Mudlane

Beautiful, Beautiful Boy

2010-08-15T21:08:00.003-05:00

WEDDING RAIN PLAN

2010-03-09T21:21:00.011-06:00

Rule #1 for a wedding planner: ALWAYS have a rain plan. A TENT is a rain plan. An inside option is a rain plan. Umbrellas are NOT enough for a rain plan.

The ONLY time people are forced to stand en masse in a drenching downpour is a funeral. Not a wedding.

Since I am a wedding PLANNER, my excuse to watch the latest Bachelor TV wedding affair - Jason and Molly's downpour - is RESEARCH. Research in what NOT to do.

The last time I watched the Bachelor was when Trista and Ryan had their pink wedding extravaganza, which I think was about 10 years ago.

I mean, other than the Jake and Vienna train-wreck, which I pretended NOT to watch, but accidentally got sucked into that vortex of weekly jaw-dropping cliche.

I maintained blog- silence about Vienna and her antics and conniving, and her bad hair, and shameless manipulation, and overt pushiness... But this wedding-in-a-hurricane? It's caused me to break my Bachelor-Silence.

The LUCKY and HAPPY COUPLE "Jason and Molly, Everyone!" Is Jason saying "Awesome, we are married!" or more likely "Awesome, we can go inside now."? Molly appears to be apologizing to her guests who have bravely sat in a storm. Soaked - his sad little sideways boutenierre, her high dollar coiffure and make-up job, the upholstered benches, and every guest who did not get up and leave the storm site. Just guessing here, but most brides and grooms would have been happier getting married in a stairwell.

The glass vases, lining the aisle, contain a LOT of water from the downpour. (No flowers or candles in there, because...it's raining.) Quarts of water. Take that local weather reporters - instead of inches of rain, it rained in quarts and gallons. And a Monique Lhuillier couture wedding gown mopping it up.

Some of the lush upholstered benches had to be covered in the blue tarps you get from Home Depot or Wal-Mart. Thus, the guests who DID sit in the storm were sitting on plastic in puddles of water.

Chris Harrison said cheerfully (at first, cheerfully, later ruefully), "This wedding is going on rain or shine." There was never any shine. A Photoshopped rainbow did NOT create the illusion that the sun did shine. Cliche. Accented with the song. More cliche.

Also, no WIND plan. They poor officiant could barely control his script, much less make himself heard over the wind and the rain. Poor pitiful Molly trying to say her heartfelt 'self-composed' vows with her hairsprayed hair whipping around all over her face. Really? Was that necessary?

Long ago I had a bride who discovered about 10 minutes before her wedding was to start that she had forgotten to bring the veil to the church. The veil was still at her apartment, which was 45 minutes away in great traffic. One way. So, delay wedding start by roughly an hour +++. I gently suggested that she just get married without the veil, since the chapel was already full of her guests. Not to be, my friends. She said, "I paid $27 to rent that veil, and I'll be damned if I walk down the aisle without it." So, the organist took a break, her guests got up and went outside and chatted, she went outside on the balcony overlooking the courtyard where her guests were enjoying the warm spring day, and waved to them while she took a smoke break, and her cousin retrieved the rented veil. An hour later we convened the wedding, which took about 12 minutes, rented veil and all. And then everyone went back outside for more chatting and smoking.

This Molly-and-Jason- tropical-storm-theme wedding felt like that. "We (we being ABC) sold all this advertising and got all this product placement, and we'll be damned if we aren't going ahead with our outdoor garden-of-eden wedding, wind, rain, cold temperatures and all." There must have been some huge cancellation clause in those contracts. HUGE.

Certainly all those wedding vendors and planners and suppliers who had their wedding services featured in this $$$ wedding-dream-chance of a lifetime to wallow in excess, were especially thrilled to see their products highlighted. . . in a MONSOON.

I had to cheer for the wedding planner, who clearly demanded the right to say - thus salvage her career - "I would have had a rain plan, and we would be warm and dry inside right now." I guess she threatened to sue, since who in the world would hire a planner who did not have a RAIN PLAN?

For clarity - umbrellas are not a rain plan. Cheap, clear umbrellas are a last-minute faux rain plan. Who got the job of running out and purchasing a case of cheap and not sturdy, clear (not black) umbrellas? The wind had no problem destroying them. Cartoonishly upside down umbrellas, drenching pouring rain, epic wind, and clearly cold temps - as most of the guys were coatless, and most of the women were wearing men's suit jackets. The new pashmina - your husband's coat. Or maybe it's the old pashmina.

QUESTION - how long between Molly and Jason's monsoon-wedding and the reception? Since EVERYONE had to go home and get into dry clothes. Also dry hair and new make-up. Also new and dry everything. Did they have a back-up wedding dress? A dry one?

So - to assure anyone who wonders - I always have a rain plan.

Also a HOT plan . . .

A MUD plan, for sure! Also wind.

A COLD plan , ice, snow, no power, caterer gets sick, florist miscounts but finds missing bouquet plan . . .

Parking plans, for sure.

Band locks equipment in a garage and the power goes out but comes back on in time plan.

Don't mess up the make-up plan, for sure! (It's also called a STRAW.)

We have plan A, plan B, and plan C for every single item.

Also 'PLAN Z' which is obviously the one we use.

Does your baby sleep all night?

2010-02-06T10:58:00.007-06:00

The BIG question for parents is "when is the baby going to sleep all night?" If you are a blog-reader, there are lots of headlines in the blogosphere: "Baby sleeps all night" - until you read on a little bit to find that sleeping all night meant that the baby slept from 1 a.m til 5 a.m. I have heard that there are babies who go drift into blissful sleep at 7pm, and greet mom cooing and grinning at 7am. The MYTHICAL babies.

In another life of mine, I was even the EXPERT on when babies slept all night. The title of one article was "Putting the baby on snooze control," which makes it sound like "sleeping all night" is something that the PARENTS have control over, some magic button to push, an intricate plan, magic diet, specific blanket, baby sleeps IN a crib in her own room, baby sleeps in the room with parents, in the bed with parents, at grandmother's house, in a hammock in the jungle, lulled to sleep by a song and dance routine or voodoo chant. I am personally acquainted with all of those. They are the basis of fallacy number two - that parents can somehow make a child sleep all night.

Fallacy number ONE is that the child is going to sleep all night. EVER.

The question of course is not so much about when the BABY is going to sleep all night as when are the PARENTS going to sleep . . . at all? I am still asking that question.

Like most parents of very young children, I got all into the "sleeping all night" question. All of our children had their own issues. The Sophisticate had recurrent ear infections, which pretty much meant we never slept all night. Our Young Son, being last in a line of demanding children went to bed with ease with the rest of the gang about 7-7:30. He took a nap until 10, then got up to play with his devoted parents for an hour. He figured out that if he wanted ANY one-on-one time he'd have to snatch it - so he woke up from a night nap at 10 pm, had a solid hour of riotous fun from 10 until 11, while the rest of them were asleep. It worked well for us - he got his need for attention met, and I didn't have to try to go back to sleep. Don't even ASK if I adhered to a formula laid out by some published expert. They all slept in the bed with us, nursing at will, until they were too old to do that. Then they began just roaming in and out through the night. It was a rare morning that I didn't wake up to find a child in the bed, and sometimes another child on the floor beside us. That kept on until maybe last year.

When I was an authoritative mother of very young children , it never occurred to me that when my youngest child was 17 I would still be asking the question "When will the baby sleep all night?" aka "When will I ever sleep all night again?"

Notice there are no babies there. For reference: adjoining our room is another room with a bed. We use it for overflow, for sick people who need to be closeby, and for pets. The following exemplary incidents all happened in 2010 - thus the past 6 weeks - the nights all run together so these are in no particular order, but they all happened in 2010.

Sleeping all night - woodland creatures in the house edition:

Pretty Pretty Princess dashes into our room well after midnight, clutching her pillow "There is a chipmunk in my room and I am sleeping up here." We put the cat into her room, closed the door, and hoped for the best. No one else ever saw the chipmunk and the cat did not enjoy her night alone in PPP's room. She left us a 'note' to let us know.

A few weeks later, at about 5 am, BigB blasted in to our room "There's a full on rat's nest in my closet. I can hear them in there." Me: When was the last time you looked in your closet? Rats don't build huge closet nests in an hour or two." BigB: "I don't know, but what should I do?" Me: "Close the doors, put rubber band on the doorknobs, and we will deal with it in the morning." Someone mumbled "I think it IS morning." BigB: I can't sleep with rats in my closet. We have to deal with this NOW." Me: "Sleep in that bed right there - the sick bed. Put a towel under your door." He actually brought the cat in his room, put his earbuds in to mask the terrible noise of rat-scratching, and drifted off to sleep. He woke up to find the cat tossing a tiny mouse around. So much for the full on rats' nest. I did however spend at least an hour worrying about how bad our house was that there were rats nests in the closet. It's bad.

Something small and scratchy lives in the wall behind my head. Don't ask, I'm not asking and I try not to think about it. Let's just say that there was at least one night this week that a mother of teeny tiny woodland animals was having a bad night herself, because they were squeaking and scratching in my walls ALL NIGHT LONG.

Sick edition:

Our Young Son had a gastro-intestinal viral infection. He threw up, wretchedly for about 6 hours straight, quickly becoming faint and dehydrated. He slept in the sick room, and thrashed around all night in delirium and bad dreams, and made a lot of trips to the bathroom. We all slept well that night. Not.

Next night, when the sick bedroom door opened at 2:45 a.m., my question was "Who's throwing up?" It was PPP. An hour later, after I had drifted back to sleep, she crept in to ask for Zofran or something to make her STOP, because she had to go to class in 5 hours. Right. So, I got up and got the medicine. She did NOT sleep in the sick bedroom, but she did open the door every single time she threw up - which was a lot. So much for sleep.

Next night, Our Young Son - again. For him a 24 hour virus lasts for a lot of days.

We have been playing a lot of Scrabble, also Words with Friends.

Semi-grown children go 'out' at night.

I sleep easier when I know that all who are supposed to be here are under my roof. Call me crazy, but it's just the way it is. When people arrive home, they check in with me. Even if I am sound asleep in my bed. In the way middle of the night. Pretty much that takes care of Thursday, Friday and Saturday night every week. From 11:30 until the last stray reveler rolls in...."Mom, I'm home." Sweetest words to this mom's ears.

BigB is a night owl. The Sophisticate has recently landed here for a brief stay in between apartments. When she was getting up and getting ready for work one morning this week, BigB was rolling in from his big night out. Who slept THAT night?

PPP and the hiccups. That was funny. It was also at 2am. PPP standing and chatting, sort of giggly, then hiccups. More giggling, more hiccups. And she thought I was surprised.

Study-related issues:

For the last few years, PPP had a habit of studying until she simply could not study any more. Then she just gets up - leaving the books, notes, notebooks, computers in place on the bed, and coming to climb in bed with me when her daddy was traveling. So, study til 2 am, and then come climb in bed with mom. This year, BigD isn't traveling, so she just flies through to brush her teeth and tell me she's going to bed.

We do love to watch Sex and the City - preferably in my bed. It's a good thing that BigD likes to watch basketball. We study SATC, I guess. Oh - SJP - I couldn't help but wonder if your baby daughters are sleeping through the night yet.

It's not unusual for me to be reading/snoozing when someone comes in to ask a question like "How do you say 'Feel asleep in class... in Spanish'" or "how do you translate the subjunctive.....?" or "How do I say "stayed up all night translating the Aeneid in Latin?"

Miscellaneous:

SOMEBODY has a habit of nudging the thermostat. Downstairs is a solid 15 degrees cooler than upstairs. Translation, if they are cool, I am sweating. I wake up sweating a LOT. Also with leg cramps. And I am not even pregnant. When are those going away?

Me and my cat - she likes to join me for a snuggle. BigD doesn't like it so much, so she hides until there is a moment of quiet, then creeps in. If she get's thirsty, she likes to help herself to a drink from my water glass. Sometimes - as in EVERY NIGHT - she knocks the whole glass of water over - on me. Whatever. I feel her pain. There's nothing like being thirsty in the middle of the night.

BigB came creeping quietly in about 4:30am to tell us "someone just opened our back gate?" When there was no response, he asked again - louder. Me: " Did you look out the window? That's a starting place. " We heard nothing more about that -but I stayed awake for a while to make sure that no one was going to break in the back door, since someone had opened the gate into the backyard. Wonder what that was about. Other than waking me up.

Bonus Boy - we never know when he's coming and we never know when he's leaving. He knows where the sheets are though - my closet - and if he gets here and needs some he just rolls right in and gets some sheets, pillows, blankets - whatever. He's not silent.

One night our Young Son brought me a milkshake -late - I spilled it all over the bed. BigD was already asleep. I did not wake him up to change the sheets. I slept with the cloying smell of chocolate. Sort of slept. I kept waking up all night wondering what was sticky and sweet- smelling.

BigD snores. LOUD. That is the end of the discussion about sleeping all night.

Dog LOST Dog Found

2009-12-12T18:43:00.015-06:00

When we went to bed Friday night, Emma was missing. We have two dogs, Emma, a standard poodle, and a yellow labrador retriever... Buckshot. Poodle - female: lab - male = she should be birthing highly lucrative Labradoodles, right? INCORRECT. Emma the poodle and Buckshot the Lab, have NEVER done the deed. Believe me, we have done everything to enhance the experience. The one who cannot figure it out is Buckshot, the lab. Emma is a freakin' genius.

Early on, Emma figured out how to open a door handle that was a lever. THEN she figured out - painstakingly - how to open a door knob. I have watched her do it. I could literally leave her here to open the door for a repairman, but she can't write a check. She can use her nose to flip up a gate latch, she can smush herself flat and get under any fence. Electric fence? not so terribly shocking to her. She can hurdle over a three foot barrier and wiggle through a six inch gap. In short, she does whatever she feels like.

She's nothing if not stylish. She hates collars, but is willing to wear a hot pink bandana and sunglasses. And when BigD rubs her on her little skinny tummy, she pees. Friday night, she was nowhere to be found.

Now...this is the part where I am supposed to talk about how our precious dog is like one of our children, and I don't know how I am going to break the news to the children, and how it's all going to be about life lessons, and ....

OK, not so much. Emma IS most definitely a part of our family, but the story didn't go down as scripted a la Lifetime. The home-dwelling big children spent hours IN THE CAR driving around looking for the dog - in the gutter - hoping to make sure she wasn't - you know - lying in the street. They were way more worried about telling ME that she was lying in the gutter than they were about finding her there.

Our Young Son put Buckshot on a leash and took him for a walk to see if he could beckon Emma from someone's backyard.

YS: OK, Buck, let's find Emma.

Buck: Great idea, another walk tonight!

YS: Find Emma, Buck. Where's Emma?

Buck: OH, look, garbage bags full of leaves. I like to lift my leg and innocculate every single bag of leaves I see. This could be a loooooonng walk, bud.

YS: Buck, come on, we're looking for Emma. Call her. Tell her to come home.

Buck: I am busy peeing on every single object in sight.

At 1 AM I got a direct report from Pretty Pretty Princess and BigB that there was no sight of Emma, living or dead, healthy or injured. They'd been driving around in the car for at least and half an hour. Probably drinking beer. ROOT BEER, I meant to say.

Buckshot is Emma's COMPANION, her LIFE PARTNER. She is his DOMINATRIX. Buck went calmly to bed in his kitchen crate - until we all went to bed. Then we heard this lonesome 'woof'...pause 30 seconds .... 'woof' -Translation from dog language "Hey, in here, in the dark kitchen! Emma is not in here, and if she doesn't have to go to bed now, then I don't have to, so come open the damn door." Point taken.

This morning, this is where the children take markers and poster board and put signs up all over the neighborhood, right? Not so much. PPP sleeping. BigB also sleeping. Early on, our Young Son had taken another drive, no Emma. We called the Emergency Vet - no black poodle. Casually, I said - "What about Craig's list?" Within about 45 seconds our Young Son says...."Yep, here it is..."

Craig's list: Found - very mellow black dog. Respond to identify. Cannot keep"

No kidding, if only you knew the depths of meaning in the phrase 'cannot keep'. When she wants out, she gets out. Also - right here - very mellow - not words I have ever used to identify Emma, but BLACK works.

So, I emailed back "We have lost our black poodle, messy cut, female, tall but not heavy."

Their response - "Not sure this is your dog - attached are pictures."

Indeed, it was our dog. Looking pretty raggedy after her night on the town. Our Young Son took over, got the address and went over to pick her up. They brought her out on a leash - and our Young Son describes it "She kind of pranced up to me...bye y'all, thanks for having me over to spend the night, see you another time. She spent the night with Huskies."

She came dashing into the house, excited to see what had happened while she was gone! NOW we are supposed to be all about the sweet reunion scene in which the children are fulfilled and delighted and we are all remorseful about how we ever let her get out in the first place and without a collar. Sorry - most still sleeping.

We didn't LET her get out - she does whatever she feels like. If she wants out, she finds a way out. She HATES collars and will soon wriggle out of the one that PPP and our Young Son bought for her today, in their wave of responsible pet ownership. Along with the little blue tag.

Someday a valiant soul will call us and tell us sadly that they found a collar with tag, but no dog. The DOG will be on the couch, snoozing, having shed her collar during another wild outing. Bless our sweet neighbors who tolerate her waywardness and just bring her home when she tries to join them on a walk.

Back to the homecoming. Emma had spent the night in a home with other dogs. Thus, she did not smell right to her LIFE PARTNER Buckshot. He tried to restore her proper smell. She didn't like it. Joyful reunion? Snarling and growling actually.

Young Son: I hope he doesn't pee on her to make her smell right.

We think Buckshot did not pee on Emma (though that IS his technique for proper odor restoration when she goes to her hair stylist), however she DID turn on her Dominatrix mode with her own unique "I love you and you are mine" misconception of dog-mating that she uses to subdue the lab who weighs twice as much as she does. She has a woefully misplaced concept of dog-mating. Thus, no labra-doodle$.

Emma is absolutely the dog of our Young Son's childhood. I got her - from what I now realize was a PUPPY MILL - naivete at its best - in the spring of a particularly difficult second grade year for our YS. Not difficult because he struggled with the work, but difficult because he finished the whole week's worth of work by lunch on Monday. So he was bored. Harry Potter I and II in alternating weeks while the rest of his class was 'doing work.'

I brought Emma home on impulse - how one ends up impulsively in a trailer at a puppy-mill farm in Mississippi is probably another story. I picked her up and she sat on my hip like a 2 year old. I was hooked, since my baby was no longer a two-year old. Emma and YS love each other. She has a tendency to NIP when challenged - and her favorite food is a whole loaf of bread. Thus, the day The Sophisticate tried to retrieve a whole loaf of bread from the floor, Emma NIPPED - OK, she might have sort of bitten, and it left a bruise. SMALL bruise. In short, she's hard headed. Emma is.

But she's our hard headed nutsy dog. I'm not ready for the dog of our Young Son's childhood to be just a bunch of stories. I want her in the crate at night with our dumb-as-a-brick Lab.

Because SHE'S the only one who can manage him.

Bird of paradise

2009-12-05T15:22:00.014-06:00

The question is...when you are the mother of the groom, do you REALLY have to be quiet, wear beige and do as you're told? Answer....Let's ask my buddy Molly, who has done it with fire and style.

Molly is like a Bird of Paradise - that remarkable unfolding flower. The more she opens up, the more color and passion you see. And she doesn't hesitate to share that fire.

Molly is ALL about the PEOPLE. That right there makes a good hostess. Also a good mother, sister, wife...and for me, friend.

A few years ago I met Molly and her daughter -remarkably named Molly - when young Molly got married. I helped them plan her late spring wedding. It was a fine affair, and fun was had by all. Molly remembers that there was an air conditioning problem that day - and a vivid memory we share is that my husband worked so hard that his dress shirt was soaked with sweat. Also, our Young Son was about 10, and worked as hard as his Dad. I pray that's not the most vivid memory of that wedding day....just the most vivid memory she shares with me. Not only was it a beautiful day, and a lovely gathering, but the planning was fun. I really love both Mollies.

Molly has one daughter and two sons.( And someone else in that picture. I can still count.) And what was the likelihood of TWO of her children, neither natives of my hometown, marrying here? Slim.

Young Molly did what brides do... babies, then she moved out of town, so.... our paths not to cross again, perhaps? Probable by statistics.

Not so, my friend. Her son found himself a local bride, and Molly called in the early stages of planning HER party. Some call it a Rehearsal Dinner - but in Molly's case, we will call it wedding-eve love-bash. Plus. Plus + plus.

Molly knows exactly what she wants when she sees it. So, we investigated a lot of places...but she didn't see 'it'. Then we found it, but it didn't look right. She wanted fall colors, lamb chops, no visible beer bottles, and no gourds or pumpkins. She repeatedly told me "You know what I want." Yes, indeed I did.

When I asked her if she wanted some music, she said "There'll be so many people talking . . . We don't need music. We have each other."

How then can one plan a party when someone is in one town and the party is in another? Good question. E-mail. Telephone. Text. Starbucks. Trust.

Sample monthly exchange, June through October:
Molly: I haven't heard from you. Are we OK?
Me: We're good! How do you feel?
Molly: I'm fine if you're fine.
Me: We're in great shape.
Molly:No gourds, no pumpkins.
Me: Right, no gourds, no pumpkins.

So we had a party. I did my part which was the rich fall colors, no pumpkins, no gourds, lambchops and no visible beer bottles. She did her part which was PEOPLE. Everytime I looked up, I saw her at a table leaned over and talking to someone. I looked up later, and saw her at another table, then another, and another. The music of conversation and laughter carried the evening.

These things make her a genuine southern hostess (I guess it could be a non-southern hostess, but with a south-Mississippi home, and a deep allegiance to Ole Miss, let the 'southern' stand):

She greeted each guest at each table and had a conversation. Not a passing hello, a conversation.

She did NOT make strangers sit together. Tables were friends and family.

Molly made sure that her guests had fun, but had fun left for the next day - the wedding.

She went back to the kitchen to meet the caterers and servers and thanked each of them.

It was a family party, and everyone had a responsibility, everyone. It was NOT "The Molly Show." That takes some planning, and most of all, confidence in those people you know the best. Grace in action. Molly in action.

She thanked the bartender for the 'no-visible-beer-bottle' thing.

She did not make her young granddaughter come to the wedding eve party, or for that matter walk down the aisle the next day.

More important that baby-girl's memories of the night were the hazy, fond memories of a little girl at a really crazy party, than that she was shown-off in her total adorableness, which speaks for itself.

Molly made sure our Young Son ate. She let her son take home some left-overs.

She told every single guest good-bye as they left. Hugged most. Even if she didn't know them.

She served fried oysters, because you know...they're south Mississippi oyster-types. Case closed.

If you want to have a party - take some pointers from Molly. It's all about the people. A wedding eve love-bash it was. With fried oysters and a bird of paradise.

