the fear of a curious adventurer, being someplace you knew you weren't supposed to be, but being there, and wanting to be there, anyway.

Of course, I had lost the interest of my children by then. They had no desire to hear about smell and memory, they just wanted to know what Grandma had done to me. So, we went on talk about Daddy's exploits, Uncle Johnny's exploits, more of mine...needless to say, they were amused and satisfied by the end of dinner.

But I was stuck on the issue of smell and memory, and how smell is such a big part of my most vivid memories, both bad and good. The heavy, sharp smell of pine trees and cut hay on hot, still summer days remind me of Nancy Drew, Pippi Longstocking and Anne of Green Gables. The smoke from a wood fire of puzzles and Monopoly. Wet rabbit fur (don't ask...so embarrasing) of my first date with someone who would turn out to by my first boyfriend. I walked into a neighbor's garage the other day and was struck hard by the smell of my grandparents garage in Princeton, Illinois circa 1974-75....the place where they kept the olives....joy, joy and double-joy.

Diesel makes me think of a broken generator, the smell of feathers a chicken coop, rock salt reminds of haying time and my skin prickles. We all have these experiences where one simple, or complex, aroma can bring to life a moment in time, a memory to cherish or shudder away. Avery Gilbert in his book, What the Nose Knows, does a really wonderful job bringing this whole phenomenon to life in a fun way--the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) didn't call him the "Mark Twain of nasal passages for nothing". It is science as story, much like Guns, Germs and Steel and my all-time favorite, Cod: Fish that Changed the World. (I also just like saying the title, it's fun.)

Two other artists/authors come to mind when I think of the smell/memory combination. One is Memories that Smell like Gasoline by David Wojnarowicz. His book of autobiographical drawings and writings about the AIDS epidemic is stunning and difficult. I read it one day in a coffee shop so oddly enough I associate it with the innocent cinnamon of coffe cake--the one I left untouched as I was so not in the mood for it after this book.

The second one is really a book about design, but also about aroma and a person's experience of a city, Kyoto, and they combine beautifully in KyotEau: Bottled Memories by Della Chuang. There is a small sample of the actual perfume Kyoto KyotEau in the back, which makes the story complete for the reader.

For me, the smell of KyotEau will always remind me of sitting in my office reading something so wonderful, daydreaming about being someone else, overlaid by the angst of getting 'caught' because I should have doing something else.

Smell and memory, joy and trouble...I'm right back where I started. Lovely.