Moondance

The Sky Above and a Book to Love

2010-09-26T14:05:00.002-04:00

Today, reading my Google feed reader, I actually confused two of the blogs I was reading. Two of my friends who blog are doing book give-aways. It should be no surprise to me that two of my friends love reading enough to post about it.

I wish I had the dedication to blog with reasonable frequency and consistency. Seems like I pref spending my time watch the Daily Show online.

Marie reviewed The Warmth of Other Suns on The Shore Bookworm.

NOLA wrote about I’d Know You Anywhere at NOLA Notes.

Eraser

2010-01-13T21:55:00.004-05:00

According to my notebook, this is from February 13, 2009.

A woman being interviewed on the radio said she hopes this stimulus package works because as a black woman, she knows that when you are black, it is harder for you to succeed, and you don't get a second chance. My son was in the car wth me, so I couldn't let it slide without discussion. (teaching opportunity)

I asked Owl what he thought of that. He told me "No, that's not true -- it doesn't matter what color you are. Everybody gets a second chance." I explain that some people believed that the world is unfair and harder on them because they were but are black or women or have a disability.

He said, "It's like they never heard of a pencil with an eraser!" I asked him what he meant, he said "You always get another chance. Just because you didn't do it the first time doesn't mean you can't do it."

We talked about how you can change. He said "Your brain controls your mind. If you are bad, you can just set your brain to be good. You are not always bad. You can choose. Like if you did something bad -- that's in the past. It doesn't mean you will always be bad."

We talked about crime and how we shouldn't think because someone does one bad thing they should be considered that the rest of their lives. I told him how drugs played into it: Since they make you feel good the first time, people find it very hard to stop doing the bad thing and it can ruin your life. I told him I was glad I never did it because it is much easier to resist doing it the first time than to try to quit. He told me that's how he is going to handle it -- never try drugs. He's not even seven yet. I hope he sticks to this plan.

Owl told me: "It's like if scientists who create monsters are real. If that was real, the things the drugs do - it's like the scientists' monster is in the drug and it goes inside your body and detroys you from the inside. It tears up your life into pieces."

How eloquent. How did he know?

From the Archives

2010-01-13T21:43:00.002-05:00

I found an old notebook, where I had been writing my thoughts to turn into blog posts. This one is from 2008.

The sun was low in the sky as we stepped down onto the beach. It threw our shadows long in front of us as we should road through the sand to the water's edge. I watched you scamper down until your toes found the cold water, and you squealed. Whether with pain or delight, I do not know.

Your father said we could stay on the blanket, and let you stray up the beach aways. I could not let you. I hovered near you; moving when you moved, my shadow intermingling with yours. Just there. Not to keep you from having fun. Just to be close.

As I watched you play, I felt each triumph as you faced off against each wave and remained standing. Occasionally, you would turn back to me: "Mommy, did you see? Did you see what I did?"

Standing here with you, dancing at the water's edge, I remember another time I watched you play in the surf. It was a few summers ago - you were probably three. Oblivious to me, you were that day. You didn't speak much, but the rolling thunder of the waves pounding on the sand was so loud, I wouldn't have heard you if you did. You stood there, staring at the waves, enveloped in their motion. They were bigger than you. You ran back as they crashed down, narrowly EV gained the weight fall as it rushed up the slope. But then, he raced forward until you ran out of sand. He seemed to be saying something to the waves. I thought maybe you were scared, so I got closer.

It was then I realized I had been projecting my own thoughts and concerns on you. When finally I got close enough to hear you, but before you knew I was there, I discovered what you were doing...

You were roaring at the wave. like a lion or a bear, you let loose the loudest sound you could muster from your little body. But it wasn't fear, or pain, or despair. It was a challenge.

I had a glimpse into your young soul that day. You had no awareness of the constant unchanging drive of the sea upon the sand, never ceasing year after year. You had not yet learned that the tiny grains of sand were formed by the constant pounding of ways over eons. At that moment you were saying to the sea: "Is that the best you've got -- well look out for me!" You had no doubt of your ability to affect the phenomenon of the tide.

Growing Up

2009-07-07T19:14:00.003-04:00

It's puzzling and bemusing, this parenting business. I never really know what to expect from Owl. Much of his life he has no memory of. He likes to hear the stories of "me like a tiny baby." But he doesn't remember the events, just the stories. We visited friends last week that we hadn't seen in a few years, and it was a completely new experience for him.

As a new parent, I assaulted his eyes and ears with educational material, but most of it slid right off like water from a duck's back. Now, more seasoned, I hang back and watch, more passive, letting him take the world by the horns and see what he can figure out for himself.

And so it was that he proudly announced to me and Knightly the other day: "I know what gay means!" OK, you've got my attention, spill. "It's when instead of marrying a woman, a man marries a man, or a woman marries a woman." Well, he was correct, which is what we told him. Then he continued telling me the next thing he learned at camp that day. It's as if he kinda expected his revelation to be a big deal, but when it wasn't, it lost its value to him.

The funny part is, I had explained that to him years ago, and it must not have been important enough for him to remember. I guess who you marry is not a big deal to a five year old, but by seven you have an inkling that there's something special about it, but you are not sure why.

I'll bet he had been hearing the word gay (probably as an insult, if I recall playground days), and knew it had some particular meaning, but did not ask because it might get him in trouble. Then, when someone finally explained it to him, he wanted to show off to us that he had acquired this elusive, grown up knowledge.

How many other things that I thought I had taught him will he "learn" in second grade? Will he learn them from my point of view, of with someone else's bias? He is a sweet, idealistic, naive boy, and he doesn't understand prejudice. But I am not so naive and idealistic to believe that will last forever (I am pretty darned idealistic, but I am getting jaded). Will he continue to share values with me and his father? Is it wrong for me to hope he does?

Facebook

2009-06-13T19:07:00.002-04:00

I now have more Facebook Friends than friends in real life!

Actually, Facebook is great for introverts like me. I get to watch from the sidelines as conversations swirl around me, but there's no awkward silence if I have nothing worthwhile to say.

Also, I'm using this as an experiment to stop compartmentalizing my life. Usually, I keep professional contacts separate from friends, and family in a whole other sphere. Why? Do I think my extended family merits different treatment? Does Knightly's cousin in Texas really need to be shielded from what I say to my Aunt in Connecticut, or an old college friend, or a high school acquaintance? I'm not sure. I'm working on it.

It's kind of like my physical clutter. i desire to categorize everything, and then keep it all, regardless of what works. Why not use what I need, and let the rest go?

Hmm...