Home-style Wedding Love

2009-12-02T18:13:00.002-06:00

The love story that continues to inspire is the love story of families. Family love stories yield tales told and retold, at the next family wedding, around the Thanksgiving table, as the Christmas decorations are hung, and even sometimes, out of the blue, when you just walk into the kitchen and remember THAT NIGHT.

As I went through the invitations for the luscious winter wedding that's just around the corner, I was wondering who in the WORLD are . . . Well, what do you know, it's my lovely JUNE bride, only now...Mr. and Mrs.

This time last year we were deep in the process of ordering her wedding dress - which turned out to be a marathon road trip for MOB and me. It was awesome - 15 hours in the car talking, and shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue. What's not to like? Does anybody want to take a trip to buy a wedding dress? With me as your guide? Because I am FIERCE at that. Not kidding.

My June bride honored her parents by wanting nothing more than a wedding reception at her home. The first question her father asked me when we commenced planning 10 months out was "Are you seriously thinking we can put 300 people in my backyard?" Actually, 350ish, but who's counting?

So this gracious family opened their HOME to their guests - every single guest. THAT's a love story worth talking about.

This Mom is a meticulous homemaker and planner. She is a gracious hostess who loves to have her friends in her home. She is organized and thorough in ways I could only dream about. She thinks about things from so many angles that it could make me dizzy. COULD make me dizzy. Did not ACTUALLY make me dizzy. But she let me help her. What an honor! No pressure, either.

DAD is also incredibly meticulous and cautious and generous. He made sure we had plans A, B and C - and then a backup plan for each. (Note that he is WEARING a shirt, yet has another shirt in his hand... always a backup) He made me stretch my thinking in novel and often alarming ways. He also made fresh pesto from home-grown basil in the fall, froze and pulled it out to serve at the wedding. Seriously - a menu item was Dad's pesto on bruschetta.

I've done a lot of weddings, so FIRSTS are hard to come by - but that was a first. I dream about that pesto. I crave that pesto. I want that pesto....

SO....August, September...December -
buy the dress.....plan, plan, ...just so you know, by this point in the planning, I already knew where the Diet Cokes are kept, AND even more critical, this gracious family ALWAYS has limes cut for me, since - you know - what's a Diet Coke without a real lime?

January....host a party for another wedding. NO. BIG. DEAL.

April and May - - the invitation-frenzy in which the list is revisited as if it were a new and different document... JUNE wedding.

Plan, plan, replan, unplan, de-plan, overplan. Mother was concerned that I had the plans and the contacts and I might possibly get hit by a bus, and the wedding would somehow not come together. I actually have my own plans B and C, just for the bus-type contingency , but also, luckily did NOT get killed by a bus.

AND the week is here, when one must essentially turn a home into a country club/dormitory/gift shop/commercial kitchen/parking lot. Also, continue to live there. Not much to ask.

Since we were into CONTINGENCY plans, we had a tent wedged into the backyard. Not actually wedged, just fit into every available square inch. In case it rained that day.

Rehearsal night brings a drastic thunderstorm, along with a loss of power. All over town. Thunderstorm with high winds. NOT. A. PROB. LEM. We have a contingency plan, called a TENT. Often after a thunderstorm we will get a little cool down. Outside wedding reception + cool down = a good thing in my mind.

THIS night, the thunderstorm was not just a little summer affair, it was huge, long, loud, windy and damaging. Strong enough to possibly blow a tent into a pool, and then pile the tables and chairs all over it. The power out all over the city. When the power is out in the summer, it's not JUST the lights, it's the air conditioning. Also the fans.

Oh, yeah. Tent in the pool. Trees in the street. We would need a plan for that. Our Young Son had one.

BUT the tent was NOT in the pool! Morning dawned bright and clear and clean and this mom and dad had been up since REALLY early out in the yard picking up the trash from the storm, and neighbors stopped by to help! Neighbor love.

It got a little muddy - does anyone but me remember the mud? And the plywood we used to cover the walkway. Also, that Dad obsessively watched out the kitchen window to insure that no tire ruts were etched into the mud along the street in the front yard? Anybody? I remember that part, because we had to move a lot of cars. Problem solved by a line of luminaria and valet parking.

I love the moments where so much lies ahead. It's a midsummer evening ripe with possibilities, antcipation of family and friends, heavy with memories for the taking.

Everybody ready? Sun shining, photos taken....and, at last ....time to go to the church

Is it just me, but is that sort of like the very first time you put your baby in the carseat? When it takes a LOT of hands, and a lot of thought, and it's such a CAREFUL process.

And suddenly, it's a party! Candles, music, laughing, hugging, dancing, chatter.

I imagine there were a few people who were taking pointers for their OWN upcoming wedding. There is almost ALWAYS someone who falls in love at a wedding. Someone who meets someone REALLY cute, who sees someone and a conversation starts....

I love the part where the parents - the hosts - do their hosting thing. This family greeted and hugged and danced and talked and hugged more.

Father of the bride? took the microphone from the band and said a blessing for the marriage and the food. In the tent in his backyard.

Mother of the bride? Danced with her brother like nobody's business. They were gracious and cordial and gave their guests the run of the house, the yard, the driveway,the shower, the patio, anywhere and everywhere. They LITERALLY opened their home to their guests - that's a LOT of LOVE.

High school friends - yep, gathered together in the living room for a picture, just like this group of girls has done on so many occasions. If nothing else, when you graduate from THIS girls school, you know how to line up as a group and get a photo. They know who is tall and stands in the back and how to huddle in so everyone is in the picture. This pose looks a lot like their Kindergarten class photo. Not so much. Nobody was wearing a silk dress and heels in Kindergarten.

Then, it's over as fast as a thunderstorm and with as much energy expended. It took 9 months to plan, we were about 3 deep on back-up plans and contingency plans on EVERY. SINGLE. FACET. It took about 16 hours to set up, and it takes about 30 minutes to break down on the night of the party - with another 3 hours to follow the next day or two. Does anybody know that math on that equation?

I do - the answer is INFINITY. Always. Forever. As well-worn as phrase is, this wedding journey was about 'making memories' in the grandest way.

No matter what happens at that kitchen island, it will ALWAYS be the place where the beautiful antipasto bar was.

No matter how much WORK is done on the desk in the study, the definitive picture of the study is a wedding day picture, and the definitive use of the desk is the day it was turned into a bar.

There was the whole episode of the groomsmen who left his phone on the bus....he thought...the bus company was called, located the phone on the floor of the bus, and we had a cab bring it to the reception. Our Young Son was the point person on that, waiting in the side yard with the valet parking guys to pay the cabdriver, retrieve the phone and find the guy it belonged to. And yes, that worked out perfectly, as if it had been choreographed since March. (Don't tell, but actually I have had to do just that thing before-only we were looking for a person, so it was choreographed 4 years ago, but the illusion of spontaneous, on-the-fly improvisation works well for me.

Those very cool greenish-bluish bottles are vintage bottles, from Mom's own collection. Mom's bottles - they are on the kitchen table now, but remember that we used them at the wedding? Where did we get THAT MANY bottles? That, my friends, is HOME-STYLE wedding.

As many times as you look at a single picture, it calls up a story. June bride's cousin was married a few weeks later, thus memories to cherish and build on. Forever, cousins married that hot summer, just weeks apart.

Hey, Brother, who by the way is a champ at tying the elusive perfect bow tie ...."do you remember the night after the wedding when the back of your truck was filled with wedding trash bags, and the boys drove around til they found a dumpster behind some grocery store? Two trips! And you didn't even have to haul the trash away.....who did? Oh, yeah, those two guys."

Remember the BAND!!!! It was awesome, because the people from the band were long time church friends, so they not only entertained, but sat at the kitchen table, had their own dinner and wedding visits. Church family love.

Stories around the Thanksgiving table? Tablecloths?"Remember that we had plans for a sheer white overlay over the burlap cloths at the wedding, to make it more wedding-ish? Remember that we pulled every single white overlay, because the plain burlap was just so...RIGHT? Did we PLAN that?"

Christmas lights? "Remember all the twinkly lights that night? It looked like the Magic Kingdom. It WAS the Magic Kingdom" Love stories every one.

Family dinner in the dining room? Remember the wedding cake? The orchids in the chandelier? And feeding each other the cake? Carrot cake, cream cheese icing.

SO....back to the contingency plans. We DID have a plan B and a plan C. It was a hot summer night after a big storm. All over the city the power was out. At each of the other locations we considered for this wedding - country clubs and public venues were our PLAN B - the power was out. The weddings that took place at those locations - our plans B and C - took place in the dark. Also the HEAT. Club food was prepared in the dark, without the benefit of refrigeration or stoves. If we had gone with Plan B, the country club plan, we would have been in a mess. As with most things, there's no place like home.

Home is where the love is.

P.S. The pictures. Yes, the really, really clear and awesome pictures - courtesy of Mr. Zanone. The others - Facebook snags, my little P+S, etc.

Thanksgiving = graduation flashback

2009-11-30T11:15:00.002-06:00

The thing about graduation is that the graduates think it's all about them, and their class, and the robes and the speeches and the practices and parties and partying.

When in fact, it's all about this. One proud Mama and one proud Daddy, thinking about what's ahead, but even more about what's behind.

But looking ahead.

Teach Your Children Well

2009-08-10T21:03:00.002-05:00

When I was in the 8th grade, I chose the language I would study in High School. There was only a single criterion considered: speaking in public. Because I did not want to speak my native language in front of a room full of people, much less a foreign language in a room full of people, I chose Latin. Seriously? Who knows how Latin sounded back in the day? And we're not going to the Vatican. Case closed. I studied Latin. I tutor Latin. I have taught Latin. Our Young Son is a Latin scholar. Scholar sounds better than student.

Fast forward to college, where I found that to do what I wanted to do in my sorority, I would have to talk in front of women to be an officer, I stepped up, opened my mouth and spoke. A LOT. TOO MUCH. Then I became a teacher. Speaking to children, even teenagers, wasn't a big deal. Then I became an actual public speaker, by virtue of the fact that I had no choice if I wanted to stand in front of an unruly wedding party at a rehearsal, or speak at a large national convention of childbirth educators. Let's just say I have become comfortable with speaking to a group of people, even a large group of people. Even unprepared.

Our Young Son was asked to speak for his Mission Team at the Mission Supporters' Dinner, an annual affair, at church. He has poise, he is calm, he can run a whole wedding reception single-handedly, so I wasn't so ruffled by that. Then I totally forgot. I guess you could call it denial. I should have realized why he got his hair cut a whole WEEK before school starts. The night before we talked about a couple of things, and I tossed off some casual advice that I had actually heard from a TV show (Madmen, in case you wonder how I waste hot summer afternoons): Pick one person and make eye contact. Don't say anything that doesn't support the point you are making. Tell your story, don't make a speech.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the huge fellowship Hall full of several hundred people, I got a knot in my stomach. A GIANT-SIZE knot. What's up with that? Our Young Son was speaking, not me. To hundreds of people, from a podium, with a microphone.

I discovered a truism of my life as a mother: I would rather speak to 100,000 people, unprepared, than be in the room when one of my children is speaking.

I had a hint of it when Pretty Pretty Princess gave her Senior Speech, but her school is such a tight, close-knit community, that while I was on edge, I wasn't flat-out uncomfortable. The ginormous Fellowship Hall at church, with hundreds of parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, MINISTERS....that spooked me. For him. I didn't want to sit at a table - we were late, so that was hypothetical, there were no table seats to be had. I couldn't eat dinner - but I don't like white meat of the chicken, so that was covered.

I was undeniably nervous for him. Sweating-type nervous. Note that he, himself, our Young Son was self-proclaimed: NOT nervous. He didn't speak first, so as soon as the people started telling their stories, I started feeling ....scared? Nervous? Something unable to be named?

I texted him -

Me: "Be sure to say your name, stand up straight and hold your head up."

Young Son: "I'm going to go up there and mumble, look at my feet and chew gum."

As he approached the podium, La Petite Jockette came to attention, apron and all. She didn't appear to be too concerned. She had been in the back scraping dishes, so I guess that's some perspective.

Our Young Son has grown this summer. He's tall and lanky, and self-assured. From where I sat, he did not look tall and lanky, he looked small in a BIG ROOM. Sorry. He stood, said his name and gave a taut, well reasoned talk, with a solid balance of fact and personal stories. People laughed at his stories. Three times. If you have ever spoken to more than 5 people, you know that the laughter is what makes you able to keep talking. Silence is deadly. The room wasn't silent.

When it was over, he came to the back, and before he sat down with Jockette and relaxed a bit, he pulled from his pocket his little piece of notebook paper with bullet points, which as it appears, is a solid 5 paragraph essary:

Intro - Name, grade school

Baltimore: what we did - park, movie, zoo, DC

Why I went - had fun last year; wanted to be a leader, Uneasy about being on daycamp

Differences - no visual goal/progress; harder work for me

What I learned . . .

He told funny stories about how running a daycamp for 4th graders was more difficult than the manual labor of building a house with Habitat for Humanity, he talked about how he struggled because he couldn't see solid, measurable progress at the end of the day, he revealed that he napped daily. Our Young Son talked for about 7 minutes, from a folded, handwritten set of bullet points

What I learned...

As it turns out, what our Young Son learned, and what I learned as he spoke, are the same - and this I can quote verbatim:
"I learned that God will use me how He wants, not how I want.

"I learned that God has a plan, even when I don't see it."

"I learned that God will always choose the right path."

Man, I hope we both remember that.Still a church supper.

Summer of Love - Neel's Wedding

2009-08-08T18:32:00.005-05:00

Neel and Jon got married this summer. Yep, I snagged that photo right off Facebook. It was a glorious evening, full of all the unexpected things that make weddings more than just a party. Those things are stories - and there are lots of love stories in this wedding weekend!

Neel wore her mom's dress - altered just a bit. It has such a vintage feel, with a very contemporary cut. Lovely. Feel that mommy-love, just oozing everywhere?

I'm sure Mom was lovely too. In that dress I mean. That's her finger, showing me the cool details. Me, the wedding dress afficionado.

Mom - who we will call HAPPY, just for fun, was lovely on Neel's wedding day - which I know, because I was there with her. Her mother-of-the-bride dress has a story. A sister story.

Happy wore a sublimely cute dress - gauzy and bare, with a floaty, flirty skirt. Her sister, we'll call her RUTHIE, whose daughter was recently married, had bought an adorable dress which she wore to her daughter's rehearsal dinner - little straps and a glittery bubble-esque tulle skirt. Navy. (Hold that thought)

Fast forward in time. Happy ordered a dress for Neel's wedding - which unbeknownst to either sister - was identical to Ruthie's. Good thing Neel's mom Happy didn't try to pull a Red-Carpet like surprise and just show up at the wedding in her glam new dress. Because Happy and Ruthie would have been dressed like twins, as Ruthie was planning to wear said dress to Neel's wedding. Now, many years past living in the same house as sisters, whenever they get dressed up, they have to check and make sure that they aren't going to show up at some big gala party or wedding wearing the same dress. (Actually, they would probably be fine with that - TWINKIES for the night!) Not just a similar dress, but the identical dress, down to the navy color. Lots of sisters borrow and lend dresses - nope, not this duo. They each PURCHASED one of the same party-dress. Without talking about it. That's living proof of some bizarre sisterly connection of love.

And AS IF that wasn't enough of a story, Happy got to the church and realized that she had forgotten to bring her little sheer and glittery wrap that she was going to wear to make the dress less bare for the church. To be - you know - covered, sort of. This was the conversation:

Happy: Oh, my thingie that I was going to wear. That shawl thing. That I bought just for this wedding. It's not here. Somebody call Dad right now.
Laurence, bride's sister: Is he at HOME? Or you mean call him and make him go home? ......OK, what do I say? Mom, I don't think you need it. (Laurence is meanwhile dialing....not to worry)
Happy: I don't care. I bought it. I want it and it's in the attic. He's going to kill me. Oh, he'll deal.
Laurence: Hey, Dad. Are you still home? Mom wants you to get her wrap thing. Mom - where is it?
Happy: It's in a box in the attic. ( at my house, that would have been a deal breaker)
Laurence: Dad, it's in a box in the attic. Mom - what does the box look like?
Happy: Tell him it's in a white box, on top of that thing that sits next to those boxes that hold....bleh, bleh, bleh. (Remember, Dad was in a tux)
Laurence: I know it's hot, Dad. Mom, I don't think you actually NEED that wrap. It's pretty like it is.
Happy: Tell him to keep looking, the box is about 8 x 12 inches and is white. He'll find it. (I'll be honest, at this point, my mouth was hanging open. In our attic a white box the size of a sheet of notebook paper - not in a million years.)
Laurence: I know, Dad. I know. Yes, she wants it. I think it's like a really thin shawl. Yeah, I know it's hot. Yeah, we're hot but she wants the shawl.
Happy: Tell him....tell him....tell him...Oh, I don't know. He'll find it.

20 minutes later a knock at the door. It was DAD, who will from this point forward be known as HERO-Dad, standing with the white box. He didn't cross the threshold. His opening words:

Hero-Dad: (from the door) Oh, Happy, you look awesome. But here's the box. The thing's black right? (Don't tell - but Hero-dad had eyes for HIS bride first and all night long).
Happy: Navy blue. Give it to me.

A frenzy of tissue paper and tulle ensued as the box was opened, followed by various shaping and draping the sheer-tulle-with-glitter-and-beads shawl. With lots of "What do you think. This way? With this part to the side? " The end-game? She did not wear the shawl. Or wrap. Or blue thing in the white box. Hero-Dad never said a word (that I heard, anyway). That's the kind of story that makes a wedding soar.
So - we got everyone dressed and ready to rock and the photographer came into the brides' room, which is an overwhelmingly female domain. Nonetheless our photographer came in to give instructions about going outside to take some pictures. The instructions centered on how hot it was outside, and how quick it was going to be.(The photo-shoot was not short, though it was really, really hot.) I know they are headed out the door because of two things - one, I see that the bridesmaids all have their bouquets in hand. Two, I see the veil in Neel's hair. I jammed that comb on that veil up into her stiff-wedding-day-hair. Hairspray and bobby pins are two of my BFFs, especially when it's 104 outside. I only jammed it up in there about 12 times before she ever got down the aisle.
This was Neel's flower palette. That's what Greg-the-florist-god and I call it, to make me sound all professional. If you had X-ray vision, or if I had photographed it, you would know that cascading from the flowers was some gorgeous ivy, that grew on the front of Happy's house. For this wedding, she had been 'growing out' her ivy so there would be plenty. (OK, don't tell anybody, but her house had enough vines hanging off it that one might consider second story window entry a possibility, using only ivy as a means of access.) Happy told Greg to cut as much as he needed - "there's plenty, there's a LOT and it's driving Hero-Dad crazy." And so that was the first summer trim of Happy's ivy. It was lush, heavy, home-grown ivy , and nothing makes a wedding story like home-grown.
Once they got down the aisle, the plan, per the program, was for two scriptures to be read. I had the doors open because there were people standing back there in the foyer, peering through the tripods, and because I wanted to hear the scriptures (also, to see the trailing home-grown ivy, over the door, because that kind of stuff matters to glam wedding planners)

The preacher totally blew over that minor part of the worship service - the BIBLE. Two scripture readers - professionals at that - stood as cued, waited as instructed, and gloriously at some point realized that there was going to be NO SCRIPTURE read at this wedding, so they unobtrusively slid back to their seats. One of the readers had come all the way from GERMANY. God knew. Also, each person in the packed chapel who was reading the program knew. (Side note, the planning of that ceremony, the selection of songs and scripture and structure of that program took about 139 man hours - at least 75% of that in the groom's time alone. Everytime I mentioned it - that we needed to just decide and move forward, Neel looked at me and said "What can I say, he's a lawyer! Can you tell?" Ahhhhh - young love! A necessity for survival of Marriage, Year 1)

The preacher apologized profusely for his omission. Then, he proceeded to dance like the village shaman at the reception. All. Night. Long. (Preachers usually show for a meet-and-greet for wedding receptions, because, well Sunday is a pretty taxing day for them - so props to the preacher on the night of dancing with the natives, and I'm so, so sorry I missed his sermon the next day because it was probably really short.)

SO: Pray, pray, pray, vows, vows, vows, marry, marry, marry. And we're done. Did I mention that it was HOT? Because it was. It's the same weekend we got married, lo these many years ago. Hot then, hot now. Why is HOT still an issue? We shall see, my friends, we shall see.Nothing like a glass of chilled champagne with berry in the sunset. Especially when the sunset means that it's still hot. Let's have a primer on air conditioning lore, which we can call "A Comfortable Room." At best, a typical air conditioner unit will provide a 20 degree difference in the indoor and outdoor temperature. Ask any airconditioning guy when he's trying to fix the a/c in the 110 degree heat. Don't expect 60 degrees. Expect 90 degrees inside.

Our Young Son and La Petite Jockette were at the Club acting as point-people. I got a couple of calls from him. Maybe about 6. His rule for calling me - something's wrong. I hate to see his name pop up on the screen.

YS: Mom, it's ...uh...pretty hot here.

Me: How hot?

YS: It's hot. Too hot, and I have told them but now I can't find anybody who works here.

Me: Is it so hot that the cake is going to melt?

YS: I guess we'll see if the cake melts. Just warning you. Also, the violin people aren't here.

ME: Keep the doors closed, every single door. Turn off the overhead lights. Put foil over the west windows. Stuff newspaper in all the cracks. And if you find someone, make them turn it down to 60 and open up the doors to all their kitchen boxes and put fans in front of them. Also, leave the chairs for the musicians.

YS: Yes m'am. I'm just telling you though, it's hot. And I'm leaving to change clothes. It's too hot to do it here.

Voila! 100 degrees outside, 80++ degrees inside. We were actually glad to get 90 degrees because the power was off at the Club the entire week before this wedding, so NO air conditioning was a distinct possibility. (Yes, yes, yes, I did have a very sound plan for addressing the issue if there was absolutely no power at the Club. I did. Nobody asked what that plan was, but I promise, the alternate plans were absolutely in place. Because I'm like that. No flying without a safety net in the glam wedding business)

Part two of "A Comfortable Room" - when you put 375 people in a small enclosed space when it's blazing hot inside and a dance band driving the action, it gets hot. Not just a little hot, but a lot hot. Way TOO hot. And at the end of the night, a club staffer finally filled me in that one entire 'chiller' of the 3 we needed for the space we were using - one WHOLE CHILLER- wasn't working at all. Killed in the storm of the previous weeks.

There's a complicated equation (which I never use, because I have *another way*) to figure out how hot it is inside. Temperature - a/c - 1 chiller +crowd + dance band - champagne + men in tuxes- beer x age of the Mother of the Bride = HOT, way too hot.

The most reliable indicator of the temperature at a wedding is the *father of the bride*, in our case HERO-Dad. Everytime he caught my eye we had a version of this conversation

Hero-dad: It's awfully hot in here. Is there anything we can do about it, oh Glam-wedding-planner that you are!

Me: Yeah, let me see if I can find somebody. (Note, I am sweating profusely myself - profusely is too mild a term, actually)

Hero-dad: Is it just me? This tux? I think people are going home because it's so hot.

Me: OK, let me see what I can do. Why don't you dance with Happy? What can I get you to drink? Eat some of that Ben & Jerry's ice cream from the cart over there.

INSERT THE ICE CREAM STORY: I will, thank you. The groom LOVES Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, so the bride decided that it would be a delightful surprise to have a B&J ice cream cart at the reception. It took roughly 17 conversations - conversations at her house, text conversations, conversations in the carpool line (taught at same school last year), conversations via email, whispered conversations... to decide what flavors to choose. Also how and where to set it up. We had all that contracted and diagrammed out - but still, our Young Son realized early that they were setting up a bar in that spot. We didn't want a bar! Ice cream there! We physically rearranged the tables on the spot. The ice cream cart had a steady and long line for most of the evening. Men in tuxes, women in silk, with champagne in one hand and ice cream in the other! Stunning! Summertime and the living is easy.

NOW - back to the "Is it just me, or is it sweltering in here" story:

So - then I walked around, sweating, for 20 or 30 minutes until I found a Club manager

ME: It's like a thousand degrees in here. We talked about this! We agreed that you'd cool it down...we agreed that we'd keep the doors closed all day long...bleh, bleh, bleh on the ass-kicking.

Club Guy: I know, but when it's this hot outside.....when there are this many people.....bleh, bleh, bleh - excuse making.

Then - 30 minutes later, repeat the cycle. Eventually, I told Hero-Dad to take off his jacket. Being the HERO that he is, he kept the jacket on. As did his son, a groomsmen. Genetic heroism in tuxedos.

Did the heat seem to bother the bride? Not at all? She rose to the occasion. One facet of this occasion being the weekend of Michael Jackson's death. Thus, every cover band in the nation did a whole Michael Jackson set (just guessing on the whole 'every band in the nation' thing.) We had our own little MJ Memorial. Neel presided.

LOTS of men were NOT heroic and did take off the jackets.

Way over in the right corner there, in the green dress ....
. . . is Laurence, the sister of the bride,( last mentioned on the phone with her dad about the not-to-be-worn-but-awesome-shawl.) Next to her is Spencer, her husband. Laurence was my bride a few years ago. Her wedding anniversary and Neel's will forever be just one day apart. Laurence's husband, related to this tux-wearing family by marriage, straddled the dress code. The jacket is off - but the tie is ON (Remember that HERO-Dad and semi-heroic brother stayed in the full get-up) Jon has a bit to learn.

A wedding is a family love story. We plan and plot, we get quotes and contracts, and we draw layouts. Honestly, not sure how this was done without cell phones - oh, yeah! I did it without cell phones.

For this family, the last weekend in June will ALWAYS be a weekend full of love stories. No talk about those contracts and layouts, no worries about flowers and bands. They will remember that Neel wore Mom's dress, how Happy and Ruthie ALMOST wore the same dress, that Uncle Mark wore one flip-flop, how Dad became a HERO by finding a box in the attic, the preacher forgot the scripture, and grandmother sat on the front row, with a little help from the two Marks in the family, that MJ died the week before, so songs like Billy Jean and Man in the Mirror formed the soundtrack of the wedding week. They will remember the hot summer before Laurence and Spencer headed to Chicago for graduate school and brother Mark to medical school, after giving a live demo of his doc-worthy gentleness with his grandmother. They'll remember the ice cream and the champagne, and they'll laugh as they tell the stories again and again. What a job I have - seriously! I'm so, so grateful I get to be a part of those love stories!

Summertime and Target is Gleaming.

2009-07-04T18:44:00.004-05:00

So, I think I will just pretend that it hasn't been 7 weeks since I posted anything. Will you play the pretend game along with me?

The Sophisticate and I went to Target the other day. That would be OUR Target, not the NEW very clean, wide-aisled Target that just opened closer to our house. We are loyal.

Several things stood out. First, the lights shine on the floor at Target. And to think that I thought only Saks Fifth Avenue did that!!! What was I thinking? Note, our floors at home do not look like that. Good thing I'm not in retail. I am not hardwired to desire gleaming floors, nor to achieve them.

And here is my hand, holding the things I am buying in my hand, with my vintage Blackberry on top. First, note that I am buying a BOOK. Not a book about potty-training or sleeping through the night, either. A book that I am going to read. FOR FUN. Read. Book. Fun. All in the same sentence, pertaining to me.

Notice that I am not pushing a cart. Not a cart full of stuff, not a cart full of kids.

I can't even think about the number of times I pushed a cart full of children through Target. We had a method, someone sitting in the seat of the cart. Someone sitting in the actual cart part. Someone standing on the cart hanging on to the handle, between me (pushing) and the handle. And one (or more) theoretically walking, someone usually was also riding on the front end of the cart, facing me. That made the cart weigh roughly - a lot of pounds. Also, it meant that there was no room to put anything in the cart. I don't know that I remember how I handled that (and we KNOW I don't have a picture of it, because seriously, who takes pictures in TARGET?) We always had Tide, so...whatever I did, it worked.

This week. No cart full of children, though I passed a woman in serious discussion with the two children riding in her cart. She was into the intense negotiations about what they would buy and what they wouldn't buy, and what they would do later in the day IF....the trip to Target did not end in a toddler-sized meltdown. IF. I mean, it would have been IF, with me and my kids. And she was pretty much headed toward "Meltdown on Aisle 12."

There is my girl. Walking. Not in any way riding in or on a cart. She was bringing me that book that she wanted to buy. I mean that which she wanted ME to buy. Some things don't change.

Commencement

2009-05-19T11:32:00.002-05:00

It was indeed a beautiful day in our neighborhood.
Yes, Pretty Pretty Princess has shoes. She just wanted to take them off. This being her Princess Day . . .no shoes.A careful look reveals a few of her heirloom graduation gifts.Sharing the deepest of friendships, these came - in spite of more exams today - to spend some time with her...watching baseball. Also I lured them with food.

A good day. It was a really good day.

The beginning of the end

2009-05-03T13:28:00.008-05:00

The school year won't officially be over for days. But Pretty Pretty Princess is graduating, and that means that we are ticking off a long list of things completed, things to be put in the past, things that won't be EVER the same.We can officially call this one DONE. Done with the mouth guard, done with the goggles.The Sophisticate joined us to bid farewell to those two pieces of equipment.

We aren't a particularly sentimental bunch around here, saving our tears for things like Grey's Anatomy.

But the leaving behind of lax touches a nerve. PPP started playing lacrosse the first year of high school. She played every year with Bob.

And Stargazer. They bought those "Captain" bands; typically I think they go on the arm, but the leg is fetching, nonetheless. She started on the Varsity Lacrosse team, all four years. We think it's because she is tall, and fearless.

PPP found her style of leadership - steady and not so pushy. Her mantra this year - as one of the senior co-captains - was "We are a positive and encouraging team" And they were. They are.

To compensate for the loss of playing lacrosse, she's already been helping out with the Middle School team as they finish up their season.

The plan is to do the same next season - next winter, when we remember why we say "There is no COLD like Spring Lacrosse Cold" - she plans to be right there with the Middle School girls, sharing with the them her mantra "We are a positive and encouraging team."

See....it's not the end. It's the beginning. And now, how to get rid of that tan in a mere two weeks?

Bridesmaids' dresses: Graceful Saga part une

2009-04-22T18:00:00.002-05:00

Pretty Pretty Princess and I took a little road trip to NashVegas this weekend. It's not even hardly like a road trip anymore. I just go there and turn right around to come home. I can't think of a time I have spent more than 24 hours there. It's numbing, actually.ANYWAY! To play some lacrosse, we made this little trip. I promise it was about lacrosse. We requested a hotel with a Twilight vibe - Voila, we're in the middle of a waterfall a la Twi. Voila again - hometown lacrosse wherever we looked.We came across a wedding set up. Seriously? You want to get married in the middle of a hotel lobby with men in plaid shorts carrying goodie bags from a convention? I mean, awesome!!!! How romantic!!! I would love to plan a glam wedding in the wide open lobby of the Opryland Hotel with about 20,000 tourists and conventioneers wandering around. My privilege. Call me if that's what you want.
The glam life called us from the lacrosse mission - temporarily. We had to go try on some bridesmaid's dresses for the Graceful Bride. So, off we went from Twi-zone to Princess Palace (aka B Hughes Bridal) to try on dresses.

Actually, we were on a mission from the Graceful Bride to try on a single specific dress.

But I'm not about to get 2 high school lax players out of bed early to go try on one dress. Also, I get to illustrate the step by step process of picking a bridesmaid's dress.Not so fast, Sister. Texting Graceful Bride, I'm sure, but still....Yeah, sorry. Rule #1 - we're going to try on a few more dresses. It helps to have at least two girls (not the bride) try on dresses.

That step thing helps a lot too. Everyone looks better tall. Taller, I meant. You can see how the dress works on different people. The bride doesn't actually have to try on the bridesmaids dress because the bride won't wear it. 13 of her dearest friends do. We need to make sure we don't make it look chaotic up front in the church.Yes, this dress does have pockets. Let's get pockets in the bridesmaid's dresses to carry....oh, the lip gloss! Yeah, that's it.NO, we don't keep our hands in said pockets while modeling, because it makes the shape of the dress do odd things. I think the pockets are to carry the phone. Because who doesn't want 13 bridesmaids with one whole side of the dress hanging down with the weight of a phone that girls will whip out for a quick text during pictures. Pockets, pockets, pockets. There's a wedding conundrum for you. I vote .....(no cell phones in pockets during weddings, please).

It didn't take Graceful Bride's sister long to get the hang of modeling - what with the step-up box and the huge mirror. We are here to look at the dresses. The hair....Thank you.

What? You may not like the color. That's why they make a swatch card. Pick ANOTHER color. Not so sure about that whole swooping piece in the front? Well, being the professional glam wedding planner that I am, I have a special tool to take care of something like a stray swoop. SCISSORS are a wedding planners best friend.
Some dresses are super- flattering to pretty much everybody.
This is one of those dresses. Front . . . back . . sideways - flattering.

The Home Depot industrial construction clips help. Those black strings are there to help the dress stay on the hanger. We tuck them in or cut them off before the wedding. We do not cut them off in the store. They won't even let me in the store with my trusty scissors.We think we pretty much like the first dress, but maybe if it were all the same color - say the navy....Not the exact same dress, but a solid navy dress. Navy photographs pretty dark.
So what does a light colored dress look like? Remember, it doesn't have to be THIS dress, this is just a light colored neutral dress that we tried on. You see a lot more detail with a light color. Nice palette for flowers.
This one doesn't quite fit right, even with the industrial Home Depot clips...and maybe a bit too much of the girls on display?

Let the lady who works there every day help. She knows how to - shall we say - adjust things. Yes, we know this dress is 8 sizes too big. Whatever. The REAL dress will be ordered in a size that fits withOUT the Home Depot clips, and then will be altered to fit the bridesmaid. It's not unusual for one thing to be not quite right. Remember swatch cards? Some dresses...just...no. No. NO.
I told you she plays lacrosse in a racerback jersey.
Then, feed the hungry girls after a long morning's work. Because they have to play lacrosse. Again.I know. Frustrating, this whole thing of 5 games in less than 24 hours. How do you think I felt when we added in the dress expedition?I'm not the only one who wanted a picture to prove they played lacrosse this weekend. "We are a positive and encouraging team!" Indeed.

Hey, Bonus Boy. It's always good to see you. He missed the dress-expedition. Looks a little sad about it, you say?

Secret Conversations at Lacrosse

2009-04-19T22:57:00.005-05:00

I wish I had had a visual record of every lacrosse game that PPP has played, with my commentary. I do. Wish that.

Nope, I was lying. I don't wish that.

I like this part. They line up and say "Good game! Good game! Good game!" and they say it even when the game has been horrible and unfair and wicked. Also they are hoping that no one has spit on her hand. That stuff I like. PPP and our Young Son aren't lacrosse All Americans, but they just have so much fun playing the game. It's really fun to watch.

And I do love to have compelling and uplifting conversations with the other parents during the games. The MANY games we go to each and every week.

Filmster: What's your Young Son's name? Isn't it something like Edward ? Cullen? I can't quite remember. Does he actually PLAY in lacrosse games?

Me: Bleh, bleh, mumble, mumble...stunned into silence. I don't multi-task as well as I might, and am easily stunned into silence by...well, you know, unexpected questions. Phrased unexpectedly.

Filmster: (into the camera) That was a bad call. Reffing is terrible. (to me) Oh, but does he ever actually PLAY?

Me: Do you think I sit in the freezing rain, the horrible cold drinking nasty hot chocolate just to watch Big Russ play? Though Big Russ is pretty awesome.

Filmster: Well, does your Brutus actually play? Maybe he's on the JV team? (Into the camera) Not my PreshBabe's fault! Way to go Babe!!!!! (Really loud, Babe can hear)

Me: Do you think I sit in the beautiful afternoon sunlight with my friends, chatting away awaiting Babe's breathless arrival to see Big Russ play, because...

Filmster: (into the camera) Not Babe's fault. Dirty Shot! Shake it off Babe! (to me) So, your young Son, what's his name? Emil? He does stuff like keep score? Is he on the practice team? Run the clock, Blow the horn? What is it? Francis? Me: NO, actually he plays. PPP does the clock and the horn.

Filmster: JV though, not on the real team? (to the camera) Somebody else didn't give good coverage! Good move, Babe!

Me: Yes, on the JV. He's like a water boy. Sometimes they let him wash the dirty socks. The socks of Big Russ. (Is that the right answer - the one that will make this end?)

Filmster: Way to go Babe...Yeah, that's what I thought. What's his name again? Otto?
Even though I don't have a visual record of every game PPP has played, I do have a visual record of....well, you know. Interesting stuff.

How to buy the perfect wedding dress

2009-04-05T10:38:00.012-05:00

Way back in December, we went shopping. It's a special privilege of my glam life as a Wedding Planner. It was the week of finals for this Pretty Bride, so her mom and I took a road trip, since she lives in Big D, and we live in little m. More cool glam stores there. All we did was eat and shop. Pretty glamorous! OH - and I got to spend the night all by myself in thoroughly clean-ness and absolute silence. Spectacular road trip, and all I had done so far was check-in. They must have known I require a lot of pillows! A matched set of pillows standing at attention across the bed. And the pristine quiet. I was so stunned by all of it, especially the little marching pillows, that all I could think to do was take a picture. Who does that? Who looks through her pictures and find images of hotel rooms?

Pretty Bride had pre-shopped all fall. In fact 'the dress' was the first dress I saw her try in early October, on a different wedding-dress-shopping road trip. It was perfect then, and the standard to which all further dresses were measured. All 264 more that she tried on, including this dress several times. Several times. It's my experience that when that Perfect Dress is located, there is no turning back. Not too many girls debate once they have found THE dress. Compare, yes. Doubt? Not so much.

So...we shopped that weekend in December. At one store. I had called ahead and made sure that the potential "Perfect Dress" was going to be in the Bridal Salon. Our Pretty Bride brought a friend, which is only fair, since her mom had brought a friend, which would be me. The friend brought coffee, and I spent a good bit of the morning wishing I had brought coffee too. Oh well, the fear of spillage on the wedding dresses haunts me. Coffee + wedding dresses + stores = not me.

Those clips on the back are covered with a vinyl coating, so as not to snag a delicate dress. They look like they come from Home Depot. Because in fact, they DO come from Home Depot. Did you want to know that? That gorgeous special princess dresses can be made to appear to fit using carpentry tools from Home Depot?

Next step is to try on another dress that you are absolutely NOT going to buy, what with the dark jeweled affair crawling down the shoulder. Try on another to walk around in for comparison. Just one more try on....just one more to be sure. Then, stop trying on.

Being in the wedding salon is a luxurious experience. It's enough to make a girl feel like a princess. Princess I believe is the effect we're going for.Moms take pictures. Why else did you bring your mother for such a momentous and costly purchase? The costliness maybe? No, pretty sure it's the pictures.

Months later, when my own Pretty Pretty Princess was standing at the door with a gigantic brown box in her hand...
Mom was surprised! Delighted! Thrilled! Relieved!Honestly, it's kind of anticlimactic -for a teensy minute - when the packaging is a regular brown box, without a hint of what's inside. It's the same size as a lawnmower box or a table lamp box. What if we had opened it and found a table lamp inside the plain brown box? When our Pretty Bride came home, she thought SHE was the one with gifts in hand - since she came home bearing Mother-of-the-bride dresses for Mom to try on. Surprise! Not a lawnmower. Not a table lamp.
Yes, we do, we do indeed think it's the most beautiful dress in the world. And elegant. And even prettier than you remembered from way back in the winter, the week of finals.Sorry, I'm not showing The Perfect Dress yet. Just the smiles.
How do I know it's THE dress, The Perfect Dress? In my professional opinion? I look for this moment...the moment when Mom wipes her tears in her daughter's hair, as she watches her girl transform herself into a bride.

Bored? Try Twilight

2009-03-28T11:44:00.005-05:00

BigD reminded me last night that I haven't written anything to entertain him or the 3 other people who read this in TWO WEEKS. WELL...for starters between the two lax kids there have been something like 13 games in 8 days. It's been either raining or freezing, or both.

Loathe to write about lax yet - though I feel sure it's coming - I went to Imagination Prompt Generator!

Last quarter at school I taught an 'elective' Creative Writing for 8th grade students. Elective means it doesn't actually count. Creative Writing means you get an A unless you turn in absolutely nothing. That's what it means for students. For the teacher it means come up with something stimulating (Facebook) and 'worth my time' (Twilight) for a group of incredibly wise 8th graders. A solid characteristic of the 8th grade is that all students are bored, all classes are useless, all assignments are pointless and all teachers are numbingly stupid. Also, most have some strong opinions about Twilight.

In my search for constant 8th grade stimulation I found this little gem: Imagination Prompt Generator. It has a "Next Prompt" button that one clicks for a series of deep and stimulating questions, about which one might write. Whenever a student finished my genius assignment too soon (as in 5 minutes), I directed them to Imagination Prompt Generator and told them to write as much or as little as they wanted about as many or few prompts as they chose. If nothing else, it held their attention as they clicked 'next prompt' and snickered about the lameness of the prompts. Let's see what it does for me!

Does God care? Whoa, strong way to start! The answer is YES. Next prompt?

What should you be doing instead of sitting at the computer right now? Nothing is more important than absolute obsession with BravoTV and the lives of strangers strewn across the United States.

Maybe laundry.

Maybe not.

What remains constant in your life? Laundry.

Describe a trip downtown as a youngster. "Youngster"? Seriously? Even I think this is lame, due entirely to the word "youngster." Next.

My three closest friends.... The people who are sitting next to me in whatever bleachers I find myself.

Feeling low? Why? Is the other choice, "Feeling HIGH?" Not EVEN going there.

Look out the window. Write about what you see. I see a bunch of yard work that needs to be done. Do you really want to know about that?

What do you do with all of the things that you write about? Sorry, I don't understand the question. At all.

List five things you need. Will one do?

How old would you be if you didn't know your real age? I would be a vampire and I would be 17 forever.

Ten people who are alive today I would love to meet (and why). You can tell a teacher wrote this one because it is supposed to take a long time to write the answer. Alternate answer: the whole cast of the Twilight movie.

What was the last CD you bought? Debussy, like Edward Cullen. Because I live for Twilight.

Write about your favorite pet. Lame. Next prompt.

Did you have a bicycle? What was it like? Pink, I think. I read Fat Cyclist, does that count?

When someone asks for your opinion, are you always honest? Why or why not? Oh, please. Next prompt.

Without my children, I'd.... not be spending my life at the lacrosse field, that's for sure.

Do you have choices? Yes, and I choose next prompt.

How do you feel today? Bored, perhaps I will watch Twilight the movie. Oh wait, I forgot, the school play. Cinderella. Same thing.

How do you feel about the holidays? the ones where I should cook, clean up and decorate? or the ones where I don't have to go to school?

Does belief in a higher power matter? Again? See first question.

What is YOUR meaning of life? I'm done.

The rules of Mouth Noise

2009-03-13T19:30:00.002-05:00

I have about 1876 pet peeves. Mouth noise is at the top of the list. And to make it worse, I have super-hearing, specifically to mouth noise.

I was born this way. My siblings made it worse. In those days, I called it SMACKING because that is what they did to make me crazy. I have a vivid mouth-noise memory involving salad. I was in what we now call the tweens or Middle School years. They should be called the miserable years, because I was miserable to be around. Especially when there was an abundance of smacking.

One particularly miserable night we were sitting at our little kitchen table, eating supper involving a salad which we were required to eat. Salad=crunchy, right? Right. Just ask my sibs. They used that opportunity to combine crunching of salad with the smacking enhancement of salad dressing. They could really tune it up.

ME: STOP SMACKING

THEM: Smack, smack, smack! Lickety smack.

ME: STOP IT! You are doing it on purpose. Stop smacking.

Them: Smackity, smack, smack, smack (leaning over right next to my ear) Slurp-smack.

ME: YELLING Mama, make them stop. I can't eat. (note, I didn't need to eat - perhaps it was some perverse diet thing they came up with. )

Them: Smack, smack, licking wet smack, stick-out-the-tongue-to-show-the-chewed-food SMACK!

ME: now screaming: You are doing it ON PUR-POSE. (ya think?) I'm going in the dining room.

The dining room was on the other side of the wall from the table in the kitchen. By moving to the dining room, I was moving roughly 6 feet away. The better for them to smack at me. I tried to slam the door, but it was a swinging door and wouldn't slam. That was a shame. I could have used a good door-slam about then.

Them: holding the door open with a foot and laughing hysterically. SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK. Mouths wide open and food spewing everywhere.

ME: I'm going to tell Daddy when he gets home. Now crying.

They did this a LOT.

Imagine my dismay when I got out into the whole wide world and found out that mouth noise of all kinds makes me crazy. It is the root of my hatred of gum. What is the purpose of gum? Only two things - to generate mouth noise and to attempt to cover up something on one's breath - say smoking, which I never did.

So, I trained my children carefully to chew with no mouth noise. Which is impossible. Everybody makes mouth noise. Unfortunately, not everyone trains his or her children to eat with his/her mouth closed, which is rule number one of table etiquette.

I was horrified to make my first visit to my potential in-laws home to find out that no one taught them to chew with their mouths closed. It was bad. Old country manners, and open mouth chewing, plus talking with mouth full - EH, paesano...how about closing up your Italian mouth when eating that sloppy lasagna? Actually I didn't say that. I thought it. Lots of times.

To make matters worse, I have some sort of uber-hearing related to mouth noise. Think of the whole drive-you-insane heart-beating scene in Poe's Telltale Heart. You know what I'm talking about, everyone in the world read's Poe's Telltale Heart in Middle School and again in High School. It's the MS/HS English teacher's dream story, because there are all kinds of recordings of it which take a bunch of class time. Except for me, who has never, ever done that for any reason. Bell-to-bell, every single day.