College, Three Times

2009-01-15T09:29:00.002-05:00

I was telling Owl that I would ask my friend Bob to look at his ipod to replace the battery. "Mr. D can fix it safely. He's very smart. He can fix anything."

"Oh?" says Owl, "Did he go to college three times?"

"Well, he went at least twice, once to regular college and once to get his doctorate."

"So, he doesn't have a Master?" Owl queries, non-judgmentally.

"No, I don't think so, but he might. You don't need to get a masters first to get a doctorate."

"But that's the order: First you go to college, then you go again to get your master, then last to get your doctor." They are learning sequences (first, then, next, last) in school, so he has been putting things in order lately. "I am going to college three times." To myself, i think: well you are if I have anything to do with it!

But the point of this isn't how smart my friends and my son are, but how I realized he has a whole life outside of the family that we don't talk about. He learned about advanced degrees, but not from me. I chose not to put that kind of pressure on him, and it turns our his first grade teacher (who apparently has her masters), told her class about how she is going to school at night to get her doctorate. And now he wants to do it.

My happiness at his academic goals is tempered by the unavoidable realization that other people will have influence over him, and stuff happens to him everyday that I don't know about. he is his own citizen of the world, and not as my son, but as himself. he will be making choices on his own, and he wont be checking with me on them. That is gut wrenching. I knew it would happen, but I am still not ready for it.

2008-11-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

The first grade teacher asked her class, "Does anyone know what genre this story is?"

Guess who raised his hand?

But some of the kids must have looked confused, so she asked him, "do you know what genre means?"

Yes, he did.

Says Nana, upon hearing the story from him, "I don't even know what that means..."

He's going to be unsufferable when he grow up.

100% Satisfaction

2008-11-14T10:26:00.002-05:00

He runs out of the bathroom. I ask him if he washed his hands. He sighs and goes back in.

He comes back out. But I didn't hear the water run. I confront him with this fact.

"I used Purel. It kills 99% of germs," he informs me.

"So, there's still some germs left," I point out to him.

"Oh," he says with a crooked smile and a glint in his eye, "I'll use it twice then!"

He knows that 99% + 99% is more than 100% of the germs, but from the look on his face and his tone of voice, I am convinced that he actually knows that 99% of the 1% remaining is still not 100% of the germs.

I explain that he now has two dirty hands full of dead germs, which sends him running back into the bathroom to use soap and water.

Hard Things to Talk About

2008-11-13T17:11:00.003-05:00

For some reason, my mother started talking about miscarriages in front of Owl the other day. I know she did the same with me, because I knew, even before I could read, about how babies were born, and that my mom had lost a baby before me. She had the book her doctor gave her about prenatal care (if I find it I'll post it) and I used to look at the pictures. One picture showed a 1950s woman at a shoe store trying on new shoes. I guess that was the chapter about how your feet swell.

I guess I handled it OK, but maybe not. I have found myself to be rather unfeeling about miscarriages when I hear about friends having them, because it was such a mundane part of my family's story when I was a kid: Mom had several miscarriages and a stillborn baby before she had me. It is linked into the next part of the story about how she prayed to the Virgin Mary to intercede with God and give her a healthy baby. She prayed so hard for me and now I disappointed her so much. Why did God finally give her child if it was going to be like me?

Wow, flashback to childhood. Back to present time. Now I need to explain to Owl what a miscarriage is, but in terms that will not warp his mind. I explained it, and he diagnosed it as being a problem with the tube (umbilical cord), because that is where the baby gets all of its oxygen and nutrition. Again, it all makes sense to him if he can look at is through the lens of science.

But, that's the easy part. How do I teach him the empathy part, the part about what losing a baby means to the family? He only understands death in a cartoon sense, or what happens to old people at the end of life. Other than my aunts and uncles whom he hardly knew, he's never experienced death as a part of his life. Of course, as a preschooler, he went to many funerals, since my mom was on the church committee for funerals and attended about one a month. He remembers these. But only from the point of view or organizing the mass, not knowing the families.

Oh, boy, reading this makes me worry about him. Will he be able to have empathy, or just look at things from a distance, clinically?

No Offense - None Taken

2008-11-09T14:38:00.002-05:00

"Mommy, know which Pokemon you are?...Munchlax, because all he does is sleep and then get up and eat 900 pounds of food and then go nap."

So, that's how he sees me. But really, I've been exercising lately, and eating healthy.

OK, he's got me on the sleep thing.

Apolitical Blues

2008-11-08T12:05:00.003-05:00

In my younger days, I used to proudly state that I was "apolitical." I now realized that I was just uninformed. I thought that I could make a determination on whom I would support based on their stance on "the issues." How naive. What I did not realize then is that politicians rarely have their own opinions, they just adopt the issues of whatever political party they are supported by. Or, more specifically, they figure out which of the two political parties most closely matches their agenda, join it, and spend the rest of their lives climbing the ladder.

They want to tell us what we want to hear. They keep promises, or not, and that's how we decide which individual in our party to support. Oh, I know I am overreacting and oversimplifying, but I am mad. I just learned something about myself that has me mystified.

With election day this week, I have read of the joy of many Obama supporters. I am an Obama supporter, so I am happy about that. But what I did not realize was that without exception, every blogger I read, friend with a website, and person I follow on Twitter is a democrat, or at least supported the democratic candidate in this election. I did not link up with these people because of their political leanings. (OK, except for Momocrats.) In fact, for most of them, I did not know their opinions on American politics, either because they are not American, or they never discussed it!

So, why am I feeling down?

How can it be that the network of people I've gotten to know on the web, through business, photography, NewOrleans-philia, mommyblogging, etc., all happen to be democrats? Am I that boring? Or unimaginative and undiverse? Really, like the fake President of the United States, Josiah Bartlett, I like to be "surrounded by smart people who disagree with" me. So where are they? Did I alienate more conservative thinkers? I did not realize I talked about anything online that would peg me as a bleeding heart liberal.

What's the deal?

Jokester

2008-10-10T15:12:00.002-04:00

Owl is developing his Dad's sense of humor. He loves to make plays on words, or make connections in his mind that lead to funny thought. These are not thighslappers, but they make me smile at his awakening awareness of the world and the humor in it. His latest:

"Mommy, wanna hear the joke I made up? You know how we have five percent of the same DNA as monkeys?"

"Really?"

"Yes, that's why we are allowed to eat bananas!"