For me, it's not a beating heart that follows me throughout the house, it's the mouth noise. It seeks me wherever I go. Smackity-smack, smack.

And then, to top it off, I ended up with a child who has TMJ and so when said child chews, on top of mouth noise, we have the popping of the jaw joints. Pop-pop-pop, minor-smack-crunch-pop. Can't help it.

Also, I have children who go hide to eat, because they know I hate mouth noise.

My rules for mouth noise are these:
Don't make any.
Ever.
If you must, don't do it around me.
No gum. The sound will seek me out and find me.
I do not want to see your chewed food.
I do not even want to think of your chewed food.
I also don't want to hear your chewed food.
Ever.
Thank you.

Clean-up Fairy

2009-03-07T13:51:00.005-06:00

Considering that PPP and I took a road trip, I missed two days of school. I anticipated that things would not be as I had left them. Never in my wildest dreams did I anticipate the train-wreck caused by the clean-up fairy.

Ms K met me at the end of the hall when I got to school, walked down the hall, hovering at my elbow, murmuring apologies that built in urgency. Something tragic must have happened. Was somebody sick? Somebody fired? Did I get fired while I was gone? That seems to be a trend these days, it just seemed only natural.

At school, I use the "organized stacks" filing system, in which one carefully stacks sets of papers on strategic geographic locations on the desk, behind the desk, beside the desk, on the window sill, sometimes even on the floor. Papers are in alphabetical order, and the stacks are in date order. Every class has a stack. I know what's in each stack and mostly what order things are in, and I know where on the desk each stack is located. Perhaps there are sometimes extraneous papers and pens and cups spread around, things get knocked off but I manage that fine. The point is that it is MY stuff...MY mess, if you must insist.

When we walked in Ms. K said "Isn't this going to be a big help?" I couldn't at that moment figure out what "this" was. "I knew how much stress you're under, so I cleaned up for you while you were gone."

NO $*#! Surely, I had already been fired, my desk cleaned out, and I was there to just pick up my A to Z book ends. There are no stacks, no piles, no geographical landmarks on my desk to tell me that the 6th grade papers are here, while the 8th grade papers are there. Cleaned up? Wrecked? Same thing.

So...I started with the effusive thanks. Thanks so much for being so considerate. Thanks so much for all the time it must have taken. So, how much time did you actually spend in there? Thanks so much for ... thinking about me? And where might my umbrella be, since I have carpool in 3 minutes and it's raining? Also, any notion where the sub folders are?

I used to have a paper blotter, face up November, 2008. It's gone. Gone with it are lots and lots of phone numbers, like the cell phone number of my favorite florist and email addresses and websites that I have made note of for the past . . . however long. Tucked under those pages were receipts and more notes and more stuff of mine. Also gone.

I had some boxes of text books that we don't use any more, since we are a tech-forward LAPTOP school No more boxes. Now I have those un-used books stacked by size and color in my window sill.

How thoroughly sweet! The clean-up fairy cleaned up! She gave the sweetest and most sacrificial gift she could give me - her time. She made MY world look like HER world. Side effect - thoroughly unable to find anything, most crucially the things I had left ready for that very morning's worth of children, who would come pouring through the door in 18 minutes.

It has come to my attention that I am not a classically neat person. I am organized - in my head. It has been a point of contention with my mother ever since I got old enough to "make a mess." I don't see it as mess. It doesn't register in my consciousness as mess. It registers as stacks. And I know what's in each stack. Papers are in alphabetical order, and the stacks are in date order. I use the same system with my clothes, and I always have. Stacks. When the stacks get unruly, I clean up, but I always end up with more stacks. That has never been a popular position with Mimi, who believes that somehow I am doing an injustice to my family by using this organizational system. It does not seem to bother them, because for the most part, they all use the same system.

When I finally came around and sat down in that big blue chair I discovered that not only had she cleaned up my desk, she had cleaned up my trash. I had a box beside my desk for recycle paper. Beside it is a crate that holds things like last semester's exams, and projects, and study guides. Not any more. NOW, there is a box in which all of that paper - trash and exams, are stacked neatly - in one box. Somewhere in the corner of the window sill is another stack. One single stack. Five classes + trash in one stack. Cleaned up my trash - sorry, I am horrified. Also, terribly ungrateful. Ms K gave up a DAY to clean up my trash.

As the week went on, people stuck their heads in the door to ask "how was your trip....and how do you like your new room?" Apparently, the clean-up angel had started in on Friday morning, roughly 12 hours after I left the night before, in full clean-up regalia to TACKLE the project. She worked all day. She spent an entire day in my room cleaning up. And going through my every note and receipt. Also, plowing through my trash. And everyone in our school knew what she was doing and how much time she spent doing it. Everywhere I went people greeted me with thngs like "How is your new clean room?" or "Wasn't it great to come back to a clean room?" Those chipper people did not have their world re-organized, only with no key as to where things might be found.

So, while I was here with the Princess, the clean-up fairy was creating her own reality show "Extreme Classroom Make-over" in my room. One particularly perceptive colleague said "I wondered how you were going to feel about that." Yeah, wondered.

She gave up a whole entire work day, to spend it in my room, dealing with my mess, re-organizing my bookshelves, looking through my calendar, going through my trash. Is there not a piece of that statement that's a little bit creepy? Stupid, ungrateful me - feeling creepy about this genuine, loving, helpful gift. See?

I asked her if anyone else who might be in a position to care - principle? students? headmaster? parents? God? - had complained that my room was messy. NO, she assured me. No complaints. Did she have an inkling that people were talking a because my room was 'messy'. NO, it was just her, all her, and her desire to serve me. Because I am so, so ...what, pitiful?

I have spent the last days in serious conflict. Feeling bad because Ms K spent a whole entire work day in my room, and I am not squealing with joy. I'm feeling guilty because I feel so invaded; feeling wicked for my un-grateful, whiny response. Paranoid because someone went through my trash. Also concerned, wondering what actually was IN my trash.

I am waiting to feel the delight and relief that a really good clean-up offers. I'm not feeling it. I guess I would feel better if I had my order in my world, and not someone else's verision of order installed in my absence.

Is that pathetic? Am I that pathetic?

Before I left this week, I made sure it was at least a little neat. I flipped the pages of the calendar book, which I had carefully replaced at just the right angle on the clean desk. On the pages of this week was written in big colorful letters "Spring Break" Seriously? I needed some stress relief from the clean-up that I didn't do.

A teacher on our hall has whole boxes of chocolate and candy in her cabinet. We all make frequent stress-relief trips to the cabinet. Not so much. Lent.

Hollins gets its Science going

2009-02-24T21:17:00.002-06:00

Oh LOOK! Still not my window! The last day of the trip to Hollins was more positive on the science front. It HAD to be more positive on the science front because all the other days had been filled with horses and creative writing. In the laundromat just down the road from Hollins we saw a sign warning about blankets with animal hair. I am not the least bit veterinary, but the only animals I know of that have blankets are horses. Have you ever heard of a goat blanket? a rabbit blanket? a chicken blanket? No, you have not. You have indeed heard of HORSE blankets. So, PPP's possible trips to the laundromat at Hollins are potentially laden with girls sneaking their horse blankets into the laundromat. Another scary thing for her to fret about.

Take a look at PPP - because her body language will tell us about her college hunt.So...happy, smiling PPP with Auntie Bootza on her 18th birthday, pre-horse farm.

And....PPP, freezing on a tour of Hollins that included nothing of interest to her. . . with random snow flying around.

If you cannot read body language of our 2nd daughter, that posture says: "Fine. Just FINE. I'm going, but I don't want to."

"And NO, you cannot take my picture."

And this says exhausted and possibly bored. PPP spent the night....with a very, very sweet creative writing major, whose assessment of the student body was "Pretty much everybody does Creative Writing here." There was a party planned for the girls visiting for the weekend. Hostess Laura offered a 'slam poetry performance' at a coffee house instead. Did they intentionally engineer this situation so that PPP would be discouraged? I have visions of girls huddled in the corner of their dorm rooms, crouched over a notebook writing poetry, in their riding boots, with hairy horse blankets piled on the floor. Don't tell. Also...coffee house? Didn't that expression end in the 60's? Don't we say 'Starbucks' now? Perhaps coffee shop?

PPP got up at dawn, and went to a chemistry class in which there were 3 people. Lunch with a chemistry professor, one of three in the whole school, confirmed that the ratio of equine creative writers to scientists is about 750:3, considering that the undergraduate enrollment is 753. Perhaps our girl will make that 4 science majors. She also met the lacrosse coach, which was a nice touch, since all we had seen was one lax goal, pushed off to the side, and a field with some faint lines. They gave us some slick recruiting papers about the strength of the science department. And they were totally awesomely nice to us both. That would be after I had a chat with the President of the University, the President of the Parents Council and the Assistant Director of Admissions. My basic premise was that we had driven really, really far, and thanks for asking us....but if they are so all up in the sciences, where exactly are the people? We met all of them the next morning. In rapid succession. Things got awfully scientific after that. Then we drove home, because of the impending first lacrosse game of PPP's season.The afternoon was warm and westward - driving home. PPP and I got pretty sleepy. But we drove fast. AFTER we left Virginia and it's militant highway police who dare to stop people in the middle of the night. Sleepy + fast = don't tell.We stopped, for coffee.We stopped for chocolate and Diet Coke, anticipating the Lenten fast upon us.And with all the stopping for coffee and Diet Coke and Green Tea, we stopped some more to relieve ourselves so we could drink some more.

10 hours 30 minutes worth of random observations from the drive home:

Things were a lot better in the morning at Hollins than they were the night before. Still, it looks better to Mom than to the potential student.

Bootza was right...every single time she told us about the mountains and their blueness.

The Blue Ridge Mountains are blue.

We appreciate the value of a women's-school education. Bleh, bleh, bleh. Not sure about the slam poetry.

Internet access is SO worth $10 a day.

Which is better? A ton of personal attention for 3 or 4 science students or a enormously competitive and peer-challenging course of study? Hmmm...can we flip a coin? Also, is there actually a job market big enough to absorb all these art history majors?

What is slam poetry? We had to phone a friend to find out. Stargazer reports that it's random and twisty and makes no sense to anyone but "the poet". Sounds like the 60's to me.

Why didn't they bribe all the bubbly fun Hollins girls to spend the weekend at school, so that it didn't look so deserted and mopey? Attracting scientists doesn't compare to parties at schools with boys.

Hollins is a really good school. And it might be a great place to go. While we were about 37 seconds from going home on Sunday night, we didn't. I''m glad, because they fell all over themselves to make PPP feel like...a science Princess. That was nice.

PPP is definitely not a creative writing/equestrian/art history major with a minor in performance music. Ruled out completely.

It only took us 10.5 hours to get home, rather than the anticipated 12. I cannot fathom how fast we must have driven because we stopped every hour.

PPP does not eat gas station hot dogs. Just...no. There's another place that she really likes a lot.

A whole lot. Anybody can read THAT body language.

We're listening. We really are.

Still Looking - or How PPP spent her 18th Birthday

2009-02-23T02:11:00.002-06:00

Still looking at colleges. What? That's not February, nor is it Virginia? Right on all accounts.

It's Rhodes. But about now, they are all starting to look kind of alike.

In Virginia at Hollins, it's neither home, nor beautiful November. It's the middle of winter and roughly 47 degrees colder tonight than when we left home. Not roughly, EXACTLY. Anyway, everytime the heater ROARS to life in this hotel, it wakes me up. And every time I wake up, it's still not my window. And we're still looking at this college.

Thank you Hotel Roanoke, I love your gorgeous restoration, and the fact that I have to pay to park about 7 blocks away, and that the maid stared at me when I got another tiny bar of soap. Also thanks for letting me stay in your hotel on POINTS, because BigD has spent so many nights in your sister hotels. PPP is particularly incensed that we have to pay for internet access. Internet access at any time or place is a GOD GIVEN RIGHT, as any self-respecting 18 year old will tell you. This trip, it's worth $10/day.

Saturday, PPP and I made an early trip out in search of a laundromat, and washed her jeans. That is the way we celebrate a birthday in our family - we go to the laundromat.

We took a sneak peak at Hollins. Early on Saturday morning, not a creature was stirring. Shades drawn, silent, deserted. Not even the horses were evident. Hollins has a big EQUINE program. Just ask them.

Auntie Bootza arrived, fresh from DC (call it DC, that's what locals call it - DC), we went and found lunch, and discovered that Roanoke is all retro-hippy, and has a 'thriving art scene' and 'niche-y galleries and art hot spots.' Bootza gets all excited about that stuff and used to live here, so that was fun. However, Wal-Mart is Wal-Mart where ever you are.

Also, back to Hollins. Saturday afternoon, still not a creature stirring. Well maybe a couple of creatures. Someone had let some horses out, though they were inside a fence and wearing coats. A picture would be nice here, but I cannot find the little cord - here yesterday, gone today.

For us with no equine savvy, it was a relief that the horses were behind a fence. For all the talk about the EQUINE program, we were concerned about the horses roaming free in the Quad, and wondered exactly how they kept the campus clean, what with all the horses. So...good to know - no free roaming horses and someone was actually ON CAMPUS this weekend.

We tooled around town, until we were through. We walked the many frigid blocks after parking, to find that yet again, the Hotel Roanoke had rolled the red carpet out for us.

I guess they rolled the red carpet out to make up for how cold it is when the parking is a mile away. Also, the internet thing.

Sunday was the BIG DAY. First, we had to re-shop for some warmer clothes. Target is Target where ever you are.College shopping involves maps, tours with student guides walking backwards, bottled water and Starbucks. One must consider what they tell you, in their slick brochures and DVDs and cool little recruiting tools, then find actual evidence that what they have said does indeed exist. On paper, every college is the perfect place to learn. I know that isn't Hollins, it's Rhodes - remember the whole 'camera/cord' issue?

PPP wants to study science and is afraid of horses. Hollins has a huge EQUINE program and one of very few Creative Writing majors in the country. We knew this much. BUT.... according to the Admissions reps who are attentive and effective, they also have a thriving pre-med program, a swim team that is growing, and a lacrosse team that is not overly vicious. They also claim that there are lots and lots of appropriate inter-collegiate activities including young men, and a thriving social life on campus. (which explains the totally deserted campus on the weekend? I guess the social-ness must thrive elsewhere)

They want PPP. In fact they want her enough to invite her to compete for a big honorary scholarship. So we came. Seriously, I really, really didn't MAKE her come.

Today - speeches and panels: The student panel consisted of 2 art history majors and 2 creative writing majors - all of them pretty excited about the downtown Roanoke gallery scene, and the business of art. We learned that they have a big HORSE barn. And championship horsewomen. Also, lots of studio art, theater and creative writing. It snowed while we were walking the campus tour. S. N. O. W.For easy reference, this is what home looks like now. In the flurries, our college tour guide never made it to the science building, though we did hear about Siberia, the parking lot for freshmen. We saw the outside of the theater, the art studio, and the grass quad that nobody can walk on except seniors.

Things we did not see: Science building. Labs. Students who were not musicians, writers, photographers, art historians. Teachers. Anything to do with lax or swimimng. Siberia.

The girls went to 'spend the night on campus' (which was slowly re-populating) while Hollins entertained the parents at a lovely reception at the home of the President of the University - lovely home, lovely food, lovely President. Since I am the parent, I got to go be lovely. Every parent I talked to had a daughter coming to study creative writing. Three are bringing their horses along with them. Their own personal horses.

Coincidentally, I had 3 separate conversations too: with the Chair of the Parent Council, with the Assistant Director of Admission and last but not least, with the lovely President of the University about the sciences- as in do they teach science here, or just write creatively about it? Also, do they have labs here, or just barns? I mean seriously, they surely could have told us this information on the phone, prior to the drive and missing 2 days of school.

I don't know that there's a more homesick hour of the day than Sunday evening. It was always for me, and I went to college about 15 minutes from home. When BigB was far away, he and I BOTH got homesick on Sunday night, and I was AT HOME.

Tonight, as the sun was going down and homesick rose in my throat, PPP and I stood in a cold hall, amidst a lot of very talented creative writers/horsewomen. We have had a frigid tour, heard effusive presentations about art history and creative writing, and discovered that out of all the classes available for her to visit tomorrow, only 2 were sciences, Organic and Inorganic Chemistry, at the same time. We have seen one lacrosse goal, and determined that they have a pool. The swim coach wrote her a note with a cell phone number.

PPP wondered aloud "Is there anyone here like me?"

It's well after midnight, and I am wondering the same thing.

2009-02-21T07:30:00.004-06:00

This is not my window! I woke up at my 'regular time' of way too early anyway. Even though the sun is coming up on Roanoke, Virginia. At this time, it's still dark in my bedroom at home, some 20,031 miles to the west. Pretty Pretty Princess is on the hunt for college. This particular weekend, Mom and PPP are on a road trip. The road to Hollins for an interview is circuitous. Why, might you ask, would we go hundreds of miles out of the way? Or, as BigD said, "What the hell? You're adding 5 hours." Why indeed?
Hello, my lovely. Pshheeh! Why would we add 5 hours? (Don't tell, we SPENT 4:35 hours there, which means we added way more than 5 hours.)

Most of the day looked like this.

We stopped at no small number of drive-through's in search of an elusive GOOD cup of coffee. Note: there are no readily avabilable Starbucks or Kinko's on that route. This lady talked to somebody for a solid 7 minutes, waiting for change, which was all $1 bills. We made a total of 3 full on U-turns, and got stuck in a traffic standstill at Chattanooga, and flat out lost navigating the poorly marked detours in Knoville, but found our way thanks to a policeman we found beneath an underpass in a sketchy part of town. Not before we a significant dent in another side trip to Lexington; then I realized that it was Lexington, Kentucky the signs were pointing us to, not Lexington, Virgina.

This was PPP's daytime picture of danger. Mirrors were busted out. DANGEROUS for the weaving in and out of traffic.

Her NIGHTIME version of dangerous was when we passed Mr. Nice State Trooper at 11:50 p.m., going....well, fast. More dangerous when we saw the blue lights. MEMO: Despite popular belief, you CAN get pulled over for going way too fast in the middle of the night. I think he anticipated a car full of crazy drunk guys, or maybe a car full of illicit substances hurtling through Virginia at 21 miles over the speed limit. He got a mom and PPP, who quickly said "It's my birthday in 10 minutes. You aren't going to give me a ticket on my 18th birthday, are you?" He was about 10 minutes on the other side of his 18th birthday, and somehow that all worked in her favor. WARNING: That's what she got, instead of reckless driving, which indeed would have been a bad way to start the birthday.

We got here late. My contacts were dry, and it is a full 20 degrees colder than it was when we left home. I'm sure the Hotel Roanoke didn't roll out the red carpet just for us, but it sure felt like it. Game on, Hollins.

First, we're going to find the laundromat, though.

Valentine Wedding - Like a Box of Chocolates

2009-02-16T21:12:00.008-06:00

I dream about THEME weddings. If YOU were getting married on Valentine's Day, what would you do? You know, to carry out your Valentine theme? De-lish bridesmaid's dresses that look like cupcakes? Chocolate brown satin with a big red silky sash. Like a heart-shaped box of Valentine candy. Only poufier.Would you put your Junior Bridesmaids in the opposite or reverse or whatever you call it? Red satin cupcake dresses with big chocolate brown bows. Just like the heart boxes of candy.Everybody wants to take pictures on wedding day. However, not everyone is ready to be photographed, and if I were the lady smack in the middle of that picture?...Just sayin.'Especially when one has a lipstick-red Valentine-ish wedding cake with chocolate brown flowers pressed on to the very red cake. With a chocolate faux snake winding its way across the top. I don't think that's actually supposed to be a chocolate snake. I think further adjustments were made. Snake on cake? Not so much, even for Valentines Day.
Red tablecloths over white. Chocolate scented candles, perhaps? Red satin dresses with brown satin sashes, brown satin dresses with red satin bows. Nothing says wedding like satin and big petticoats. "Strapless" could come close.
The bouquets? Luscious Valentine ruby red roses with lacy white hydrangeas. A virtual doily-and-heart-valentine bouquet. Virtually. The men wore red vests and ties with their tuxes. Big lip-smacking red roses for bouts. Not these delicate luminescent fuh-reeeee-sha. BO-RING! Remember the theme! This is a full-onValentine's Day wedding.

Valentine's Wedding....like a box of chocolates! I knew you'd do that whole chocolate and red roses theme thing! Love was in the air.

Matrimonial Editorial

2009-02-12T10:00:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, and a lifetime ago it seems, Chilly and his Lovely Bride were the Rock-Stars of the Week at their wedding. The announcement was in our local newspaper. I wrote, Chilly edited, and it was pretty terse. It actually worked well, because the pictures pretty much tell the tale :those two are just flat crazy about each other.

Back, back, back in the day the announcements went into exquisite detail about everything - fabric, flower, music, parties, doodlie, doodlie, doo. Not so much anymore, at least not in our paper. I wrote us a real old-school wedding announcement, with my comments. Just between us. Don't tell.

Special to the old-school wedding newspaper....

On a fine warm evening in mid-winter,

which caused us to sweat all day, the Lovely Bride, daughter of two doting parents, married Chilly, son of two more doting parents. Doting bridal parents began the festivities last spring with a gala cocktail reception in the garden of their home, to introduce Chilly and the whole Chilly entourage to their dearest friends. Also, just to celebrate at home.

The very closest associates, friends and family of the Bride and Chilly and the whole Ginormous Chilly family-entourage were personally invited to join the wedding festivities during the winter holidays. The Spencerian script invitation on a pearl white deckle-edged card was enclosed in a french, silver filigree-tissue lined envelope, ordered from the above genius Paper-Doll. Biker-Mom, the mother of the bride, on the phone, me and Paper-Doll doing the design. Do you think I would take Biker mom, my bff, into that overstimulating little space? No, this was a phone-a-friend occasion.Each invitation was hand calligraphied, then stuffed, then stamped, then checked, then each and every one had to be licked. Yummy.Guests entered the candlelit foyer of the church . . .Ok, this was technically before we lit the candles.... before being escorted to their seats.Groomsmen, brothers, cousins, friends, neighbors of the bride and groom attended the groom. Apparently they were using their "phone-a-friend lifeline" too. Their ties were not the fake pre-tied kind, but were hand-tied silk, tied by a professional bow-tier just hours before the pictures started, and that was early in their day, my friends.They wore boutinierre's of some little white and green flower that I cannot remember the name of. (PPP says "Is it FUH-REEEEE- sha? Yes, in fact it is. Freesia. She's good.). And I ask for these bouts almost every time. By name. It's a good thing the flower guy knows what I'm talking about. And boy, he does know exactly what I'm talking about - from start to finish, every time. The Garden District genius-guys created a double squared candelit arch, adorned with fresh white flowers. I was absolutely obsessed with the arch being squared off, not oval, and I am so, so glad. Just saying.The guys who created that magic actually BUILT structures to hold up all the flowers, and then lighted them to make it even more stunning. One of them wears a full-on tool belt with a power drill. I love these flower guys. The bride carried a boquet of white parrot tulips and. . .. . . enormous fresh lilies adorned the pews enveloping the sanctuary in the aroma of spring. The flowers were overwhelmingly beautiful. Also, smelled really good. Eau -du - matrimoniee. Add candles. Lots. Candles = magic.
The bride was attended by her closest friends, who celebrated at a bridesmaid's luncheon, one of a whirl of parties honoring the bride. The bridesmaids wore Aegean blue taffeta dresses which were painstakingly ironed - with ruched bodices and ballroom skirts. So, the backstory on the dresses? OMG. In late summer we ordered some OTHER dresses from LOW'S and after a million phone calls, they finally told us on November 21 that the original dresses had never been ordered. I was alerted to this while in the midst of a college visit with PPP, receiving frantic text and phone brrrrppps from Bride and MOB in quick succession. This could be a serialized newspaper story called "Disasters in Wedding Planning" but it's not! It's called "Triumphs of calm problem-solving!" My calm and confident bride found herself some dresses from Saks Fifth Avenue, I tracked down the girls and their sizes, with a big help from the MATRON of Honor, a newlywed herself. VOILA, within days my able assistants were modeling the new dresses in the bride's bedroom over the Thanksgiving holiday. I mean seriously, that's a quick turnaround, from no dresses to 9 dresses! So, if you are looking for wedding planning hints, let me just say, LOWS - at your own risk. Universally agreed, the new dresses ROCKED. The old dresses? Don't know, because Low's didn't order them. The bride's hair and make-up was done by Quitman. That's Quitman, putting on the fierce make-up. Wait, is that someone ironing? Quitman was also in charge of flooofin' up the hair. Lovely Bride wore her hair in a bundle of cascading curls to highlight the fingertip veil of silk illusion. Also the bridesmaids, every last one of them, got curled and floofed up. And the mothers. Also, grandmothers. Quitman brought a helper for all that hair. Mother of Chilly got poufy, for sure. Not poufy. Poufy. Not poufy.

The MOB wore....OK stop right here! Biker Mom ironed all afternoon with curlers in her hair. Keep your eye on the left hand.I think she ironed every single bridesmaid dress. Once she QUIT ironing.... The mother-of-the-Bride wore a navy silk tulle strapless gown with bolero actually, this started out as a sort of aubergine color dress, but there were so many flaws in that aubergine fabric that her personal stylist ordered this great navy blue swirly dress with sparklies all up in the Cinderella skirt. And it was SO not black. Navy. And that furry little shrug-like bunny affair? Lovely Bride wore it at some point, before she got way too hot - MOB got it from E-Bay, just for the occasion. Mr. and Mrs. Chilly's future children will enjoy playing dress up with that little shrug.The mother of the groom ... did not wear beige. She wore red and she wore it triumphantly. Also, it helps to bring along an ironer. A professional ironer, who does a sort of ironing dance. Someone with an advanced degree in ironing. Like an ironing doctor. One might say an M.I. It got scary in there...between the floofing of the hair and the makeup and the manic - ironing. SCARY. GOOD scary, but still scary.Professional photography service, including bridal portrait in the home of the doting parents, was provided by Trey Clark. Starting on Christmas Eve, when somehow, someway we got hair, make-up, dress and photographer together with the bride, and took a portrait, in her home. 17 phone calls, 24 text messages. On Christmas Eve. Consider that. On Christmas Eve.Semi-professional photography provided by every parent, aunt, uncle and cousin, with Trey watching behind. Totally amateur photography provided by me. So, I don't rock in everything.
Video by Jamie Hill. I love it when the wedding party tells me that they had no idea that the videographer was even there. Not sure how you can miss the big tripod in the back of the church, but whatever. It was a pretty wild day. I meant to say that it was an wildly exciting day. I think.A gala reception followed, and a good time was had by all. Chilly threw his bride around the dance floor like a dancing fool. I took no pictures of that part. Trust, me though. They danced all night. And then they left.

After a honeymoon in Mexico, during which they turned off their cell phones and did not communicate with anyone including their parents, one of whom believed that they must be sick and stranded in some wayward Mexican emergency room They weren't. Sick that is. They were just HONEYMOONING - a sign that they applied some sound married decision making to the whole honeymoon concept.

Mr. and Mrs. Chilly will live in Atlanta . . . and go back to being normal people. (That's Chilly eating cheese. That's what normal people do.) Nobody tell Big Lar this part, but the Mother of Chilly emailed me this week to verify a charge, noting that she "threw her credit card at everybody all weekend long." I thought I gave her a lanyard to tether that card to herself. Scary, I tell you.

Their parents are still recovering.

At Home with a Super-Mom

2009-01-24T22:04:00.002-06:00

Yes, there is more about the wedding, but later. (Is it just me, or does that lily look...particularly matrimonial?) It takes a while to process. Today: True Confessions of a Reformed Super-Mom.
When I was the mother of young children, babes indeed, I was all about the outings. There were Bible studies, and volunteer work, and actually working, and going to the museums and the parks and the walks, and exercise class (I know, it's a distant memory, but I did) and the birthday parties, and then more Bible Study .. and the practices, and the....bleh, bleh, bleh - all that good-mother stuff I did. . . and did I mention the Women's groups and Bible studies?...and the whatevers I could find to get out of the house? I was all about the outings.

I lived life fast-paced, and interesting, and challenging, and super-charged and way cool and the pace of our life was frantic. I was frantic. Also busy, and so very proud of myself for how much I could get accomplished with all these babies around me. Rock-star in the mothering world. Ask anybody. Ok, maybe not. I was probably scary in my Rock-starness.

Also, I didn't so much like to be alone with myself, and my thoughts, and even our children. They were scary. What if something happened that I couldn't manage? Would I be a failure?

A wise mother of children older than ours asked me "WHY?" Also she was brave. Because I knew so much about mothering and was I so damn COMPETENT, I cannot imagine how anyone dared to challenge me. Our children spent more time with the church nursery ladies and the exercise nursery ladies and the Bible study nursery ladies than they spent with me. To this day, The Sophisticate and BigB take great pleasure in talking about all the many, many nights - even hundreds of nights - they had to eat a frozen TV dinner (the kind with the little square portion of corn, because fast food would have been a sign of bad-mothering) and then go to the exercise nursery. They speak as if it were some kind of torture. And I thought they were having FUN, with nursery toys, and an ever-changing cast of caregivers.Also, I had some chronically cranky children who didn't really know how to entertain themselves at home. (Yikes). Why would they? I was busy entertaining them. Or paying someone else to entertain them while I entertained myself. Watch out.I got them out of the house because I wanted to be out of the house. I also wanted to keep the house neat and orderly, as a sign of my competence. With them there, then they made a mess, which had to be cleaned up. I also didn't like being imprisoned with our little ones.

One day, our wise big boy (who was probably all of 4) said - "Mom, can't we go somewhere to play, only it's home all day?" His sister had been expressing that for days by refusing to cooperate with getting dressed, (i.e., she didn't want to wear the really cute outfit with matching panties, but instead wanted to wear pajamas all day, preferably accessorized with an unfortunate pink vinyl belt) and arching her back when it was time to get in the carseat. Competent, I tell you.

So, eventually I listened, since they always tell you exactly what they need. I did just as LittleKidB suggested - I designated a day at home all day, no outings, no errands, no Bible Study. A day at home every week. It seemed blasphemous and ungodly, but I did it anyway. I wish I could remember how it happened, and I am sure I could make up a dramatic story that would bring tears to my eyes, but honestly, I have no idea what pushed me over the edge. I had to be pushed over the edge to stay home. Contemplate that.

What I found out is that they really wanted to be home and just piddling around home without interruption, without me directing every minute. They didn't want to be interrupted in the middle of playing "boats in bubbles" in the tub, or fashioning frozen dinners out of Play-Doh simply because I was ready to go somewhere! And pajamas all day, with or without accessories are fun too. Actually more fun than the exercise nursery.

So - I learned to give them a day at home at least once a week. It became Tuesday. When my other two babies came along, my Bigs were in school, so we still did a lot of running - but I tried to give them at least a couple of mornings and afternoons that were ONLY interrupted when it was time to go pick up the sibs from school. It made me a better mother, and our children more calm. Also, me, I got more calm. My house got messy. We have since progressed to dirty. There's always a trade-off.Fast forward to the NOW - our older two children, who I trundled all over and kept all of us busy with entertainment and excitement and stimulation - those two want to go OUT all the time, and consider themselves boring social misfits if they aren't going OUT. OUT somewhere.

My younger ones - the ones who didn't have to do all that crap (due to my frantic-ness) . . .have an easier time entertaining themselves - and seem to be able to pick the outings that are right for them. They decide when to go out,

but don't hesitate to stay home. And make pies. For me.I cannot attribute it completely to what we did when they were small -because much is due to inherent temperament and personality, but I can't help but wonder (Oh, how I long to be Carrie....) if I taught them in those wee years that home was NOT a fun place to be, and that we needed to be GOING to be doing something important.

It's hard to know why, but our Young Son and PPP seem to be content at home, when it's home-time. The Sophisticate and BigB? They have had to learn how to be alone with themselves and to be content with 'finding something to do.' Did they learn that from watching me?

ME? Today? I'm agoraphobic. Totally.

Wedding-Pa-Looza

2009-01-10T22:00:00.001-06:00

At its best, a wedding is a family gathering to celebrate an authentic love story. As a totally glamorous event planner, I find myself a lot with families as they gather. This one - Wedding-pa-looza.
It's always a sprawling, evolving, passionate story that unfolds, hitches and glitches and all. This one - all that and more.
Whole multi-generational sets of relatives come along. And then there are the friends for all those generations: bride's friends, groom's friends, parents' friends, friends abound - plus dates or spouses and children and cousins. Lots of different people come to the table, so to speak.Or in the case of this delightfully celebratory wedding, they started in May.And came to the tables over and over again. It was kind of like a marathon. Kind of. Not exactly. The Lovely Bride has a close family that is spread out from coast to coast.

They drove in, they flew in - they would have walked to the family celebration.

The Lovely Bride's friends from childhood . . . . . . and beyond! Parents have their own set of friends, associates, relations . . . . . hired hands, all here to celebrate with the Lovely Bride and her family.
Chilly is the Groom. Does that make this a Chilly-pa-looza? His parents bring two GINORMOUS families.They ALL came to the wedding. For real. There could have been entire zip codes left unpopulated for a couple of days. Trust me, I had the list.

I'm pretty sure there was a representative of every single twig on his family tree. And their friends. They came together to eat, drink and be merry. And then, when that session was over, they retired to their hotels and ate, drank and made merry some more. Then they got up and did it all again. Four days - that's stamina. I meant to say devotion, but what's one without the other? With the first party back in May, we realized that Chilly's family-and-friends-extravaganza moves in a large ever evolving group . . .. . . whatever the party. Much like a big flock of birds that lands in the yard and on every branch of every tree, fluttering and chattering away. At some unspoken signal, they all leave together, with great flourish. Whatever they do, they do it en masse.
It would be sad if all families do is eat and drink. They do way more than that. They take pictures, and they pose for pictures. And I think they took pictures of themselves taking pictures. Or maybe I did that. Note to readers: I know I'm not a photographer. But I bet you're looking for yourself, blurry or not. Just saying.
These families are world class laughers. I never wondered if they were laughing AT somebody (like me), they were laughing together. With absolute, unqualified joy. Joy in the morning, as it were.
There is no shortage of hugging, which is an awesome way to greet someone you haven't seen in a while. Or to greet someone you saw about an hour ago. Either way, hugs are in order. Unless someone hugs you with a full drink in hand, and then that drink is spilled down the back of your shirt. But it happened only maybe once. But still.
Indeed, these celebrating families and friends love to talk, even to people they may not know. They aren't at all shy about sharing the love. As a group, they'll pretty much engage anyone who happens by. In Chilly's family, I'm not sure whether or not they all know who is part of whose family or not part of the family or the Lovely Bride's family, or even maybe is a delivery person or a passer-by. They roll with it. Or watch it unfold before their very eyes.
No shortage of tears - tears of glorious delight. When the celebratory pitch gets that high, some tears usually squeeze out. Or flow freely, take your pick.
Thus unfolds the story.It's a glorious love story, built on the shoulders of so many stories of love and devotion. It's the story of one-true-Savior love. A story of authentic brother-love and sister-love.

Devoted-parents love. Delighted - grandparent love. Glorious! Aunts-uncles-cousins-love abounding.

Generations of giggling-cousins love. Friends-as-close-as-family love. Neighbors-with-no-fences love.

My favorite philosopher, Sex and the City sage Carrie Bradshaw sums it up when she calls it "Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love."
Chilly and his Lovely Bride have that stuff. What a love story we celebrated, and their GINORMOUS families along with them.

It's COMING! It's coming!

2009-01-07T22:21:00.003-06:00

I promise, it's coming. Soon, very soon.

Christmas-time Birthday Boy

2008-12-27T00:47:00.001-06:00

Christmas time is also birthday time at our house. Our Young Son has a Christmas-time birthday. December 23 to be exact. Those 17 years ago, we made an error in calculations, or were overcome with baby-need on one fine spring evening - take your pick - and ended up with a baby due on 12/19. Since my babies hide out inside until forcibly ejected, he would have waited for a January birthday. Per the doctor, baby boy had to come by 12/26. Per my need to be in charge, I ordered him out on 12/23.

In those days I was overly organized, overly rigid, overly predictable and overly in control. My overly- planned world would not accommodate a birth on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day; I couldn't risk that Baby Son would spontaneously arrive to mess up my Christmas plans. In my well planned and organized world, which was critical to proper child-rearing, I had rules, and to accommodate those rules, everyone knew I had to be there for Christmas morning, or else Christmas morning wouldn't happen. Or at least they wouldn't be dressed right for Christmas morning. If nothing else, I could dress them for the season, back in the day.

So on December 23rd we picked up our babysitter, Danette, and told the other 3 that we had some "Christmas business" to attend to. It didn't cross their minds that it might be baby-day. Don't underestimate children's Narcissism. The day with no interference from me was a huge Christmas gift. They thought we were off to buy fabulous toys and video games, while in fact we were going off to have a baby. With Danette there all day, they could eat whatever they wanted and watch TV shows during the daytime, of any kind, all of which were not part of my lockdown rules to produce perfect children.

As they go, our Young Son's birth story is pretty much a reflection of him - easy. I needed him to be born on December 23, so he was. I needed it to be fast, and uncomplicated, since I had Christmas to deal with the next day or so. So, he did just that.

The most interesting thing about the whole labor was that BigB and the Sophisticate kept calling us to report on what was happening at home.

Little KidB: Dad, I need to talk to Mom

BigD: Mom's busy now.

Me: Don't tell him where we are.

BigD: You just threw up? Here, talk to Mom.

Me: (to LittleKidB) You threw up in our bed? Did Danette clean it up? Ask her to change the sheets. (I was already calculating my return home, babe in tow, 24 hours hence)

LittleKidB: Danette doesn't want to get sick for Christmas. (Seriously?)

It was established that LittleKidB should stay away from the other children, get OUT of our bed, and take a pillow to the couch so he could watch TV in his illness. Either he or the Sophisticate called to report in every time he threw up. It lined up in some kind of mysterious celestial rhythm with the contractions I was having. Every time they called, BigD just told them we were "doing Christmas stuff...and if you don't stop calling, we'll never get finished." That would have been fine with them, because Danette was totally cool with the TV, and I would have had them doing chores or an act of good will for poor children or something equally indicative of my super-mothering.

Our Young Son was born in four hours. I just missed lunch by an hour. I spent a good bit of time sitting on the side of the bed while various people tried to get an epidural in. BigD came pretty close to passing out during that 7 "you'll feel a BIG stick" process, a solid 45 minutes to get the ineffective epidural in. Our FOURTH time in the room to have a baby - and he gets light-headed.

That 45 minutes was precisely long enough. I told them Baby Son was coming, and they told me he was NOT coming, it was too quick, and then he was born, while the doctor was trying to describe his recent ski trip. I rather aggressively told the doctor to deliver the baby and THEN chat, since the delivery would take about two minutes. It did.

The next morning, Christmas Eve, they bundled Baby Son into a little Christmas stocking type bunting (yes, there should be a picture, somewhere) and we were home before the others finished breakfast. The Sophisticate asked if they could have a babysitter that day too, because they wanted to watch TV all day, but I said no, we'll make do with the new baby. That entertained them for about 15 minutes. And we went on about our merry Christmas - Eve way, minus television.Three children, four children, five children. Keep moving. Clearly PPP had the Christmas-wear concept under control. Way back there in the corner, it's possible to see a little baby-head. That's him, at 2 days old. As we always do, we had baked apples and cheese grits for breakfast on Christmas morning, (well, the baby had his own serving of mama-nectar, but it was all yummy) and life went on. In retrospect, I'm not sure how it went so smoothly, but it did.

This year he had a surprise party with friends, courtesy of La Petite Jockette, the second separate and distinct birthday party he has ever had. We often eat birthday cake as on Christmas Day. In contrast to my early days of being overly in-control, I am now overly blase and unconcerned. This year, I have spent a good bit of time looking for the pictures of the baby and his little bunting-stocking. I can't find any. Fourth child+Christmas=no pictures. So, I've spent roughly WAY TOO MUCH TIME trying to make this birthday/Christmas post PERFECT. Some rigidity remains.

This week, I was called a "Christmas tree Nazi" by BigB, because I have strictly enforced an "angels only ornament" policy, to insure holiness. Feeling pretty bad about the potential damage done by my early-years control freak nature, I did have a redeeming moment when the children self enforced the Angel-ornaments-only policy themselves this year. They also took WAY more delight in what they GAVE than in what they GOT. That's been a long time coming, but it made me feel hopeful about the damage done by my crazed need to create "a PERFECT Christmas" to my specifications. Amazingly enough, they continue to find joy in places I didn't plan for. Blase is beating rigid these days.

One would think that the Christmas we added 'giving birth' to the to-do list would have been the most hectic ever - but my memories are of a calm and peaceful holiday. We all were delighted with our Christmas baby and everything was done ahead of time. So, as far as good times to have a baby - I heartily recommend Christmas. As far as good times to have huge birthday celebrations for the rest of your life - I recommend NOT Christmas. As far as easy-going, cooperative, helpful children, who roll with whatever comes along - our Young Son rocks. It might be our best Christmas ever. That one. No maybe this one. Both. All. Let it be.

The thing about the Christmas Outfit

2008-12-15T12:18:00.006-06:00

The many precious babes dressed in shepherd garb or snowflake costumes almost make me wish for the good old days of Christmas with small children. I loved those days. I planned the cute little outfits, and matching Christmas socks, and the hairbows with jingle bells and the sweatshirts with blinking lights for a reindeer nose. Yes. I did all that, with my mother, who was my partner in preciousness. And it was glorious. Except when it wasn't.

As the parents of a stellar first child in his first Christmas performance we felt like . . .

A. everyone was looking at our child, because he was/is the most adorable and

B. our child is/was the most adorable, thus everyone was looking only at him.

BigB, back in the LittleKidB days, took steps to insure that everyone DID keep their eyes on him in his first appearance on the main altar at BIG CHURCH. Big SOLEMN holy church. There cute children.... were just cute for about 2 minutes, and then gone again to their hiding place.

It was a Cherub Choir performance, in Big Church. One song. I don't remember the song, but it had to do with Mary and a baby and that whole line of thinking. It took longer to get the cherubs all robed up, (baby blue robes with white collars), and lined up on the altar, than it did to sing the song.

Because he was on the young side, and because of his need to interact with the choir director intensely, LittleKidB was on the front row, in the center. As they came in and walked up onto the altar, my first thought was -"Wait a minute, no one can see the cute little Christmas handmade outfit that he is wearing underneath that blue robe." Silly mommy! Christmas is not about french handsewing, but about all this other religious stuff.

Like the white shoes that I was polishing at 11:30 the night before, or perhaps the brand new white knee socks he was wearing with his short pants. That stuff increased the adorableness and holiness of Christmas. Not just the outfit. It's about giving and loving and about the spirit. And ALL about the children. Only a little bit about the outfit.

BigD and I were not sitting, because we didn't (and still don't) go to 11 am BIG CHURCH, we are a little less structured (holy) than that. So, we were standing in the side aisle, about 3 rows back, along with a few several many more parents and their video cameras. Video cameras were really bulky and it was a bit scandalous that we even had it visible in Big Church. The side benefit was that everyone got to see our new video camera that the Grands in New Jersey had sent so they could also get a glimpse of said Christmas performance.

So....we were standing as the Cherubs were walking in. BigD had the video camera on his shoulder (I told you - bulky!) and I had Baby Sophisticate on my hip. We were ready and glowing with pride at Mr. Adorable, who was perfectly dressed, perfectly rehearsed and perfectly shod.

Also, great vantage point for all interested parties to see that Baby Sophisticate was appropriately garbed in cute hand-sewn Christmas wear, right down to the little Christmas panties over her diaper. Because no little girl of mine would be seen with her bare diaper showing. Also, the polished shoes. There were people keeping score on the baby style points. I promise.

Then I noticed the microphones. LittleKidB noticed them at the exact same moment. In that single moment of time, I could see the future. LittleKidB could see the future. The future involved the microphones, and we both knew it.

The Sophisticate began to shriek when she realized it was her brother up there. So, LittleKidB, being the charmer that he is, kept cutting his eyes between the microphones lined up in front of the cherub choir and the sister who was screaming her single word - his name - at him from a few rows back. I have to believe that she somehow encouraged him. They worked like that, even then.

As the Cherubs settled, a hush came over the congregation, better to hear those little angelic voices. Baby Sophisticate kicked her chatter up a notch, so I slipped outside into the hall, so as not to disturb the holiness of anyone with my misbehaving child. I could peek through the window and see just fine. That move to the hall - that was pretty much my best decision of my day, because no one in the congregation of several hundred adults in the austere yet holy worship setting got to see my face.

The song began. Little sweet voices sang some unintelligible and semi-tuneless carol. Lots of restrained cooing amongst the congregation. Through the cross-shaped window in the door, I had my eyes on LittleKidB, and I was sure that the entire church did as well. Since he was the most adorable, and wearing the most adorable outfit, even though it was covered up.

LittleKidB was not convinced that they were being heard, nor was he convinced that he was the star in every congregant's eye. So he simply leaned forward, across the cherub beside him, until his mouth was about half an inch from the microphone, reached up to steady it with his hand, and simply sang the line. Loud. Right into the microphone. With soul.

"Maaaa-ehhhh- ehhhhh- reeeee had a bay-ay-ay-ay-bee."

The church sound system was working perfectly that day, and I heard that line with crystalline clarity as I stood in the hall. I eased away from the door. There was a muttering among the hall dwellers - the kind of muttering that says "Whose kid is that?" I leaned and touched my forehead to the wall. Baby Sophisticate saw no need for that kind of humble prayerful attitude, and kicked the wall and me with those hard yet polished shoes. Add percussion to the whole performance.