Mansion On The Hill

2008-10-01T00:10:00.003-04:00

Imagine if you will, a seaside town at the bottom of a steep hill. In the town live the fishermen and their families, the shopkeepers, the teachers, and the tourist business. Some of the merchants get rich and build a country club with a huge clubhouse at the crest of the hill, commanding glorious views of the ocean, while avoiding the smells of the fishmarket. Although this is where they display their wealth, it is the fishing boats and the markets where they earn it.

The Country Club grows in size and opulence over the years, and the townspeople largely ignore their ostentatious neighbors, since they do not understand the business, and they are very busy working hard to make ends meet and put away money for a rainy day. Occasionally a socially appropriate opportunity to donate to non-profits comes up, and the club members spread the wealth and support institutions that help those less fortunate.

Now imagine that an architect designs a terrace to add onto the back of the country club, which will be cantilevered over the cliff. It is a bold move, and earns him awards. He is featured in architectural magazines for his vision. The expansion of the club is complete, and the club members revel in the exquisite design and luxury. One day, at a heavily attended party, the structure begins to give way. It appears thatthe design was flawed, or the contractors took shortcuts, and suddenly, every expert "knew this day would come." The club members in the building can't get out fast enough, and they are sure to perish as the mansion breaks apart and slides down the hill.

Some applaud this twist of fate: The rich are done in by the product of their own greed. Others note that if they shore up the house long enough to get the people off, they will be able to control the descent, and minimize the damage. The naysayers ask "why we would save those who caused the problem in the first place?" But if they don't take this step, experts predict the falling rubble will hit the town, killing many innocent people, and destroying the harbor and the fishing and tourism industries for a while.

If the government has the means to step in and save the town, should it do so?

On The Bus

2008-09-12T10:11:00.003-04:00

I swear this is an unedited version of a story my son told me at dinner tonight:

And Mommy? You know what? Jamie missed the bus this morning and the bus driver drove ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BLOCK, no, the whole DEVELOPMENT* and came back to pick him up! I was like what and my friend was like "where are we going?" and I said "I don't know, maybe California." And he was like "California?" And I was like "And me without my sunblock."

'Cause Mommy, it's hot and sunny in California, right?

______
* Up here in NJ, a development is the name we give to a group of houses built at the same time by the same builder. They usually have bucolic names like "Eden Acres" or "Wexford Estates." My husband calls them "subdivisions." In an Agatha Christie book I read as a teen, I got the impression that it had the connotation in England that goes with the term "housing project" in the US.

Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

2008-09-11T15:01:00.004-04:00

You know how they say you shouldn't advertise that you are away on vacation, because you may attract burglars? You should stop mail and newspaper delivery, have someone mow your lawn, maybe even move your cars around or turn on and off some lights. I was thinking how I have nothing worth stealing in my house - our most expensive stuff is portable: The ipods, the camera, the laptop. We wouldn't take a vacation without it.

A thief would get some Mardi Gras beads instead of jewelry, old, non-digital TVs that you can't even use after next February, a broken DVD player, some worn out furniture, and a fridge full of caffeine free diet coke. No antiques or cool electronics, no diamonds, even our computers are so old they probably wouldn't support playing World of Warcraft.

I remember when our house was broken into in New Orleans - all they took was jewelry. Costume jewelry. Only two or three pieces cost me more than 35 dollars. However, the loss to me was much greater then the fenced value to the thief. My personalized school ring - who's going to buy that? My grandmother's (broken) enamelled pin from Ireland; the wooden parrot earrings a friend brought home for me from Bermuda (they were much more tasteful than they sound.) Two people were disappointed that day: Me when I saw my jewelry box gone, and him when he realized how small his take was going to be.

That got me thinking: Aren't most of the things that make us happy pretty worthless out of context? I reread the paragraphs above and realized you may thing I live in a broken down shack and we are sitting on barrels eating off a table made out of a big spool, with frayed curtains on the windows. That's not accurate. My curtains may be a little care worn, but my dining room table and chairs are nice, and relatively new, and my house is FULL of value to me. My material possessions make me happy (as much as the Dali Lama would warn me this is not so), and it would be a big loss to have them stolen.

As a kid, I would often think "What would I take with me if there were a fire?" The list changed very little over the years: My desk (as if I could lift it), my photographs, my pets. As an adult, and a parent, I now realize that if there were a fire, I would run through it to get to my son or my husband, but I would not think for a second of any Things. Even the cat is on her own. Face it, she's smart enough to flee a burning building - only reason she would stick around would be her curiosity about why I wasn't leaving!

A more realistic question to ask then, arising out of current events: If you had a few days warning that a massive storm was coming, that might rip your roof off and flood your house and all your belongings, what would you take with you when you evacuated?

This is not a theoretical question for many people in Florida and the gulf coast, who live with the hurricane season every year, and who have (some more than once) been faced with such a storm and lived through it. I am sure that changes your perspective about what's important. Not only for immediate survival (a cooler, milk, water, batteries) but to keep going after the disaster relief workers and the news reporters turn to another group in trouble.

So my question (I can't believe this turned into a meme) is: What would YOU save?

I am tagging a diverse group of bloggers I read, to see if it is different for all of us, or if common themes emerge. Feel free to answer even if I haven't asked you, just link back to this post in your post, and leave a comment with the link to yours so we know where to find it.

Here are the bloggers I am challenging to respond:

NOLA, who has actually made this decision in the last few weeks;

Jon at Ransom Note Typography, who just sent his daughter to college and now has a whole room to load up with evacuation stuff;

Brittney, who blogs at Britt-ish Designs, who must think of these things because she recently taught a group of women from her mom's church about how to start a family blog. Also, as a scrapbooker, I'll bet she has lots of extra stuff to save.

Maddy at Whitterer on Autism, who is so organized and full of energy that she probably DOES have backup archival copies of everything "just in case."

The wonderful writer bon (crib chronicles), who is expecting a baby...oops, just checked her blog...a happy mother with a healthy baby. Well, OK, I will understand if she doesn't respond.

Here's how it works (this is my first time, so I may do it wrong):

1. Tell us what five things you would take with you from your home if you had to evacuate for a storm or forest fire or other emergency, and there was a chance you couldn't come back.

2. Include a link to this post, and pass on this list of instructions.

3. Leave a comment below, so we can find your post.

4. Think of something you can do for someone who actually had to make that decision in real like, and share that idea with us, too.

5. Tag three or more people to pass it on.

Here's my updated answer to "What would you save?

1. My photos, in whatever form. Doing this exercise has reminded me to make archival copies, and keep them in one place, so if I ever did have to do this, I wouldn't have to choose them and find them when I had more important things to do. Also, I could leave them hanging on the walls and not have to crowd them in the car if I had a copy on CD I could take to Staples to print if I needed to.