Since Little Cherub Boy sang directly into the microphone, it was amplified into all the nooks and crannies of the church. The ladies still working on lipstick repair between Sunday School coffee and church heard it too, clearly, in the Ladies' Room. As did the people waiting in the Narthex to be seated. As did anyone who was hoping to hear her own little cherub, whose voice was blending into a baby-angelic non-song.

A big laugh swept the congregation. There was absolutely nothing we could do. The choir mothers were moving in unison to get the microphone out of his reach. But he heard himself sing, and he heard everyone laugh. What's a self-respecting 3 years and 4 month old to do? He sang it again, only this time holding the microphone. Like he had the solo.

The choir mothers mobilized, and things settled back to order pretty quickly. I peeled myself off the wall, passed off Baby Sophisticate to BigD, and met our boy downstairs to get him out of the robes and to the proper location - which for us was the car headed home. I did no bodily harm in transit.

The other mothers I met in the hall all looked at me with eyes that were half apologetic and half "So glad it was yours and not mine."

We got all bundled up in nothing - because it was 60 degrees, and we didn't need anything but a little cotton outfit and some knee socks - and headed to the car. Once everyone was settled into carseats, and I was ready to not yell at him for embarrassing me in front of our WHOLE CHURCH, I ventured into the land of "what a pretty song, do you want to sing it for us now?....blah, blah, blah ...good parent chat." I asked about the microphone. "Were you surprised to hear yourself so loud?" Diplomatic if I must say so myself.

"We're little, and we don't sing so loud. I want Jesus to hear us. Do you think he did?"

Thanks, sweet boy,for untangling me from all the hand made outfits and polished shoes, the jingle bell bows and the Christmas panties. Thanks BigB for taking me out of my self-imposed precious-prison,and delivering me to the manger.

Yes, I think Jesus heard you. I only hope I heard you too.

Testosterone Chaser

2008-12-02T14:49:00.000-06:00

We are the champions. We are the champions of the world. That would be the UNDEFEATED SEASON champions of the world At least that's what it felt like. Actually, that's what it feels like still a little bit. Champions of our little corner of the world anyway.

It seems like we started this a long time ago. That's because we DID start a long time ago. We started in the summer. It was all so much warmer.And relaxed. We sort of lounged around in those warm days of late summer, talking and laughing, watching our boys play in the grass.Oops, mostly the turf, and also our girls, but whatever. We've watched them in red
In white
in blue.From the raising of the helmets to the line-up-and-shake-hands thing they do.
We took their pictures, straight on through. LOTS of pictures.
But this adrenaline-fueled night, championship night was different. There was plenty of tension on the sidelines. PLENTY of adrenaline, plenty of testosterone, all its power waiting to be unleashed.

Let's remember, our Young Son, along with many of his team mates, has done his part of the work. The sidelines guys and the on-field guys are part of one team, one massive bunch of excited and amped up young men.
I think maybe our Young Son was relieved not to see himself on the Jumbo-Tron. Maybe he'll grow into that. They've been practicing forever. FOREVER. In practice, our boy pretended like he was one of the bad guys all week, that's called 'scout team.' or "pretend like you're the other team and get hit over and over again by the starters." Our opponents aren't BAD guys, they are probably guys just like our guys. Only we are so much more awesome. WAY more awesome. Just ask us.We were pretty excited too. PPP's drinking straight adrenaline. It sure wasn't hot chocolate, for $3/cup.We came all intense and excited. We were ready for some nail biting, last-minute pull-it-out win. The kind that leaves a sore throat. We were ready for angst.
By half-time, with a 21 point lead, we were murmuring among ourselves "Is it really going to be this easy? CAN it be this easy? Did I actually waste all this adrenaline?" Murmuring, I say. We hesitated to say it out loud. Half-time was smile time. Smile, and laugh time. Talk about what's for Thanksgiving dinner time.

Relaxing, actually, only cold not warm.There was a little bit of a scare at the beginning of the first half. They scored. That was a change. We stopped that pretty quick.
Soon, we were back to watching the boys play their game. Also watching the clock. It was getting colder and colder...and colder.

Though not as cold as lacrosse, which is fast upon us, as my lax friends reminded me. There is no cold like early season lax cold.
I was a reluctant to buy the bumper sticker before the game was actually over, but I did. I haven't found it since we got home, but I did buy it...and before the game was over.
Our students were vocal, waving their keys and singing a heartfelt good-bye to our opponent. I won't imbed that song in your head, by starting with "Nah, nah, nah..."Alumni, with their own state championship glitz, made an appearance.Impressive. Ya think they're still wearing those jackets at Vandy?But with the win, at last the win, came the full force of the building testosterone storm.They had a bunch of security guards on hand, from the beginning....
. . .to the end. I'm not sure what they thought we were going to do. They clearly hadn't seen us before, an orderly crowd, well mannered and chatty. The announcer kept warning us not to go onto the field, to stay in the stands. They didn't know what we know. Our boys, after they have won the game, raised their hands and their helmets . . .. . . rushed the field and danced their dance (I believe it was the Electric Slide, coach led.)

Our boys always come back to us, their adrenaline-filled admirers. If it was a teen romance, the football hero would rush over and finally kiss the girl in the stands. Mostly, these guys just yell to their school friends and their parents. Also girls. no kissing.

Our boys bring us our testosterone chaser right to the edge of the stands. Every time. No security guards needed.

We waited again, on the other side of the locker room. They came forth, championship hats, and pure delight.
This faux-fierceness. Whatever that's about. Faux-fierce boys who couldn't keep the smiles hidden, even for the camera.

Adrenaline cocktail, testosterone chaser.
We know what it looks like when our team wins. It's glorious. But when the joy is on your son's face? That's a whole 'nother dimension.

Adrenaline Cocktail

2008-11-29T00:03:00.001-06:00

Yes, indeed, over the river and through the woods to the state championship football game, for an adrenaline cocktail, with a testosterone chaser.People from our school kept passing me on the highway. That did not help my anxiety level.

The steady texting of game related adrenaline boosters while driving jacked up my anxiety level at a pretty steady rate. Don't text and drive at the same time, they say it's really dangerous. I wouldn't know. I was talking on the phone, not even considering a text message or even 35 text messages. Plus, I had to stay in my lane, and keep my Diet Coke from sloshing all over me. Uptick on the anxietyI was stuck in traffic and I didn't want to miss . .

. . . this bunch of totally blown-away-with-excitement parents, lining up in the stadium to watch our boys walk in one more time. For the parents of seniors, that would be one LAST time. I thnk I get to feel this nervous a few zillion more times.

No shortage of adrenaline in the stands either.

But the boys? What about the team? They're down there somewhere.Some moms are pretty excited.
La Petite Jockette made the trip, for the thrill of it.

All week, Coach Bobby was sending us emails telling us about how to keep the boys on task, to make wise choices, to represent the school well, to keep things in perspective, to play with integrity.

From Coach Bobby, they were playing "just one more game..." very low on the excite-o-meter. Coach Bobby told us that no matter what the score, these guys were already champions. We already know that, but I feel certain the guys didn't share that sentiment at this particular moment. They wanted to PROVE IT, by total domination.

I heard them rumbling before I saw them, in the visitor's locker room, waiting for the moment to prove they are the best. These young men were a seething mass of testosterone and pure joy. Joy at being here. Joy at what they planned to do. Joy at how awesome they are. They know it deeply, they are totally convinced of it.
We, the parents, were adrenaline-fueled nervous energy, confidence, hope and the dread that we could actually lose. Maybe. Lose. This. Game. Could I frame a loss so that he learns from it, gains maturity and perspective? Could we help them understand that they are already champions? Would they ever understand that one game does not define a season? Would they believe that simply winning this game could not make them Masters of the Universe for life? OK..."What if we lose? How long is THAT ride home going to be?" The rumbling, jittery mass became a moving line of beastly young men, cleats on concrete, clapping, and more rumbling.
They received the blessings of their parents one more time.
And they began as they always do. Helmets off, they started with the prayer. Just one more game.

Bread and Water Thanksgiving

2008-11-24T20:15:00.001-06:00

BigD was born and raised in New Jersey. I was not. I was/am/will be forevermore a daughter of the South. Amen. New Jersey and me? Not so much.

Pre-marriage, I had spent one single Thanksgiving in New Jersey and sampled their version of Thanksgiving dinner. I say sampled, because there was never enough food, ever. It was kind of like a tasting menu. It only remotely resembled our version of Thanksgiving dinner, in that it was called Thanksgiving dinner and served on Thanksgiving Day. BigD's mother Vera had a unique talent of underestimating the amount of food she might need to feed her guests. There was never enough food for her sons, their girlfriends, friends, children, and the many old Italian men who were realated to BigD's father Emil. We all tried to save food for Uncle Johnny, especially, because he showed up with $100 bills in his pocket.

So...Vera's holiday meal consisted of a day-long cocktail hour, a HUGE 'fresh-kilt" turkey, stuffing, a turnip affair - enough for about 6 people, yam (yes, she referred to it in the singular, and dumped them straight out of the can) and LIMAs - a 10oz package of frozen baby lima's. Also applesauce. And a single frozen cream pie of some sort. To feed about 20 people. It was not pretty, ever.

Our first married Thanksgiving, I was getting a sense that Newlywed-D was feeling a little homesick. He worked in a hotel, so he had to work on Thanksgiving. He had not encountered cornbread dressing yet and he was worried. Also, my mother was not going to cook turnip or yam. So, in my newly-wedded compassion and idiocy, I decided to make "New Jersey Stuffing" for my newly wedded man, in case he didn't like what we were going to fix.

How I worried about this is now beyond me, because our Thanksgiving dinner is like WAY better than theirs, but still, I guess if you are used to frozen Lima Beans, canned YAM, turnips and running out of food, it is those elements that make Thanksgiving complete. I was going to be a 'good wife'. I was going to bridge the gap between New Jersey and our house.

I was going to make the 'bread dressing.' My own mother, Mimi, would have no part of it, though she told me that bread dressing was soggy and cooking it inside the turkey was 'dangerous.' I also decided to surprise BigD with said bread dressing. I called his mother, Vera - and that was the first and only time in her lifetime that I called her - and she "gave me the recipe."

Hah! neophyte that I was in the ways of Vera. She would be so pleased that I am cropped out of this picture. Not really. OK, really.

ME: Hi, (small talk, small talk, small talk) Can you give me the recipe for your bread dressing?

Vera: Who is this?

ME: It's ME. I am married to your son. Remember the big woo-hah we had down here in June? The church? The champagne? The non-stop parties for you and your friends for a week? That white lace shawl thing you wore? All that? That's me.

Vera: Why don't you just come home for Thanksgiving?
Me: Well, it's tomorrow. And, we are home, thanks.
Vera: How long will it take you to drive here, 6 hours? 8 hours? Do you have paved roads down there?
Me: It's a 24 hour drive. We can't come. But I want to surprise my newly wedded husband with a taste of home. How do you make it?

Vera: What time are you leaving to come here? We'll wait to eat.
Me: We aren't coming, we have to work. I just want the recipe

VERA: Get a big loaf of whitebread. Put it in a strainer and run tap water over it until it is soaked. Use your hands to squeeze out the water. Put in a sliced onion (do not dice). Add some thyme and rosemary. Stuff it in the turkey and cook. Make sure you use a fresh-kilt turkey.

I have now been cooking long enough to see the problems here, just so you know. "Bread and water" is not a recipe.

End of recipe. I could hear her smoking as we talked. I didn't care that she smoked, because there is a very slight possiblity that I might have once every now in then indulged myself in that same guilty pleasure. Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. The smoking reminded me that she smoked while she cooked, and that ALWAYS bothered me...pause to consider it... and the instructions included putting her hands onto a wet loaf of bread. Cringe. Stop thinking about that.

Me: Anything else? Just bread and onions and water?
Vera: Use a fresh kilt turkey, that's the kind I use.

Me: Are you sure? No eggs, no broth, nothing?
Vera: Use a fresh kilt turkey, they inject poison into the other ones.
Me: How much is 'some' thyme and rosemary?

Vera: Shake it all over the bread when it's wet and when you squeeze the water out, it will get into the stuffing. Be sure to use a fresh-kilt turkey. I heard that they put chemicals into the other ones.

Me: Bye. Happy Thanksgiving.

Vera: Use a fresh-kilt turkey, the other ones are dyed yellow. You can put some butter in it.

OK - so, I followed the recipe to the letter. From the start I knew that something was not right, and made that remark several times to my mother, who was silent. I mean the whole "loaf of bread soaked with tap water" wasn't working out for me. I squeezed and squeezed and it just got . . unimaginable. My total handprint in wet whitebread. A ball of wet whitebread, with my handprints in it. Like some kind of kindergarten project, only to be eaten. . . possibly.

Mimi was drinking wine and silently making cornbread dressing. My mother did NOT want me to stuff the dressing into her turkey. I think she took pity on me, because she eventually let me stick some way back in there, but not much.

And I was trying to get it all done without Newlywed-D knowing about it. That too, continues to baffle me.

My mother still made me fix the sweet potatoes, and cook a pie, so she was anxious to get the bread dressing thing over with.

Thanksgiving Day dawned - delightfully warm, rather than cold. Newlywed-D's second big shock, after the warm weather, was that we ate at night, and did not schedule around a football game. I fished the cooked bread-stuffing out of the turkey, and it was just a glob, very grey, very solid, very nasty looking. So I put some butter it in. Just following directions.

We had a lovely SOUTHERN Thanksgiving. It was a glorious spread of 100% homemade goodies, as Mimi and I , at that point, were ashamed to serve anything store-bought for such a momentous occasion as THANKSGIVING. (We have recovered from that home-made compulsion, sort of.) There was a little pause when Newlywed-D asked why the "dog meat" of the turkey was on the table. The "dog meat" was apparently what they called the dark meat. It was there because that is the only part of a turkey I eat. Moving on.

Amidst all the other lovely foodstuffs there was a bowl of grayish clay like stuff, with an onion sticking out of it. Nobody said anything about it. Also no one took any, and that would include Newlywed-D. I think Mimi may have put a spoonful on her plate, because she is exceedingly gracious. So, after everyone sat, plates loaded, I picked up the bowl of New Jersey bread stuffing and set it right in front of my new husband.

Me: Look, I made this stuffing, like your mother's. Beaming and blushing like the bride I was.

BigD: That doesn't look like my mother's stuffing.
Me: So, taste it.

BigD: How do you know how to make it.

Me: I called her and asked her.

BigD: YOU called my mother? Did she talk to you? Because this doesn't look like the stuffing she makes. Did she know who you were?

Me: Well, you know, soak the loaf of bread in tap water and then squeeze...

BigD: Yeah, that's how she makes it, but this doesn't look like it.

Me: Just taste it. bursting with new-bride pride in my accomplishement for my husband.

BigD: You taste it first.

Me: I have already tasted it. And then I added butter. It looks worse than it tastes. I mean, I think it tastes right, I only ate it once at your house, and all I got was one spoonful.

BigD tasted it. BigD laughed. BigD did not taste it again.

Nobody else at the table touched it. My siblings are not very loyal.

BigD: Vera didn't give you the recipe. She just made a bunch of stuff up. She does that all the time. Did she tell you about the 'fresh-kilt turkey'? Did she tell you they'd wait to eat dinner if we drove up there? Because she wouldn't do that either.

I never made bread dressing again. Once I tried the "Pepperidge Farm Herb-Seasoned Bread Dressing" package of crumbs. In fact I think I bought some this week at Wal-Mart, for old time's sake. I did not buy a loaf of whitebread, because on Thanksgiving Day each one of my minions will help clean-up (because we do that) and they will each make a dish for the table. And we will eat together whatever we have all made. PPP will bake some delicious dessert which will be nibbled on through out the day and into the night.We will talk about the exciting end of the football season, which is happening on Tuesday evening, 200 miles away. And we will not have YAM or turnip either. Also, no one is coming with $100 bills in his pocket. I do miss that part.

The Baker Speaks

2008-11-22T11:31:00.000-06:00

So.....after all the angst of coming up with the speech . . .. . .the 'lightbulb moments' . . . there was then the anxiety of ***gasp*** giving the speech. The single question that arose most often was "What am I going to wear?" Not "Who's going to leave school to come hear me talk?" Not even, "Is anyone telling the anonymous Mr. Baker-Recipient what this speech is about?" Nope, "What am I going to wear?" So, thinking ahead....way ahead.... on the day before PPP entered intense conversations with the Sophisticate who is our style MAVEN (look that one up, minions), who decreed that PPP has nothing in her closet worth wearing. PPP leans toward jeans, tees, and sweatshirts, and variations thereof. Roughly 12 hours pre-speech, she made a trip to raid the Sophisticate's closet, and came back satisfactorily wardrobed, then did another few hundred hours of homework, then fell asleep.

NO evidence of morning nerves...from her. I had an unsettling night of weird dreams, and night sweats. Also, I chewed off all my carefully applied lipstick before we got there. Oh, yeah, this is about her, not me. Sorry.Our Young Son and I arrived early and I had the day's first "OH NO!" moment. (OK, it wasn't really "Oh NO!" It was "Oh $#*!) "Oh, NO! I forgot flowers. PPP is speaking from the pulpit of this church, and I forgot flowers. Wonder if I can get some here in roughly 10 minutes. What was I thinking? Do I know a florist who will do that for me, like NOW? My mother will kill me, we should have done flowers..." eventually I started babbling that refrain..."We should have....my mother will kill..." Our Young Son doesn't get mired down in nonsense like flowers, so he opened the door and shoved me in, holding my Diet Coke while I dug around in the depths of my bag for some more lipstick.The church was empty. I had to breathe deeply there - overwhelmed by the thought of her standing at the end of this aisle and walking to graduate in a mere 6 months. (What's she going to wear THAT day? Very big question.) There are many, many moments in this church for PPP this year. And yet, she sits in that very space every day, listening to her peers, her teachers, guest speakers. Laughing, giggling, talking, bored or intrigued. Daily. There is something that seems very right about that. This morning, it just seemed grand and empty. And it smelled like lilies.

There were lilies on the altar already. If I had remembered flowers for PPP's senior speech, they would have been lilies. What flower fairy put them there? The FUNERAL flower fairy. Ooops. Seriously? I'm not even going down the path of "How lucky am I that the flowers were there because of a funeral later that day" because that would assume that I was basing my good fortune on another's grief. But still. You have to admit, I was pretty lucky.

Her friends gathered. Neighbor Bob joined us, as did KP - both from other schools. Bob's Mom made an unexpected appearance, thank you.

A great reason to miss a morning of school. Just ask our Young Son. PPP and her friend Stargazer practiced walking around in their heels on the altar of the empty church, as the church filled with young women. I didn't see many others wearing a dress and heels, though I did see a whole bunch in sweatshirts, so I guess PPP's style is appropriate to her world.

Then, it was chapel. The first hymn. I see the little hint of nerves in the white knuckles. Also the fact that I couldn't focus the camera.Suddenly, Stargazer was introducing with a witty story about freshman year, and then...

. . . we were full-on into the stories about PPP's baking disasters and the many life lessons she has learned:

"I LOVE to bake. So much, in fact, that I have websites called “smitten kitchen” and “bakerella” on my favorites. I have had some magnificent products, some good products, some bad products, and well, quite frankly, some real disasters.

One of these not so successful attempts was when I was making a friend an apple pie. Now, I had never made apple pie before, and I was determined to make it all from scratch. It was all going well until I got to the lattice --- that little crisscross stuff that lies on top of an apple pie and makes it look like it came straight from the farmhouse kitchen. It is a lot harder than it looks to weave dough together and make it look pretty. Also, it was around Easter so I decided that I wanted to get fancy and make a little bit of Easter egg detail to go in the center. Since the dough all browned nicely, the eggs ended up looking like random brown globs of crust hanging in the center of my lovely pie. Let’s just say it was not my most beautiful creation. Despite its unattractive appearance, I still hear about how delicious it was, and that was six months ago.

Don’t even get me started on burning things, there have been plenty of those, let me tell you. Despite the things in life that have turned out badly, if you think about it, there are so many good things in life that are sometimes looked over. Even though things may not turn out the way we want them to, and even though they may not turn out looking very pretty, you can always figure out a way to work things out.

One of the most important things I have learned in life is to not be afraid to ask for help. We can’t do everything on our own, and life is a lot easier if you let people help you when you need it. Another catastrophe I have had in the kitchen was my attempt at making a cake for a friend. Against my better judgment, I used a box mix. When I took the cake out of the pan to cool, to my utter astonishment and dismay, it fell apart in my hands. We are not talking breaking in half here, we are talking about six or seven different pieces. My friend was on his way over to my house to pick up his cake that I had promised him and I was panicking. I rushed to my mother after I had gotten all of the pieces safely on a cookie sheet, and explained what had happened. She, being the genius that she is, came to my rescue she showed me how to glue my cake back together with icing. That would be another example of one of my not so beautiful creations. I still hear about that one, too, with the ever so sweet comment “hey Princess, when are you going to make me a dessert that actually looks good?” And that was three years ago.

Another thing I have learned is that you have to stick up for what is yours. When I bake things for my friends, I have to guard the goodies fiercely from my family, or else every crumb will be gone the moment I turn my back. Just so you know, I wouldn’t recommend putting a post-it note that says “FOR the Princess, DON’T EAT” on the top. That usually makes them want to eat whatever it is just to spite you.

However, don’t keep everything all to yourself. If you have something great, share it with people, let them enjoy it too. Who cares if the gooey pecan pie you made for Thanksgiving dinner is eaten before the turkey even comes out of the oven? Share your talents with others. If you’re good at baking, make some one brownies when they are having a hard time. People really do appreciate small things like homemade cookies. Even if you can’t make homemade baked goods, you have to make do with what you have. You can achieve a lot more than you make think you can. Do your best, and even if it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to, the effort and the thought go a long way. Something good comes out of everything, sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper than you want to to find it." Then it was over. The rest of chapel was a little bit lighter for PPP, whose regret was that she started talking too fast.

She was quite relieved and delighted, because it was done, and done well. She was a ROCK STAR all day. And I was quite relieved and delighted that she was comfortable with herself and what she had to say. Glad that her friends came to hear it. Glad that the Flower Fairy visited with PPP's faves.

We didn't have to dig very deep or look very hard for the good things on Senior Speech Day. All of her stories were real, all of her lessons are ones she has indeed learned right in our kitchen, many the hard way. She told us exactly who she is and how she manages her world with clarity and grace, and the delight she has when she shares her passion. And the flowers? "Something good comes out of everything."

LetterMen

2008-11-17T00:01:00.008-06:00

On Friday night...THE Friday night, the one to decide whether or not our team goes to the state championship game...that Friday night, the weather was SO not good. I think perhaps we haven't seen rain all season. We saw it.

Actually I saw a bunch of umbrellas on arrival. The other guys had their umbrellas up for the warm-up.

Our parents huddled under our cozy sheltered brick and concrete stands and did NOT have our umbrellas up. We were trying to bundle a little bit though, against the rain and the impending cold, as the temperature dropped about 120 degrees during the game. We don't do cold so well.We did eventually get our umbrellas up.