2. Owl's blue blankie. Nana crocheted it for him before he was born, and gave it to me as a baby shower gift. She made one for all her grandsons (except the last one, because of her eyes). Owl likes it, but he's not like Linus with it. For me, it is a symbol of a grandmother's love for a yet to be born baby. This is especially poignant to me, because her life experience has taught her that preparing for a baby prior to birth makes it worse if something goes wrong. So it is also a symbol of her faith and hope. So this blanket is a huge metaphor for me.

3. My wedding dress. Odd how Knightly rented a tux, so we have no such talisman for his role in the whole day, but the dress reminds me of our whirlwind preparation and the tapestry of the whole day. If pressed, I could leave this off the list, but if I had enough room, I would take it.

4. Books. Scrapbooks, Journals, books that were gifts. Goodnight Moon, the Princess Bride, the Secret Garden, Roget's, Frankowski. It is not just the stories, but the physical look and feel of these particular books, and the part they played in our lives. I can always repurchase the book, but these are special.

5. Five. Do I really not have five? AM I more in synch with the Dali Lama than I thought? Anything else I can think of would just be convenience items like soap, pens, granola bars. Huh, I just learned something about myself. It turns out that not only is there nothing worth stealing, but all that is worth saving is what I hold in my arms and my heart when I fall asleep at night.

Stuffed Menagerie

2008-09-10T22:00:00.000-04:00

"Time for bed," I call. I await which stalling tactic my young offspring will employ this evening.

"Wait Mommy, I have to get a sleep friend." This phrase is from his daycare. I know it will come back to haunt me when he is a teenager. He comes into the room holding a bat. Not a baseball bat, but the cave dwelling blind mammal type. Stuffed, not real. He's holding it like an infant, in the perfect "football hold" they taught us in the breastfeeding glass. How does he know it - he was the football at those classes.

"Look Mommy," he whispers, "He's just waking up." He makes some cooing sounds and talks softly to his animal baby. "Do you know why he's just waking up at bedtime?"

"No honey, why?"

"He's NOCTURNAL"

Well, so he is.

New Blog

2008-09-10T00:56:00.005-04:00

I've been even less active than usual as I reflect on why I blog. It started out as a way to keep family and friends updated on our lives, and it has served that purpose for some, but not enough of my family and friends have a a web presence or interest, so they only look here when I call them and tell them to read something I've posted. That kind of defeats the purpose.

I also thought it would be a good journal for writing practice, but I find (a) I am too self conscious, and don't want to post rambling thoughts or mediocre writing (which is most of what comes out in such a journal) so I end up not posting a thing, because someone might read it and form an unfavorable opinion of me or my value as a writer; and (b) I had no idea about the community aspect of blogging, the two way nature of the communication, and it got a bit overwhelming. I end up READING a lot of blogs, and posting comments, but then, don't write anything here.

So, I've gone back to a college ruled spiral notebook for regular writing, and I've actually started a non-anonymous blog for photos and family news. I still want to post here, and it will probably be with no less frequency than I have been lately. Also, I am posting separately on life with the new additions to my household. Oh, I didn't tell you? Mom and Dad moved it. I can't remember which of Dante's circles this was, but I'm sure it was a hot one. Read all about it at My Sandwich Generation. Send your friends. But be warned - it's al pretty depressing.

Treading Water

2008-07-23T00:05:00.002-04:00

There was a hurricane off the Atlantic coast last week, making for some spectacular waves at the Jersey shore. That's Owl in my new header, frolicking in the surf yesterday. I used letters from a digital scrapbooking kit to make the title. They were made by Heather Benson at Dirty Feet Designs.

I feel like I am running in place. Until we get the estimates from the builders, I don't know how far into debt I will have to go to build the addition on the house for my parents. Knowing that will let me know if it would be irresponsible to quit my job to pursue private practice. I should be laying the ground work for it, but everytime I do that, I feel disloyal to my current employer. So I do nothing.

Plus, on top of that, Blogger's spell check is down, so I am working without a net. I can't spell...what is to become of me? I have to stop now, it's too stressful relying on my own eye to spot the typos.

Creative Outlet

2008-07-13T19:47:00.008-04:00

I have found the perfect hobby for me: Digital Scrapbooking. I used to make scrapbooks when I was a kid, back when you made them out of actual scraps you saved. You couldn't buy ribbons with words printed on them, or themed brads or WordArt. You had to use found objects. There were no fancy scissor sets or die cutters; you had to just play with regular scissors (but don't use your mom's specially sharpened sewing scissors - trust me on this one!). You had no glue dots or glue stick, you just used Elmer's and then peeled it off you fingers. Yeah, I had to do it all by myself. Uphill. In the snow. Both ways.

Then, last year, I gave in to the siren call of Michael's and A.C. More and started picking up little bits "to use for a project when I get around to it." Not a single page has been done. Whenever I find the time, I use up all that time clearing off my desk, finding the glue and "where did I put that cool sticker set?" and then something else would come up, and I would not be able to do it. (Ha! I pulled a Marcia Brady on my hobby: "Something suddenly came up...")

I heard of the idea of digital scrapbooking, and I laughed. It seemed so ironic. You use virtual elements that look like real life things (buttons, bows, rocks, shells, papers) but are not in fact real, in order to create a picture of something that looks like it was put together by hand. For me, the whole idea of scrapbooking is the tactile part of it. Getting your hands on the different textures, and placing items in a pleasing way. Organic stuff, the antithesis to the sleek perfection that is the hallmark of so much of the computer generated work we see nowadays. So, I knew I would hate digital scrapbooking.

...but, I found a few places that let you download free samples (that's the way you deal with addicts, right?), and I tried a few. I am now officially a hard core digital scrapper. Just like that. The very first day I considered doing it, I made my first page. This is my second project:

I did it this afternoon. I actually used paid (rather than free) elements in this one, because I loved the colors and textures so much. The papers and embellishments were designed by Syndee Nuckles for Scrap Girls. The font was free, also from Scrap Girls, and the stones are by Marie Stones. (hee hee, no pun intended - that's really her name).

I took the pictures one Sunday afternoon/evening that we went to the beach. The little girl in pink was someone he picked up at the ice cream stand (seriously, her grandmother chaperoned - I think she was relieved to have the child distracted.) The older girls were fooling around and flirting with him (or was it the other way around?). Afterwards, he told me one of them was from his school. They looked awfully old to be fifth graders...

This was fun. I think I will be doing a lot more of it.

Under Pressure

2008-07-12T08:00:00.002-04:00

We went to the church carnival yesterday. Yes, I know - I've denounced the Catholic church, so where do I get off going to a church function. One word: Funnelcakes.

Is that one word? Funnel Cakes? (That looks better.)

The church and synagogue carnivals in my suburban childhood are great memories. Eating refined sugar and going on stomach churning rides, winning goldfish doomed for a short life, staying up late and letting the carnival lights flow over you. That is the kind of thing I want to share with Owl.

My mom even got into it, taking a turn throwing the balls at the dunking booth target, and trying to get on the "Wipeout" ride. The operator wouldn't let her on with her oxygen, and wasn't fooled when she handed it off to my dad and tried again. Here's a picture I took from the ride. It's a fairly good representation of what they looked like to us as we went whipping by:

The hospital had an air conditioned bookmobile type RV thingee on site, so I decided to have my blood pressure checked. I am glad to say it is well under control. It appears even though its idiopathic (meaning they don't know what causes it), losing weight still helps. Now, if I could just stop with the fried foods and get my cholesterol under control...

Driveway Trauma, Part 2

2008-07-11T22:21:00.002-04:00

Remember a few weeks ago when Knightly's stuff was stolen out of his car in our driveway? And I decided to give him my old iPod so I could get a sparkly new smaller state of the art one? Yeah, I didn't. Instead, I bought him a new one, with twice the memory, and a nice case for it. Sucker!

Seriously, I am my mother - I only wanted to buy myself a new one if he insisted that I deserved it. I guess I'm not done with therapy yet.

Wednesday, I came home from work and the old car (that has been sitting on my driveway for moths because we can't sell it or donate it to charity until the bank send us the title) had the passenger side back window smashed. Nothing was taken, because Knightly had already cleaned it out in preparation for disposing of it, but still!

The cop was of the opinion that it was not vandalism or theft, but maybe an accident - something falling off the roof. I guess that makes me feel better. Not safer, just less jaded about the goodness of mankind.

A Piece of Pie

2008-07-11T20:40:00.001-04:00

Because I love words, and language, and reading, so much, it comes as no surprise that my ipod contains almost as much spoken word (audio books and interview podcasts) as music. The squee part is that Knightly is doing the same thing, and now emails me links to cool podcasts (like the New York Times Book Review, and Predictably Irrational, and Hound of the Baskervilles).He is so perfect!

Well, last month Knightly downloaded a short story by Damon Runyon. If you don't know who he is, go Google him. I'll wait.

Guys and Dolls was one of the plays we put on in high school, so the patois of Runyonese will ever be entangled in my mind with that group of friends, that time in my life, and the budding sardonic irony we all affected. But I had never read any of his short stories. One day in the car, Owl asks daddy to play the story of the eating contest. And then, the three of us spend the next 45 minutes in silence, listening to the story, part of NPR's selected shorts recorded live in NYC.

Runyon is a writer who must be read aloud. (Speaking of reading aloud, give that last sentence a try!) I would include a short excerpt, but it will not do the writing justice. But it was a funny story, wonderfully read, and it held the attention of parents and child alike. See, it doesn't have to be Pokemon ALL the time!

Sandpaper

2008-07-10T22:26:00.003-04:00

Sandpaper won't kill you, but it is annoying.

No, not annoying enough. Nails on a chalkboard.

Now that I have your attention, I have to confess a pet peeve that, being Roman Catholic and raised by my mother makes me feel guilty and apologetic for mentioning.

I hate when people don't use the English language properly. I am not talking about people who speak English not as their first language. I envy them, to be bilingual. Hard work. I am not talking about creative types who coin neologisms or turns of phrase on purpose. More on Damon Runyon later.

I am talking about people who are lazy or ignorant. Now, some ignorance can be excused, but come on, with all the TV most people watch, you would think eventually, after hearing something correctly a few dozen times, one would wonder why their way of saying it is different.

My latest example: I left a voice message for a state employee the other day. Her message said "I will return your call at my earliest convenience." Now I get "as soon as I can" or "without delay." After all, she was in customer service, and should make me feel like my call is important and she won't dilly dally about calling me back. I also understand when you are asking someone to call you back, you can politely and obsequiously request them to do so at their "earliest convenience." This relates that they need to do it quickly (please) but only when it is convenient to them, the customer. You are stressing that their convenience and happiness is important to you.

However, when a person tells me she'll get back to me at her earliest convenience, what I hear is "yeah, when i feel like it." I don't think she meant to leave that impression. I think she heard the phrase, never thought about what it really means, and changed the pronouns to use in her message.

Or maybe she really does value her own convenience over mine. Gen Y and all.

Channelling Sally Fields

2008-07-09T07:35:00.003-04:00

Recently, I attended a conference of a state industry association. The seminar was to bring us up to date on new developments in the law and tips for succeeding under this new way of doing things. They brought in an expert to address us.

You know what an expert is, right? It's a guy from out of town, with slides. Well, that's the 1980s version of the definition. I guess an updated description would be "someone from out of down with an animated PowerPoint presentation."

So, this woman speaks nationally on issues affecting our industry, and she's pretty good. Not a lawyer herself, she works for a law firm as a consultant. Well, I am chatting with an acquaintance during a break, thinking about introducing myself without looking like a big doofus, when she comes over to me and says "I wanted to make sure I met you - put a name to the face." Then she proceeds to tell me how I am "an icon" in my little area of healthcare law, and how the lawyers at her firm think so highly of me. She even went as far as to say when I weighed in on an issue, her staff would listen up "Well, Moondance said..."

I was floored. I thanked her for the compliment and told her she really made my day. After she left, the woman I was talking to, not someone I knew very well, said "That was really nice of her. Isn't it nice to hear that from an outsider? See, it isn't just us (the association) who love you and know you're great." I didn't know that. In a way, her compliment, though less gushing and more personal and understated, affected me even more.

"You like me...You really like me!"

So, does this mean the time is right for me to strike out on my own, hang a shingle, and put behind me the shackles (and protection) of working for someone else?

"I Don't Think That Word Means What You Think It Means"

2008-07-01T23:28:00.002-04:00

Owl was out with Nana and Pop Pop, and came home in the middle of a TiVo episode of NCIS. As you know, he has a certain affinity for that show. So he sat down with me and watched. It was an episode neither of us had seen before, but I did not bring him up to speed, because, well he's SIX, and how much of the cloak and dagger part can he really understand, right? You'd think I'd have learned by now (see my last post)!