I saw a LOT of this umbrella. Though not so much football. Also, felt the rain drip off this umbrella into my lap, when the child who was holding it used it as a sort of cheering shaker.

So, I moved to a place where the people didn't use an umbrella, rather wore hats and/or hood. They also cue me when good stuff happens. I depend on my friends.

We did not however wear a garbage bag or hunting clothes. At least I didn't. Some people did. Just saying.This guy looks worried all the time, win or lose. His older son was on a state championship team. This time, it's his number 2 son. It sometimes worries me when he's worried. Mr. T. looks somber, ALWAYS! He's the spotter, who tells me when our Young Son is in.

Just checking. They're there. They've been there, pretty much together, all season. Both of them, the roaming ones, Big Russ and our Young Son. I could prove it with pictures, but the pictures all look exactly alike. Our Young Son hasn't "been in" for while, this is the serious championship stuff. Not the scrawny sophomore stuff.

These boys always start the same way. First the prayer, then the very inspirational chant with the helmet raising. I used to think they said cool and inspirational stuff. Now I know they say stuff about blood and end with KILL! KILL! KILL!
And they DID! They KILLED! KILLED! KILLED! They're all over it. But the U still stands for undefeated.

Baker's secret

2008-11-13T09:08:00.001-06:00

Before graduation, at PPP's all girls' school, every senior must address the student body (middle and upper school students) in chapel. Chapel is a daily occurrence- outside speakers, the chaplain, teachers, alumnae - chapel speaker is a recognized role. It happens every year, every senior - so this is one of the things we began talking about this summer -

along with the block on the wall,Derby Day (mud-day) . . .
senior pictures and....

the senior speech. PPP wanted to get hers DONE, so early November was her chosen time. We have talked about ideas ever since she picked the date, which was roughly the first minute of school. She settled on her idea less than a week before the actual day. Toss out the 756 ideas we generated and stories to go along with them. It had reached the point that when something even REMOTELY interesting happened, we examined it as a possible senior speech topic.

PPP: The other day the Sophisticate tried to steal my pillowcase. You know the one with the green dots.
Me: Can we make this into a senior speech?

PPP: She picked up my pillowcase and put it up to her cheek and felt it. And THEN, she tried to take it, because it's so soft.

Me: So, this is a story we can use in the senior speech?

PPP: I said "You can't take that! That's MY pillowcase." The Sophisticate said, "Well, it's soft, and I need another pillowcase." And I said, "Whoa-girl! You don't get everything good. That's my pillowcase."

Me: So, you can talk about how you have to stand up for yourself and...

PPP: Mom, my senior speech cannot be about pillowcases.

Me: Oh, yeah. So, what are you going to talk about? Just asking.

PPP: Not pillowcases.

OK, then. Here were some possibilities:

Grey'sAnatomy "Seriously, Mom? Seriously?"
The storm that killed our house
Sex and the City and the time we watched all 6 seasons in 10 days "I don't think I can say the word 'sex' in chapel.
The storm that destroyed our house
The question "where are you going to college" -You KNOW I don't want to talk about college. I don't want to think about college.
The storm that devastated our house - I'm NOT talking about the storm. No. Don't say it again.

So, I eventually gave up, and decided that she would be inspired or she would be embarrassed. A week out, though? No topic? Seriously? "Grey's Anatomy" was looking promising. Perhaps the "Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team" a weekend obsession of ours. So imagine my surprise - and relief, but don't tell her - when on Halloween eve she appeared at the foot of my bed (where I lure children to talk with abandon) with her eureka moment.
PPP: "I'll talk about baking!" Duh. Baking is your other life.

ME: OK, great idea. IF it holds.PPP: I'm going to talk about baking! What else would I talk about? I'm going to talk about baking.
ME: OK, got any other.... She was gone, back to baking BigB's Halloween brownies to take to work.

Moments later, before my mind had much of a chance to run through a few hundred ideas related to baking. . .

PPP (back at the foot of the bed): "I'll talk about all my disasters. All those disasters, that brown globby looking apple pie that Little Bear always makes fun of! Why didn't I think of this? I'm a BAKER. I'm SO going to talk about baking.

Gone again. . . . . . . . . .Back again.PPP: And that cake, the first one, the one I made with the box mix? The one that fell apart and we had to stick back together with the icing, and it was still ugly? That I STILL hear about? Yeah.
Gone....back again.PPP: It's like coming, all the ideas, suddenly, idea after idea, all my disasters and all the ways I had to make the best of them. Sort of like everything else. You just make the best of what you have and keep going. Yes! (Demi-fist pump, holding the wooden spoon that splattered Halloween brownie batter all over the place.)

And so it was. She talked about something that was near and dear to her heart, and a part of her very make-up. That night she approached her tried and true "Death to the Diet" brownies to find that she didn't quite have enough of a few things, and had to make some substitutions. For a girl who likes even measurements, exact times, and very explicit instructions, substitutions are not easy. But, she has come to terms with it, and is now able to substitute (sometimes) rather than make yet another trip to the store. I happen to be a baker who thrives on substitutions and times things by the smell. She is developing her smell-ability. I have faith.

Not everything has been a disaster. Just saying.

Be there

2008-11-09T18:28:00.001-06:00

I forgot about swim meets. That's a convenient skill - forgetting about something that registers on the miserable-o-meter. Swim meets (those without Michael Phelps and his mother and their story) score mid-range on the miserable-o-meter because one invests 3 hours yet the action for any one participant is less than 3 minutes. 3 hours sitting around for 3 minutes of splashing. However, it's important to watch what's happening and who is with whom.I can rarely find my swimmer and it's disconcerting to watch teenagers walking around nearly naked in such close quarters. It's insanely loud too. But if I didn't go, I wouldn't really know what questions to ask. Watching and knowing what questions to ask are key.

We have had "swim meet" on our social schedule for a really long time, more than 15 years. We had reasonably fun Summer Club swim meets for a long time then high school swimming. PPP is swim CAPTAIN at her school this year, after four years of varsity swim. That looks lovely on college applications. We hope. CAPTAIN has such a ring of leadership doesn't it? So far, it means that she buys candy with which to reward those who come to swim practice and makes little swimmer name signs for the lockers on swim-meet day. She is also required to be overly cheerful and peppy. OVERLY. Also, she doesn't get home from practice until about 9 p.m., and she has more than 9 p.m.'s worth of homework. Way more.

Unlike the "short" and loud high school meets, a Country Club summer meet is like a gigantic progressive cocktail party, in which parents and their swimmer-children either visit or host another club each week. The children eat club-grill food and Slush Puppies and play cards and write "eat my bubbles" all over themselves all the hazy warm summer night. PPP always yearned for the PINK ribbon, 6th place out of 6.

The minions always loved night time swimming and writing on themselves with Sharpie. Not so much Sharpie in high school, though evidently not everyone got that text message. LOL.

Our Young Son also COULD be a swimmer at his boys' school, but it just doesn't squeeze in between football (June until it's over) and Lacrosse (when football is over until June).

Neighbor Bob and other friends swim though, so he makes use of swim meet time by socializing. He will tell me later who's who and what happened at the meet. Because I will ask. Our Young Son is not good at sitting in the stands. He lasts about 15 minutes, then just gets up and roams around. I can find him because he has clothes on.
We have High School meets in a 'bubble' many evenings, which is not an actual building. Is it natural to be swimming in the winter in a huge tent? It's warm and damp inside the bubble. When it's cold outside, it'll be cool and damp inside the bubble. It will also rain in here, because of some simple scientific principle involving water, temperature and condensation - water will fall from the bubble ceiling all winter long, while I grade papers.
The way I can usually find PPP is that she chews the goggle strap non-stop. The rest of the time she is basically just moving around in a Speedo with a bunch of friends in Speedos.
Boys' schools, girls' schools, coed schools all in the bubble together. Teenagers barely dressed mingling. Swim for a minute, socialize for a long time. While wet and wearing a Speedo. What's not to like about that?

Cross-over time is especially taxing on the parent-fan. Barnabas' mom conveniently wears that pink so I can find her. She's a talker, Dad is a fierce watcher. The play-off games are a little more ....exciting, I guess is a word that applies here. I mean the whole season has been thrilling, every last second of it. But this is ...more thrilling! Also more cold. We are still in football, yet basketball and wrestling are in the works; we need to be in indoor lax and swim meets have started. That's a lot of sitting on aluminum benches, indoors or out. That's lots of watching. The first post-season game has been played. Our team was less relaxed than last week. They looked fierce and jumpy from across the field. Our Young Son certainly enjoys a ring-side seat, and doesn't seem to mind that he would not play. He makes good use of his time socializing. I never have to ask whom he was talking with, I do nosily ask what they were talking about. The answer is always "Nothing."

Until the answer is not "nothing" but is all about the plays called, and who was actually injured, and what the Coach said and what's happening after the game. I'm always glad to know what to ask. Great excitement at the end.

That U - indeed, still stands for undefeated. Seriously, is there any of that I want to miss? Is there any part that we don't want to know about? We want to be there too when the first play-off game is won - not just hear it boiled down into a three sentence summary. I don't want the conversation to start with "I wish you'd seen...." but "Man, could you believe it when..." If we aren't there, we can't adequately commiserate over the fumbles and the missed tackles, or rejoice over the awesome play that saved the world - or the game, whatever. It's all about the talking afterward. The right questions are the ones that start the conversations about winning and losing, playing or not playing, being part of a team. I like to start with "What was up with..." and I can't do that if I'm not there. On the cold and hard aluminum bench. Many nights a week. Because we want to be.

More Pumpkin Goo or Why I Miss My Sister

2008-11-04T19:33:00.000-06:00

Somebody had the brilliant idea to raise funds for the football cheerleaders. The final game of the regular season, Senior Night, was on Halloween night. Each Mom was asked to pay for the privilege of gutting a pumpkin and carving her darling son's number into it. The pumpkins would be on display, bordering the field on game night, as we brought our season to its undefeated end. And the cheerleaders would use the funds...for whatever they needed all that money for. OUR Young Son's response to the whole thing was "Are you KIDDING me?" Silly boy! I didn't do it for HIM. I did it for ME. Because seriously, could I actually be that mom whose son's number was NOT represented in the impressive line of jack-o-lanterns, field-side? Are YOU kidding? Talk about peer pressure. Mom pressure is fierce. My friends (all 2 of them) were texting me and emailing me to make sure I showed up. It was a pretty orderly process. We grabbed a pumpkin, paid the money (approximately 4 times the cost of a pumpkin). . .. . . gutted it (yeah, I brought a helper),. . .used a stencil they provided to carve the number into the side of the pumpkin. Me...not so much with the stencil. I free-handed mine. It was quicker. Also, un-evener. There was a lot of helping.
A lot of advice.Much encouragement and admiration.Some intense consultation and meticulous planning. OK, actually, some of us had to use a lot of toothpicks to make the number look right. I found the toothpicks at the snack table.There was lots of talking.
Lots of talking about football and sons and colleges and Senior Night. I guess.
Just lots of talking and laughing. Actually talking and laughing while participating in the ingenious pumpkin event. Heroic Dads. Lots of sisters. But not my sister.
My friends. My daughter. But NOT my sister. And suddenly, I got really lonely for my sister. I've been reading way too much of CJane. My sister hasn't lived in my big-small town for more than 20 years. But we have been on the sidelines of this football field for many, many occasions. Like I did, she started watching football here (read that to mean, visiting with friends while football occurred) when she was a child. She trudged through the mud on this field as a member of the homecoming court when she was in high school. We have done our time here.
And here I found myself carving pumpkins with her friends.
I mean, they're my friends too, my friends now, but they started out as her friends. I was the weird big sister. She was cool. I was not.Now, Bootza is in another state, doing other Halloweeny stuff.
On this lovely warm October afternoon, we were up to our elbows in pumpkin goo; she was doing cool other stuff. I'm sure.We were fighting with the perfect October afternoon sun. Hi Bootza! Miss you! The boys here are the same.
Big Russ and Barnabas wandered over after practice. They totally didn't get it. At all. Not one bit.

But when the BIG NIGHT arrived, WE got it. Us with the pumpkin goo under our fingernails.The sisters got it.

Football number jack-0-lanterns lining the field on Halloween/Senior Night. What's so confusing about that?Some of the moms on Halloween/Senior Night dressed up as ...Senior Moms. They got to wear the letter jackets for which they paid dearly, in time and money and mom-level angst. Those letter jackets account for a lot of time sitting on hard bleachers, in blazing heat and freezing cold (OK, it's not actually freezing yet, but whatever). Lots of time watching our sons win , watching them excel and watching them try hard to NOT screw up. We have also watched them lose.Not this year, not this night. Not so far. U stands for UNDEFEATED in the regular season. Also, a lot of time hoping one's son gets to actually play and does not make a monumental error in front of the hundreds of assembled fans. It's pretty compelling to hear anyone's Young Son's name on the public address system, booming out into the darkness. We all cheer for our young heroes, whether the world sees them that way or not. Because they're ours.

Halloween Grinch

2008-11-01T20:00:00.004-05:00

When the minions were young, in my naivete I made a lot of "I will NEVER..." statements. High on the list was "I will NEVER be a Halloween grinch." I made a pledge to always make elaborate non-scary decorations and have the best (chocolate and/or caramel) candy, and oooh-ahhh over all the costumes. This year....FAILURE. No cute decorations. No homemade costumes. I think the jack-o-lantern arrived about 9 pm. The ghost of Halloween-past brought me pictures to prove that we DID have precious little costumes, very creative non-scary decorations and fun little parties - long ago.BigB (in the BabyB days) did me proud by wearing his precious handmade-by-mom clown costume for several years running. The Sophisticate wore one of many versions of princess/fairy. The skeleton costume (non-scary name "X-ray costume") that I made from black sweats with iron-on interfacing? He wore that whole X-ray outfit DAILY through the winter until we peeled the iron-on bones right off. PPP and our Young Son have nobly made-do with hand-me-down made-by-mom costumes without complaint. Not that we have photographs to prove it, but still.

While nobody wore precious handmade-by-me costumes this year, a sports theme emerged. Yeah, I planned that. For my young adult children. A sports themed Halloween.

At school, PPP paired the Yankees cap with BigB's Robinson Cano T-shirt, though she is clueless as to who Mr. Cano is, or what he does, other than wear a jersey.
On Halloween itself, she inexplicably wore the cap with her "Risky Business" costume. Research proves there is actually no need for a ball cap with the "Risky Business" white shirt. Research also shows PPP's limited knowledge of "Risky Business." When our Young Son coached her on the need for the sunglasses, it should have been a red flag.I took her outside on the porch to 'take the picture' and asked her to 'do Risky Business.' She had no notion what I was talking about. She has never seen "Risky Business" ( what kind of a mother AM I?). SO...we watched the scene on YouTube. Twice.
THEN, she went outside with a silver bud vase and performed like a champion. PPP has promised, before the weekend ends, to actually watch "Risky Business" to assure that she is not Shakespeare-literate but Pop Culturally-ignorant.
The Sophisticate, who is an elite-level costume wearer, texted when it began to get dark.

Sophisticate: Did you sell my school skirts?

Me: NO (but I would if I could.)

Sophisticate: Cool. I'm going to be a Catholic school girl.

Me: You ARE a Catholic school girl. You GRADUATED from a Catholic girls' school.

Sophisticate: Yah. It'll work.

Me: I have no idea where they are.

She rummaged briefly in the disaster that is the attic, then rummaged through the 'heirloom clothes and costumes' closet....resulting in nothing, other than a trip down memory lane. "Oh, look! Here's BigB's pirate costume!" and further discussion of all the precious handmade-by-mom costumes. PRECIOUS they were, I tell you, PRECIOUS.Eventually, with the clock ticking she was muttering, "I don't care what it is, I just have to dress as SOMEthing. ANYthing." Seized by inspiration, she began rummaging in our Young Son's closet.

She got dressed as a precious football player, in an heirloom jersey. Had some gossip with BigB, who HATES to make an appearance on this blog. He "did Halloween" for work, which totally goes against his nature to dress for success. He wore....ballplayer gear. I feel sure he was some NY Yankee hero. The Young Son himself, well...he was actually a football player. At the football game. That we went to. So we had two baseball players and two football players. Nobody at our house answered the door for trick or treaters. We have all the candy, and it's a damn good thing, because NOBODY brought any home. No candy trading on the floor of our den. No snatching by me of all the caramels.

Over at the game, it was senior night. It was a huge rout by our team, and so.....numbingly boring. Is that a term a mother should use about her son's football game? We entertained ourselves by eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate.

PPP was "Being Risky Business" with her BFFs. We watched PPP and wondered who she was talking to.I spent some time in my obligatory musings about the different parents, and what they were wearing, and why. I don't think this guy was wearing a Halloween costume, I think those are his real cool-weather-football-clothes.

The regular season of football is officially over. But there is more football for this team. We started when it was hot, but now we're all pulling out our blankets and our jackets. See that U in the middle of the field? Tonight, it stands for UNDEFEATED. And I would NEVER say that until it actually happened. A good Halloween, (ask the Halloween Grinch) for my precious athletic-costumed children.

The baby sleeps.

2008-10-21T10:52:00.000-05:00

MOTHER is what I have always wanted to be. Good mother at the minimum, and BEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD, if possible. I read a bunch of books and studied up on it. I was so damn earnest, it's kind of disgusting in retrospect.

Despite my research, I find myself to be a 'by the gut" mother. I learned it the hard way, when they were babes. Now that they are becoming adults, I have to re-learn it every day. I do the best I can.

One night, book mothering and gut-mothering had a head on collision. It was not pretty. I shudder to remember it. (Yes, shudder is correct, shutter is on a camera or a window). Baby-Sophisticate had never slept all night, closing in on her first birthday.

I'm not actually sure she sleeps through the night now, and she's about to graduate from college.

I was feeling the pressure of bad-motherhood. Baby-Sophisticate had already had 11 ear infection incidents and 14 rounds of antibiotics and I did not make those numbers up, they are burned in my brain. (14 rounds of antibiotics puts me in the bad mother category, because of the whole overuse thing, sorry.)
I was also a bad mother because - the book said - I was allowing her to "run our household." Typically, after an evening catnap (long enough for me to possibly load the dishwasher) she woke up screaming. Every night. Every. Single. Night.

I picked her up, we rocked, we strolled, we sang Amazing Grace (I am the 'wretch') , and she slept. I also slept. We slept together, in the recliner. Every night. Win-Win. Right?

NOT right. My husband did NOT consider me sleeping with the Sophisticate in the recliner "Win - Win - WIN."

On the advice of Dr. Wise-Guy's Guide to Baby-sleeping, I was converted to believe that she was a controlling baby, and it was my fault, and therefore I was a bad mother.I set out to rectify my bad-mother status, and un-spoil the Sophisticate, in one night. She would just have to cry it out! I was assured by the book that the seige wouldn't last more than 3o minutes, though children often cried for hours just to be obstinate. Duly noted, the obstinate thing. I was listening to the book.

On the target night of rectification, I checked on her when she started wailing, closed the door and left it closed. My stomach hurt. After 45 minutes, BigB, who was then LittleB, came in and begged me to "pick her up, Mama, she hurts." I had the book open on my lap, assuring me that she did NOT hurt, but was simply testing us, as we headed into the second hour of misery. We watched a video - our first born son, BigD and I, all snuggled in our cozy bed, while baby-Sophisticate screamed for all she was worth, alone in a dark room with the door closed. "Pick her up, I can't hear the movie." was BigB's advice. When I listen to our children, they tell me exactly what they need. I think I learned the listening lesson later, because I didn't pick her up. Still listening to the book.

The video was over, the screaming was not, and I was not feeling like a "good mother." After 2 hours and 7 minutes, the screaming had to end, spoiled or not spoiled. I would have to fix baby-Sophisticate another night. To hell with 'good mother.'

I hope that I never forget the look on her face when I opened the door. Standing, clinging to the crib rails, her swollen red face was a picture of total betrayal and absolute relief. She hiccupped and sobbed and buried her head, wiping her gooey nose on my shoulder. I hiccupped and sobbed and put my head down on her sweaty, wet, wispy hair. We sat in the recliner, I offered her some healing mamma-nectar, and we both feel asleep. We slept all night like that, with her semi-upright, nursing at will. At that point, the only thing that mattered was no crying.

When morning came, I took her to the Pediatrician, Dr. No-Tubes. She was hoarse and her face was swollen from the two hour scream-fest the night before. I was in similar condition. I whimpered, "Tell me she's fine and I'll let her cry it out."

His opening remark was "Well, she's hoarse!" Seriously? Wonder why? She also had two bulging, red hot eardrums. Antibiotic and tylenol, but no tubes recommended. Tylenol? Did I hear TYLENOL? Plain and unadulterated? Do you know the word codeine? Because I do.

I went straight to the ENT, she had codeine in 30 minutes and tubes in 3 days. And she slept- most nights. We spent a lot more nights in the recliner, even with tubes.

When her ears hurt, she told us - by screaming - and we slept reclining, so as to relieve pressure and facilitate nursing all night long. Sleep optional.

When the Sophisticate walked in one afternoon last week, fresh from student teaching in a trying urban setting, I recognized her look. Tears had been shed. She's frustrated, not because her students can't learn, but because they are relentlessly mean to each other. She's been cursed and threatened, by 11 year olds.

And she keeps going back, because there is at least one 5th grader who will learn to read by Christmas, no matter what it takes.

Today, no rocking, no singing, no strolling through the house will soothe the Sophisticate. The best I can do for her is listening. Sometimes we text too.

I showed her a teacher website with videos , so she could have a 15 minute break from talking to kids with profane and smart mouths. I hope my best was enough today.

I learned a lot about being a "good mother" - whatever that means - the night of by-the-book crying. I learned to trust myself more and the books less. Also, nursing can be awesome. I wasn't a bad mother for letting her scream. I was doing my best for her that night, and we both survived.

That's all I can do, really, is my best. And be willing to change course, when things aren't working. On occasion I do consult books, but first I hope I remember to listen to our children, because no matter how old they are, they tell us - either with words or actions - exactly what they need.

But...I forget it all the time, and then I have to learn it again. I do my best.

The minute the Sophisticate saw this photo she said "Oh, look, I'm at a birthday party and I don't feel good!" Ya THINK?

Girl seeking college

2008-10-12T10:45:00.002-05:00

PPP and I made a short road trip, a "college visit," since she IS a senior already. There were a few other things to be done in NashVegas, so it wasn't ALL about the college, but mostly. We thought.

First, be assured that for a teacher, being gone from school is not as simple as making sure an adult is in the room with the hooligans to prevent bodily harm during the assigned hour. I have a formula that tells me that for each and every hour I am NOT at school, I spend 4.613 hours preparing to be gone, and another 3.728 hours when I get back, figuring out what happened when I was gone. Because I do more this year than teach - as in 'school events' -multiply times 21. So, it took me all week to get to the point of leaving. But we did. PPP was in a hurry to get out of town too. She was concerned that I might change my mind. Valid point.

My BFF the Photographer, has a spare apartment in NashVegas; her son, my Bonus Boy was 'free' so to speak, the plan was that we would all meet up when we arrived at 7:45 p.m., as determined by a series of text messages:

ME: we're leaving now, we'll be there about 7:45

Bonus: OK

ME: So, plan to get there about then.

Bonus: OK

ME (to the Photog): What's your plan?

Photog: Working, then headed your way.

ME: Do you have a time frame?

Photog: We'll see, it's busy. I'll get there eventually.

Note that I am the only person who seems to have a notion of time here. Promptly at 5:32, which is when I usually walk in the door at home, I got starving, and sleepy. Too bad I was driving the car. It's a good thing PPP can drive, because she does not take a nap at 5:32 every afternoon and she drives way faster than her mother.

Eventually, we got close, so I texted Bonus Boy to confirm that he was where I wanted him to be - at the apartment at 7:45. TIME was becoming important to me, because I was hungry and exhausted. Also, I had an appointment at 8:00 a.m. the next day.

Me: We'll be there in about 20 minutes

Bonus: OK, I guess I'll head that way.

Me: Where are you?

Bonus: At home (45 minutes away)

And, to the Photographer:

Me: What's your plan?

Photog: I'm going to leave work in a few minutes and go home to get some things then I'll be there.

Me: Any time frame?

Photog: When I get there, I guess.

So...that went on for a while, while we drove up and down the street looking for Chick-Fil-A and a bathroom clean enough for a Princess. We didn't find Chick-Fil-A, though "clean enough for a Princess" is directly proportional to how long one looks for said facilities. . . we eventually found one.

We eventually found Bonus Boy, and were so glad to see him, and his mother's very clean apartment, with its beds. We wandered the downtown streets, eventually finding dinner. PPP and Bonus Boy quickly developed a plan in which they would enroll in college somewhere nearby and live in said apartment, for the sheer joy of it. The Photographer, when she eventually arrived at some point in the middle of the night, said "No." And we all went to bed.I got up early, had some early a.m chatty time with my BFF, took care of the business part of the trip, and returned to find PPP immersed in her waking up routine.Her waking-up routine centers around coffee and wrapping herself in a blanket. "You can never get bored at the Photographer's place, because she has so many catalogs." Duly noted, PPP. Also, stuff like this. I always keep my telescope ready to look out my window, don't you?OK, seriously, we spent the night in a Neiman-Marcus catalog, or something. The crooked pillows are proof that I was there, not a photo stylist. Bonus Boy's waking up routine involves looking out the windows. Looking for landmarks. "Everything you could ever need is just around the corner from here." Bonus remarked. "Except a college." I said. "Oh, yeah." Bonus and PPP in unison. Deflated.Anyone feeling any sense of urgency to go look at this college, and finish our business, and head home? Anybody?Eventually, they had to get hungry ...that would be breakfast at 11 a.m. PPP and Bonus Boy seemed to have dropped into an eventual time warp, because nobody was in a hurry. I was mentally checking off in my head all the things that I was not doing, while I watched them mosey through the morning, looking out the window and flipping through catalogs.
When we got down the street to our college destination, we found this. A fence, fencing in another fence.
That banner behind the fence tells us that the next Presidential debate would be held there. We had made an appointment, but we couldn't get past the guards, at every single entry point of the campus. They sent the students HOME for the debate to make sure it would be all authentic town-hallish.

Rented fences with gates and guards around the perimeter of this urban campus. Tents and tents on the tennis courts. It was very clean and elaborately landscaped. No students, no tours, no college life.

So... It didn't matter that we looked at catalogs and searched for landmarks from 29 stories above the sidewalk, or that we ordered breakfast at 11:00 a.m.

Because the only unfenced part of this school we saw was the picturesque and photographable granite sign.

When we got home, PPP said that she doesn't think she likes this college. "I didn't see anyone walking around who looks like me." That is correct, you saw a rented fence around the entire perimeter of the campus. Also, driveway guards.

So, while she took the SAT or ACT or some multi-letter standarized test that claims to determine her future, I developed an elaborate document called: PPP's college grid which contains all the info that she considers key to her decision, and no extra information that she deems superfluous.

PPP's grid doesn't look just like this elaborate and intriguing thing, but sort of. Because while they were gazing out the windows, I was entertaining myself with the Photographer's always interesting knick-knacks. Like I always do.

Lost my voice

2008-10-05T20:32:00.009-05:00

I have nothing to say. These minions of mine are plowing ahead with school and work and sports and student teaching and college choices ...and I have lost my voice. For a couple of weeks. Or a couple of months. It feels like a couple of years.

So what is up with that? I am nothing if not verbose.I have said more about high school football than needs to be said. I spend more time cutting words out here in this quiet little corner of the world. Editing is my hobby.

I do find time for blog reading. OK, actually, I am obsessively caught up in the baby-drama that is all over the place.

Perhaps I enmeshed in a sort of voyeuristic nether-world. Maybe it's a God-thing. Or I'm lazy, one of those, perhaps.

I am also intrigued with gossip about my BFF Pam, and her Jim. That would be my fictional BFF Pam from The Office. Whatever....WAY too busy to write anything. Or delusional.

Shonda Rhimes, that goddess of television drama, blogs about the current installment of Grey's, and that's a good read. Man, that girl can write. I could possibly write, if I did in fact do it. Ever.I'm so easily distracted. Wait, what's Kikibibi up to? Seriously. I think about writing, but I haven't visited Mabel's House and I haven't checked on Migraine Mom. I haven't clicked "Next Blog" 3246 times lately. A lot I do that clicking thing.

So, what is up? I'll tell you what is up. I am intimidated.

My father used to intimidate me, though my students rarely intimidate me. Intimidated or not, I usually just plow ahead. With words anyway .

Amidst the wealth of eloquence and photography, of pithiness and wordiness, of grief and joy and pure unadulterated awesome writing, I'm less sure of what I have to say.

I just have some lame little thoughts about growing into the mother of adult children, keeping our home their home, without losing my mind or their hearts. No recipes included.But they - the ones who already love me, the ones who are growing into young adults with grace and determination- like to read it. OK, BigB doesn't like to read it, but ... some day. So, maybe I should just forge ahead. Plow on through the words.I will never write like NieNie and her sister CJane. I hope my children grow up to be sisters and brothers with as much love and loyalty and compassion as they have. And that I can find my voice to write about it.

NY Yankees and our Sunday of love

2008-09-22T00:15:00.005-05:00

Yankee Stadium has had its celebratory final game. ESPN interviewed a bunch of current and former players and had some sort of attempt at a "red carpet" to catch all the celebs.

Why, pray tell (I'm using 'prithee' later) do we care? We care because we live and breathe for the Yankees. BigD grew up in those parts. His grandparents raised their large Italian family in the Bronx. All of those brothers, their sons and grandsons and on down the line are Yankee fans. That is not an option. Yankees. Forever.

Our sons have followed the tradition. Our Young Son was a Yankee for at least 5 Halloweens. Paul O'Neill to be exact. As he is our fourth child, we have no pictures of it, but he remembers it vividly. He would still have the tee-shirt (child's size M) but The Sophisticate lost it.

BigD has lots of stories about going to Yankee stadium. He never tells us those stories, but they exist. Now his travel schedule lands him in NYC and in Yankee stadium, randomly, several times a season. RANDOMLY this past week, during the LAST WEEK of games at old Yankee Stadium. Completely accidental and random.

During all the pregame and postgame hoopla about Yankee Stadium, they showed some black and white clips from the '50s and '60s, and I had a weird sensation of being thrown back in time. I was a Yankee fan before BigD came along. I learned it from my Granny.

Granny was reared in a little town in the south. She went away to college in Virginia, married a glamorous pilot after the war (World War I), and they lived in New York for much of her married life. She was widowed in her mid-forties, so she moved home to her little town in the south. She also started smoking. Actually, I think she was ALREADY smoking, but just started smoking in public when she returned from New York emboldened. And, even without a husband or sons living with her, she was a Yank-eh fan. A college educated, widowed, smoking fan of the NY Yanks. She came a long way, baby, before the rest of us did. She drank Tab during the daytime, sherry with her friends in the afternoon, and a Tom Collins when my father was pouring.

Granny loved her 'Yank-ehs' In those days, we saw baseball once a week on Saturday afternoon, assuming that the Yank-ehs were playing. Granny left the lights off in her living room all day long, because it was hot. She also had a very luxurious couch with down cushions. And a candy dish full of bridge mix. SO... I laid on the down couch, ate bridge mix and read books which we had brought home from the library. She watched the Yank-ehs. It was cool, and dark and quiet. Also, smoky, but I was used to it.

I spent many summer Saturdays in the shady living room, lying on the down couch reading and eating chocolate covered raisins which I had picked out of the bridge mix. Granny, Eve cigarette in hand, sat in her magenta chair, silvery blond hair wreathed in smoke, watching the Yankees on the black and white TV. She called her boys by name - I just remember Mickey and Whitey. She would bring home as many books and as much candy as it took to keep me quiet since she would be watching the ball game. As a mother, I appreciate how much she respected my elementary aged self by not expecting me to be entertained by baseball on television.

BigD and our sons are more assertive about Yankee fandom. We have the cable-tv add-on that lets us see 947,342 baseball games a season. We either watch the Yankees, or watch some other team to see how it relates to the Yankees. We also hate Boston, so we watch them a lot, hoping to see them lose.

BigD sits at our Young Son's football games with his Blackberry in hand following the Yankees. Our sons get text message updates on the Yankees. This summer, while the Yankees were making my guys miserable, I read the whole Twilight saga. They come and get me when Andy Pettitte pitches. "Mom, come watch your boy."
How, prithee (told you) did Andy Pettitte get to be "my boy"? Seriously? Look at him! OK, back to the real story...in the early years, BigD and I took our babes (there were only 2) and made an annual pilgrimage to New Jersey to visit the fam. We always went to the city (but never to Yankee Stadium). Amazingly, there were on street corners, big buses emblazoned, " Blessed Heart of Jesus Holy Baptist Church" or "Big Sandy Methodist Church - Jesus' heart is as big as Texas" or something equally un-New Yorky. Near the buses were earnest southern teenagers, in tee-shirts, passing out fliers that said things like "Jesus will Save the Heathens of New York." or "Let Jesus In to Heal New York -the New Sodom and Gomorrah." Or something equally subtle.

Problem #1, is that no one in NYC can understand you if you have even a moderate southern accent. Trust me, it was there that BigD first stepped up to make some necessary purchases...because no one in the bodega could understand me. Perhaps Farsi, but not Southern. Problem #2, everyone in NYC wears black, so the neon tee-shirts with the blood-dripping thorn of crowns on the back...not so effective.

Anyway, there is no city in the world that couldn't stand a dose of God. NYC seems particularly secular and evil-ish to those of us from the Bible belt. But I could not comprehend how a bunch of teenagers in neon yellow tees and jean shorts were making a dent with the crazed people who wash windshields and then bang on the window until you pay. Or any other New York people. I mean, it's just not like it is here - there is not a fish decal on every car, no "God is my co-pilot" license plates, no billboards with scripture and an invitation to dinner at Wednesday night church followed by a passion play. So, what was God going to do about New York?

One thing he did was send Andy Pettitte. I mean, seriously? Look at him! A fine specimen of a Christian, in my opinion.

My second personal most memorable Yankee moment was some really important game - certainly a play-off game, and maybe a World Series game. If I would go and wake up our sons, they would tell me exactly which game, the score, the stats - all of it. Pettitte pitched well, they were leading, and the relief pitcher was in. Things were tense, and they kept showing Pettitte in the dugout, with a towel over his head, which was bowed. The announcers were all crowing about how nervous he was, and how he couldn't bear to watch. They said that he was hiding under the towel.

I knew EXACTLY what he was doing, he was praying. And I said that to our boys, who were watching. And they said "No, you crazy woman, he's sweating." So, game over, Yankees win. Hooray for all.

Postgame interview is Andy Pettitte himself.

TV guy: "So, Andy, was it just too nerve-wracking to watch? Were you afraid he was going to lose it for you there at the end?"

Andy Pettitte, southern accent and all, stood up tall and laughed out loud, towel in hand. "Oh, no. I wasn't nervous. I was just praying. A bunch of us get together and read the Bible and pray together. I was just..."

TV guy interrupts, "But Andy, you were bound to be fearing the worst. You didn't even take the towel off your head until after the game. Possibly losing this big game after your great pitching! What did that feel like?"

Pettitte: "Aw, naw, I was just praying for him. I wanted him to know how much confidence we had in him. I was praying for him."

So, God sent missionaries to New York City indeed. They wear pinstripes, not neon tees. Who better to speak to New Yorkers than Yankees? Also, who better to speak to my sons? Win - Win - Win!

And - after all the day-long woo-hah, my guys informed me that IF...somebody loses this many games, and somebody else beats Boston, and the Yankees win this many more games....IF all that happens, we did NOT just see the last game in old Yankee Stadium.

Let the praying begin. eta: Let the praying begin for NEXT season ....in the NEW Yankee Stadium.

Think first...talk later.

2008-09-21T23:30:00.002-05:00

" You aren't still going to the laundromat, are you?" It's raining. What else might I be doing on Friday afternoon, between the end of the school day and the football game. . . .here at the laundromat?

What can I say that will redeem your thoughtlessness?

Now, that we have gotten THAT out of the way....

Among the many things I do, I teach. A really important lesson is "THINK before you speak." (...or you may sound very stupid, or hurt someone's feelings.) We tell them the "think before..." part, and hope they figure out that they will sound stupid or hurt someone. Being a successful adult requires this basic skill, or you could get fired or sued or something harshly grown-up. I spend a good bit of each day grappling with the idiotic and thoughtless words of the adolescent crowd. Also, of some adults.

"Gosh, I hope my kid doesn't major in education. What a dead end job. He'll never make any money and there's no future."
Thanks, I'll remember that when I'm grading your child's paper.

A few more phrases need to be stricken from the vernacular of grown ups. We just don't need to be saying these things. Ever.

"I'm saving this seat."
6th and 7th graders are particularly concerned about who sits with whom (Yes, thank you for asking, I did pause to consider who or whom). So, they want to 'save seats'. We do not let them save seats, because

it's rude
it leaves people out
it's quite rude
it causes a lot of wandering and spilling of trays
it's so rude
it makes 6th graders cry . . . especially the boys
it's really very rude

Imagine my surprise when I was told ...by grown women...that they were 'saving this seat' - and not for their elderly mother who is coming to see this one single football game or a small child. No, seats were being saved for other regular parents, who just hadn't made it yet. On one single evening, I was told twice that I couldn't sit down IN THE FOOTBALL STANDS because the "seat was saved." Seriously? Ladies, look around, there are plenty of seats. I moved - though I was directed to a seat a row down, with the assurance that they would "still talk to me." Seriously. What are you going to say? Are you going to tell me who is rumored to be going steady? Perhaps we will pass notes? Maybe we could make a little club, and decide who we are NOT going to ask to join. I did not cry, because I am not in 6th grade.

And then, imagine my suprise again, at CHURCH no less, when I was asked to move so that another woman and her friend could sit together. These are two grown women. Seriously grown - over 40 - WAY over 40. It happened twice. The second time by a grown woman who arrived 20 minutes late, with 6 adults and wanted me to move so all 7 could sit together. In a church with no fewer than 150 empty seats. Seriously? Are you for real? I moved. I left, laughing. Sort of.

So you are bound to be wondering if I smell or have a horrible communicable disease. I am wondering the same thing.

"Let's all get on the same page.

If you must, just go ahead and say, "We're doing this my way." It means "Don't mess with me, I want total domination." When your boss wants 'everyone is on the same page' it actually means "Which one of you cowboys is not doing what I said?" When you are in a conference, hypothetically a parent teacher conference, and the 'same page' phrase is uttered, trouble is brewing. Trust me, I sit on both sides of the table in parent teacher conferences. Nothing good is coming when you are "getting on the same page."

The whole "same page" image is so lame, anyway. We were saying "same page" with great wit when we had big hair and big shoulder pads. Get creative. If you want to sound all fundamental old-time religion, say "Singing from the same hymnbook." If you want to pretend like you are still in college, try "drinking from the same keg". If you are musical, or want people to think you are, try "playing from the same score." Sporty? How about "using the same playbook"? Cultish? "Drink the same kool-aid" Native American imagery? "Smoking the same peace pipe." Uber-christian? "Kneeling at the feet..." (oops, no farther, I don't do the lingo.) Cars? "hitting on all cylinders" Oh, you want to sound threatening? Then use "on the same page."

Do you think it would be OK if I wear my new expensive brand jeans to ____ (insert event)? Or will I look stupid? It doesn't matter how you LOOK, it sounds ridiculous coming from a woman with children in college. It's all about you and your jeans, or your purse, or your shoes. I actually think that you have no sense, if you cannot figure out what to wear to any given occasion. Grown-ups get to decide what to wear and when to wear it. Usually without a lot of input from other grown-ups. Also, I shop, so I don't need to you tell me how much you spend on clothes.

The single important exclusion is some particular dads who need desperately to ask what to wear every single time they leave the house, unless they are wearing a suit. With the tie picked out by someone else."Is that your Young Son sitting on the bench?" No, actually it's not. It's a couple of big, beastly kids who are tired from playing the whole game. The live tackling-dummies stand up the whole game, helmets in hand. But perhaps thinking before speaking might apply here. Nothing good ends with "sitting on the bench."

"Did you change your hair? It looks so cute! You look 10 years younger!" 10 years younger than what? The unspoken is "because your hair has been looking gray and frizzy and you've been looking pretty old and un-cute." Where are we going here? Grown-ups are supposed to be thinking before speaking.
Have you lost weight...or something? There is just no happy ending for this conversation. Am I fat? Was I fat? How about, "I KNOW I'm fat."

How many calories do you think are in that corn dog? Especially don't say this when I am eating a corn dog.

The Rules of Eating

2008-09-17T19:43:00.001-05:00

I don't actually cook every day, so I cook on the weekend. That way we have yummy, economical, home-cooked meals fresh and ready when dinner time comes. Except, when we don't have them. Maybe on the weekend I am, hypothetically speaking, looking at a potential college for PPP. Hypothetically. Not cooking. Also not grocery shopping.

Tonight I am serving rotisserie chicken fresh from a huge chain grocery store and Stauffer's Macaroni and Cheese. If you cook it just a minute longer it makes this cheesy brownish crust in the corner. That's the only part I like.

On to the rules - # 1 - hungry means fast. Restated - "give me sugar, and I want it now." Today, after my particularly wild morning that started in the dark headed to the airport followed by a traffic jam that made me LATE to school, I was feeling the hungry -means-fast feeling. And, within the friendly halls of my school I rounded up these choices:Two beautiful pears.

Brown-sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts with the University of Florida Gator logo somehow reproduced on the icing. (Yes, that is Vergil's Aeneid, in Latin). They look alarmingly like temporary tattoos people put on their faces at football games and swim meets. If I had gone through the whole football themed box of Pop-tarts, theoretically I would have also seen Ohio State or Boston College. Question. Why are we putting tattoos on Pop-Tarts? To make them even more disturbing? Is the tattoo infused with vitamins? Does it make them even more nutritious than a brown sugar Pop Tart is already? Who would CHOOSE a Pop Tart over any other food because of the college logo? "Sorry Mom, I only eat UT Vols Pop Tarts!" It's the sugar!
Which did I choose? Seriously?

Two beautiful pears or two Pop-Tarts with a tattoo? Remember, HUNGRY means FAST.

Surprise - the Pop-Tarts. I ignored the logos. I also ignored the jarring juxtaposition of Pop Tarts and the Aeneid. I ate them because they were easier and ...easier...and more disgustingly junk-foodish. But so gooey and hot.

Under what circumstances would I have chosen the pears?

The circumstances of the pears being the only food available.
EVER.

Why? Hungry means sugar. I always choose Pop Tarts over Pears. But I choose Toaster Strudel over Pop-Tarts, and there is some faux fruit-ish substance within the Toaster Strudel, which is actually like a Pop Tart on steroids.

So.. the rules. I use another little-known rule to make sure that my growing adolescents eat nutritious and well balanced meals. One is taking advantage of the rule of home means hungry. Both PPP and our Young Son walk in the door starving. Same with The Sophisticate and BigB. It makes no difference if they walk in at 3:30 or at 5:30 or at 3:17 a.m. Home means hungry. Let there be food, because the fastest, easiest thing is what's going to get eaten.

SO, back to the rules again - the plan is to put out the food that the minions are LEAST LIKELY TO EAT first, when they are starving, and they will eat it. Put out a bowl of freshly washed grapes. Our Young Son chooses this begrudgingly, unless he is starving, when he will eat 4.7 pounds of grapes in roughly 12 minutes, then ask "Are there any more grapes?" It also works with brussell sprouts, the fresh kind. I discovered this when I steamed some up and they were ready before the rest of the meal - and they became finger food for the minions, who tossed them back like bon-bons or truffles or some exotic mushroom and gourmet cheese combo, that I only hear about while planning people's wedding menus.

Here are a few things my unsuspecting offspring have eaten, when I apply the 'starving to death, here's your only choice' rule:OK, that's not fair. That's Mimi's salad, and it has a lot of bacon on it. Even I will eat that salad. So will our Young Son...in fact he'd eat all of them.

Back to the rules - here are some things they have eaten after arriving home STARVING.

Salad, of any kind . . . often without bacon
2 whole pineapples
3 quarts of strawberries
avocado
smoked oysters
asparagus
spinach
a whole rotisserie chicken
almonds with no salt

If I DO NOT supply a "healthy alternative," they will eat bowls and bowls of cereal or a whole stack of Club Crackers until I provide an alternative. Then, they will say "I'm not hungry, I just ate a bowl of cereal." Never mind your actual food.

Back to the rules. The "don't count calories" are a mystery. When one eats more calories than one expends, one gains weight. Unless they are 'don't count' calories, like the ones in the 'Hundred Calorie Packs." Or the ones that you lick from a bowl, or eat directly from a knife. Those no-count calories. Pop Tart calories count. Trust me. I have tested the theory. Often. They count. Every single one of them. But they shouldn't. SO...back to the rules. No count calories apparently actually don't count for some people. Our Young Son is - how to put this delicately and not offend his sensibilities since he is one of my three loyal readers? Our Young Son is LEAN. Very, very, very lean. It starts with an 'S' and it rhymes with BRAWNY. He thinks he eats a whole lot. I think so too. But, since he is not moving from the S word to Brawny, I have decided to count his calories. If Michael Phelps needs 10,000 calories a day ( or some obscene number ) then our Young Son, by a complex algorithmic calculation needs about 6OOO calories. Or I made it up. (Actually, I did Google up a website, and he needs more than 4000 to maintain, so there.)He thinks he's eating that much, but since he's not gaining - from the S word to the B word - then we are going to COUNT CALORIES. For Weight GAIN. I have counted a lot of calories. But not for weight gain. EVER.

A food diary. For weight GAIN. That is a concept I cannot grasp.

I'll report back.