In this scene, two characters were transacting the sale of a pirated weapons system, and the parties sealed the deal with high end cognac, poured with great ceremony. I was wondering, silently, would the good guy, undercover as the seller, drink? Could it be poison? Were they onto him? Then Oliver blurted out "Remember when Inigo Montoya was defeated by the man in black and he defeated the little guy because there was poison in both glasses?"

Of course, why would a child imaging he was watching two friends or businessmen share a drink? His mind immediately flew to nefarious purposes: There must be poison involved!

So remember, never doubt that they know what you are thinking. You do so at your own peril. Beware!

Oh, that and: "Never get involved in a land war in Asia."

Stuff I Am Not Ready For

2008-06-25T23:19:00.003-04:00

The following conversations actually happened, and if it's in quotes, I am not paraphrasing. My six year old is developing language and his mind WAY TOO FAST for me to keep up with.

From what I understand from other parents, even when you send your kids off to college, you still look at them and see little children and can't accept that they have grown. But this is ridiculous. I've only had him a few years, and I thought he'd be cute and baby-ish for way longer.
He is growing up too fast. This is just out of control. To wit:

O: "Watch out Mommy, I will send my minions after you."

M: "Did you just say 'minions'? How do you even know what that means?"

O: "A TV show."

M: "OK, what exactly is a minion?"

O: "It's a person who does what you say and follows you when you have to fight."

OK, I have to give him that one. "How do you know that? Did they tell you in the TV show?"

O: "No, I figured it out for myself."

********************

O: "Mommy, you know that plane in the Indiana Jones story?" He has heard me tell it as a bedtime story, but I won't let him see the movie yet. You know, melting faces. "Well, look - I made one that is similar. Not the same one, just similar." Thanks for the language lesson, Owl.

********************

Next scene takes place in Target, where we have arrived to buy a game for his new DS. This was a reward for doing well in school all year. Not sure if it was the right thing to do, but I made a promise. I am reminding him that after we pick out the game, I have some shopping to do, and then we can go home and play, but not before.

M: "Owl, I need you to be a big boy and display your patience while I shop for some other things, and not misbehave because you want to go home. Do you understand?"

O: "Yes, I understand. I will be patient. - Then, it says 'five minutes later' in front of us and I am crying 'waaah wahh I want my DS!' "

This stopped me in my tracks. Yes, he just gave me stage directions. He told a joke in the form of a movie technique. He's six. I would have thought such ways of thinking about things would be too sophisticated for him.

*************

What does this tell me, while I contemplate ways of making him grow up slower? (Well, besides the fact that this kid watches WAY too much TV.) Kids are much smarter than we are taught they are. Everything I know about children led me to believe babyhood and toddlerhood would last much longer, and that children don't have the capacity to understand things when they are young. I believe that is wrong. They just don't care about boring adult stuff, so they don't bother to learn. Child prodigies are remarkable in that they chose to pick an area and spend time in it - but I suspect a great many children have the same talents, but just don't see any reason to bother to use it yet. I look at the kids I know now, and most of them have a favorite pursuit at which they regularly astonish adults and outstrip their peers. The ability is there, but the interest or motivation is not.

It's how my eight year old nephew can teach the salesman at the car dealership how to program the GPS device, and his younger brother can reproduce impressionist paintings. One of Owl's friends can identify people by the cars they drive, as long as he's seen you in it once. If they have this ability with one thing, how can we keep telling ourselves they couldn't achieve it in others?

Now, as a surprise to myself, I do not advocate forcing kids to perform until we find the area in which they excel. I don't think it matters. They are kids, we should let them have fun. But I will keep reminding myself to stop underestimating kids. They know more than we think.

Raw Milk

2008-06-15T00:49:00.004-04:00

OK, doing without unprocessed milk is not going to really impact my lifestyle, but now tomatoes and spinach are contaminated?

The raw milk issue is more controversial because the FDA has declared raw milk to be "inherently unsafe," and warning against it. So of course, the producers of unpasteurized milk are arguing that the contamination is no more likely than with milk that has been processed. Hmmm.

Those who drink raw milk claim there is no comparison, but I'll stick to pouring chemicals from diet soda into my body. I can handle ice cream and yogurt, but most milk and cheese make me feel yucky. Have I become lactose intolerant?

WNYC had a program on food borne illnesses on Friday. I, of course, listened to it during lunch as I ate my turkey sandwich (sans tomatoes). It reminded me of a class I took in graduate school that explained tapeworm, foodborne illness, fecal-oral contamination....lovely. (Yeah, I can't usually eat at a salad bar) But I sure wash my hands a lot.

Things like this make me want to develop handouts to give to the people who look at me weird when I turn off the faucet and open the restroom door with a paper towel (or my elbow). It's NOT OCD, it's just good hygiene!

This radio show reminded me of NOLA's family's stand on mayonnaise.

It just goes to show - nothing is safe, but I keep reminding myself I am more likely to die from heart disease or stroke because of what I eat than from contamination. So, I shall pay more attention to that.

What won't YOU eat because of health concerns?

Presidential Profile

2008-06-12T00:01:00.002-04:00

Tonight at our local pizza place, the waiter surprised us with new paper place mats. This is good, because Owl already has memorized the answers to all the questions on the old ones. He knows what the Colosseum is, why the Tower of Pisa leans, and that Italy is shaped like a boot.

The new place mats had portraits of all the US Presidents. I asked him if he recognized any of them, and he immediately identified George Washington. I figured the only other one he would know would be Lincoln, so I asked him "Which one is Abraham Lincoln?" He thought for a moment, came up blank, and then said "Let me see a penny!"

Minting Another New Word

2008-06-10T21:27:00.002-04:00

Things have been quite exciting at work lately. I have had the opportunity to get very involved at some history making in my state, and I am at risk of overgeeking it and scaring off the people who asked me to contribute. In my enthusiasm, I was typing an email today and my fingers flew off the keys. I ended up coining a new word. While talking about drafting a bill for the state assembly, I referred to it as “Kegislation.” It's only off by one letter. But seriously, I bet a lot more undergrads would take law related courses if the same typo ended up in the title of a class in place of "legislation."

How would you define my new word? Writing laws about storage and delivery of fermented hops?

By the way, there has been a bill introduced to allow supermarkets to sell beer in NJ, like most of the rest of the civilized world.

It's 9:06. Do You Know Where Your Child's Mind Is?

2008-06-10T00:33:00.003-04:00

Earlier, fighting sleep and trying to engage me in coversation so he could stay up later, Owl hung his head upside down over the edge of the bed and looked at the digital clock. Thinking he was being contrary he asked "Mom, do you know what time it is? It's 9:06." He loves to play this game: Looking at the world upside down and making opposite statements like "Mommy is walking on the ceiling. Why is the light on the floor? I might step on it."

So he was disappointed that I responded "Yes, it is 9:06." Because 906 upside down is 906. I think he still doesn't get why his joke was not funny. He though it was 6:09 in reality, I guess...

But this same clueless kid comes up with the following gem, not five minutes later:

"You know what would be cool, mom?" (If you would go to sleep?)

"It would be cool if we could get free ice cream everyday." (Now, that would be cool.)

"Yeah, free ice cream would be cool. Everyday. And you know what else? If everyone could get a free house."

But, honey, if everybody got their house for free, how would the people who built the house get paid? How would they feed their families?

And I kid you not, this was his reply:

"Well you could get your house for free, but then every year, you give half your money to the people who built it. It would be a program."

Yeah, we call it a no down payment mortgage! Not working out well for the U.S. right now, but geez, how did you know about it? Have you been sneaking into my Marketplace podcasts on the ipod when I think you are listing to Pokemon Battle Frontier?

Quick Clicks

2008-06-08T21:45:00.005-04:00

I bought myself a digital point and shoot camera for Christmas, as part of my journey towards taking care of myself and enriching my soul. Of course, I bought the cheapest one I could find. I am still pretty happy with it. What I like the best about digital is that you know right away if the shot was bad, and you can take as many "do-overs" as you want, and all it costs is battery life.

I have been going out of my way to experiment and take unconventional (for me) shots, to see what happens. Then, I plan on doing crazy things in Photoshop (another splurge, I am really indulging!), just for the hell of it.

Here is one I took of the poor neglected fire hydrant outside of my house. I am posting it in response to a challenge at Shutter Sisters.

It's just fascinating to me, the way the paint peels. It was ugly, but now I choose to see it as beautiful.

Priorities

2008-06-06T09:13:00.006-04:00

Life/Work Balance.

It's a phrase rarely heard by the previous generation to reach parenthood (today's grandparents). But it's reportedly the most important thing to people entering the workforce now. It's important to me, but I also feel it carries the stigma of being a "women's issue," so I never want to bring it up at work.

Partially, it's because I never used to separate work from the rest of my life. As a near perpetual student, I was always working - nights, weekends, with friends, alone. Either it was work on my pay-the-bills job, or schoolwork, aspiring towards my career as a lawyer. In college and law school, socializing and studying were often indistinguishable. But then, I got a job at a law firm. I made friends at work, but there became a distinction between "working" and "time with family and friends."

And I got a family. Since I married another lawyer, and we remained childless for many years, the family/friends v. work dichotomy was not immediately apparent. Many of our friends were from law school, so company at dinner closely mirrored company at lunch (if not the individuals, the conversations).

I am a member of what they call "the sandwich generation," taking care of my parents and my own offspring at the same time. My parents help a lot by taking care of Owl, but as far as family and home obligations, it's kind of like having two teenagers in the house. They expect and deserve my attention - a lot more than I gave them when I lived out of state. I realize that time and energy I used to lavish on Knightly now has to be spread over four people, three of whom are not people I married because the are perfect and will make me happy and demand little from me. Now, more people demand more from me. I have less time and energy to spend on work... I don't like that. I like the law. I like writing briefs, and examining policies, and legal analysis of contracts. It's fun. It makes me feel like I have a purpose. Believe it or not, paying attention to my family does not give me the same feeling.

If I don't want to take the time away from work, and I can't spend any less time with my family, where do I take it from? You got it: me time. (Hence the no shower yesterday). No more reading sci fi all afternoon, or rearranging the pictures on the walls, or getting enough sleep.

I realized I was doing this, and that it has to stop. I need to reclaim time for myself that is NOT work related. Because I put up with work related CRAP because you need to take it in order to be able to have access to the cool stuff. Believe me if I could find a way to do only the cool stuff and drop the crappy part of work, I would. But, I have to give up a blend of crap and gold in order to get enough sleep, get my cholesterol checked, go to the gym, read, blog, listen to music, lie on the beach, and stuff like that.

In the fall, I talked about doing it, and I got off to a good start. Through improving my eating habits and exercising, I have lost 26 pounds so far. Good for my body. But my soul? I consider foregoing Ben & Jerry's and having cereal and fruit instead of Pop Tarts for breakfast as a sacrifice, and walking or going to the gym as a chore, so it's no help to my soul.

Next step: Put yourself before your boss, your company, your parents, and even sometimes, the little guy. Write, even if you don't "have time." Maybe even take a big leap and dare to turn down some of the "crap" parts of the job? Dare I?

What do you think?

I ♥ Wawa

2008-06-05T18:11:00.000-04:00

Almost every morning, I stop on my way into work to get breakfast or a beverage. Why? I don't know. I have tea and soda at my house. I have cereal. Somehow, a bagel or tea from the store is better. I don't pretend it's rational.

If I need a bagel, I go to the bagel shop. But for anything else, I go to Wawa. For those of you not from these parts, Wawa is a convenience store, like a 7-11 or QuikCheck. Or, in old New Orleans parlance, "Timesaver." However, you can only say Wawa is a convenience store to the extent that a you can say the White House is a house. It's got fresh fruit, and soup, and made to order sandwiches, groceries, candy, chips, etc, etc, etc...

But most of all, it's got happy customers. The reason I like my Wawa so much is that people are so NICE when they visit. Without exception, people hold the door open for each other. They let other people cut in line, and help them make change. There's a certain solidarity among the shoppers that you just don't find at the supermarket, or the mall. It's a culture. It's like an island of civility in a brutal harried day. So, yes, I ♥ my Wawa, even though I do usually speak in icons.

The Unexpected Meeting

2008-06-05T17:08:00.004-04:00

This was my day:

It is my telecommute day. I throw on a pair of yoga pants and an old tie dye tee shirt. Sneakers without socks. Uncombed hair. Unbrushed teeth. I walk downstairs to take Owl to the bus stop, a treat for both of us on Thursdays.

I am ready to go. My son is still wearing yesterday's clothes, as Dad opted not to make him change into PJs last night. He was going to go back to class in the same clothes he wore out last night. (Seriously, that is something I thought he would not have to worry about until college.) So we find shorts and a shirt that match, and socks. But we can't find his shoes. I was not home when he came home or went to bed last night, and Dad is already at work. Does my son have any memory of where he put his own sneakers last night? No. So, by the time we make it out to the driveway, my next door neighbor says "Bus left already."

I tell him to jump in the jeep as I go back inside for my purse & keys. Mysteriously, his booster seat is missing from the car. Evidently, Owl tells me, it's in Daddy's car, because they gave a friend a ride the other day. Back inside I go to get the other car keys, to get the third car seat out of Pop Pop's car (Good thing they live with us.)

By the time we get to school, it is 9:18. I decide, since I am out, I will pick up milk. Coming out of Wawa, I check my Blackberry. It's 9:30. Email from the CEO "Are you coming to the 10:00 meeting of the [important governmental regulatory issue review body] at [place 25 miles away from me]?"

Glad I checked. It was not on my calendar, but "No, I am not going." doesn't seem to be the answer he expects. So, I let him know I am taken by surprise, but will be there in 45 minutes. I must now go home, brush teeth, comb hair, find a suit (did I mention Thursdays are laundry days), and high tail it over there. I arrive with enough time to get a caffeine infused beverage from the commissary, glide in, and learn that I am the person charged to recap the last meeting.

Well, you can't accuse me of not being able to think on my feet. If I do not get a few consulting gigs out of this, I will be pissed! The meeting lasted until 2:00. I had to return home to give my dad the car seat so he could take Owl to karate. I still haven't had my shower. Or cleaned my clothes. Or finished the contract that was my planned goal today. But I did write a blog post, so at least I have my priorities straight!

Tomorrow: Why that last comment was actually not meant ironically!

Excommunicating Catholics for Wanting to Serve God

2008-06-02T22:43:00.003-04:00

I am speechless.

This is the straw that broke the camel's back.

I declare myself to be no longer Roman Catholic, and I shall not send Owl to be educated by this church.

A Vatican Decree automatically excomunicates anyone involved in the ordination of a woman as a Catholic priest.

"Universal," huh?

How I Woke Up

2008-06-02T22:23:00.001-04:00

Dear Mr. Knightly,

You woke me up this morning to ask me if I knew where your wallet and ipod were. I did not. As I slowly emerged into consciousness, fighting my brain’s insistence on remaining in the dream, I was not alarmed. We lose things so much; I am not impressed by a missing wallet. Let’s face it, we ARE that couple in the cartoon: He is standing in front of the refrigerator saying “where’s the butter?” She, walking up and immediately spotting it in, of all places, the diary compartment. (Only, when things like that happen to me, I imagine my self as the wife in Disney’s Incredibles. Without looking up from my cup of tea, my elastic arm stretches across the room and snags the butter from its resting place for you.)

After a long while, I realized you were very distressed about your lost things, and that they probably weren’t merely misplaced. The suburban teen thieves had struck our driveway! We lost enough money for it to hurt, but not enough to have it reimbursed by insurance (darn high deductible). You scrambled around to find 6 points of identification that were not in your stolen wallet, and lamented the half day lost at work cancelling the credit cards, getting a duplicate DL, and remembering what else was in there that you need to replace. The GA season passes, health insurance cards, credit cards…

I was upset about this as well. About losing those things, about your lost time and inconvenience, about why people steal. And then I decided, “Enough!” I listened to the radio about people with problems greater than ours.

I thought about how Owl had given me not one, but two kisses to see me safe to work this morning. I thought about our great day at the beach yesterday. We did not lose our son, like some people did this morning, nor our health. I was thankful for the fact that you have a job where missing a half day is an annoyance to you, not a reason for your employer to fire you. I was thankful that I can say “it’s only money” and mean it. I chose to focus in the great time we had this weekend, rather than the one bad thing that happened.

Oh, and the other good thing is that I’ll give you my ipod, and buy a new nano for myself. See, everyone wins!

Love,
your adoring wife

If I Were A Superhero

2008-05-14T20:07:00.005-04:00

If I were a superhero, my name would be Scarlet and my super power would be procrastination.

Scarlet as in "I'll think about that tomorrow...Tomorrow is another day."

Because I am not your everyday, run of the mill procrastinator. No, when I delay action, when I put off to tomorrow what can be done today, I do not deal in half measures. I once gave out Christmas gifts on Valentine's Day. My dilly-dallying is of epic proportions.

All of this is to distract and entertain you so you don't mind that I am not making my Mother's Day post until Wednesday!

In a post that included an excerpt from the original Proclamation of Mother's Day by Julia Ward Howe, Lawyer Mama invited us to write about our "Dreams of a Mother" for MOMocrats. When I heard Melissa Block's report on the earthquake in China, I knew what I wanted to write about, but have only just put it in words:

My "Dream of a Mother"

I have heard it said that to become a parent is to live the rest of your life with your heart outside your body. I looked up the exact quotation, and it is attributed to Elizabeth Stone: "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." How many of us knew that was the reality of the decision we were making? I didn't. I had no idea how much I would love my little guy, or what I would be willing to do for his happiness or protection. Or how much MORE I would feel the push to change the world, because I can't bear to think of him becoming an adult in a place that I have not improved just a little. I want to STOP the backsliding in civil rights here in the US. I want him to be an adult in a world where, if we have not conquered hunger, we at least are treating is as an important challenge to overcome. I've always been an idealist, with lofty dreams for mankind, but now it actually HURTS to think I might leave him with a world where apathy or laziness or hatred prevent our progress toward utopia.

Driving in the car, listening to Melissa Block describe in a broken voice how the little bodies of children at the elementary school were laid out in the rain, uncovered, so parents could come and identify their own dead children, I put myself in that situation. I pictured the small neat building, imagined where they would set up the temporary morgue. I saw the crowd; the other parents we run into at assemblies and PTA meetings. The tears of some who held their live children close while feeling guilty for their happy relief. Who would be wailing? Who would be stoic and silent? What would I do? I heard this poem by W.H. Auden in my head:

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

For me, that is the nightmare-dream of a mother - to know that no matter how hard you've worked to keep your own identity, your individual interests and skills, your career, ultimately, your heart is walking around outside of your body, for the world to mess with.

To end on an up note (albeit one that still brings tears to my eyes), another song comes to mind when I think about motherhood. This one is for my nephew, my oldest godson. It was the first time I held him, felt the blood connection with the next generation, that I threw out my birth control pills and said, "OK, Knightly, let's have a baby!" (The first part, literally. The second part, metaphorically. He was actually 15 states away on that day.)

I made a song mix for my godson, because as a baby he really liked music. "Forever Young," sung by Rod Stewart, was on the tape. This Dream, of this Mother, is:

When you finally fly away I'll be hoping that I served you well

2008-04-14T02:19:00.000-04:00

A sentence was at a job interview.

The interviewer said, "We're starting a new paragraph and we have an opening for an unambiguous, declarative sentence. Do you fit those criteria?"

"Well," replied the sentence, "I'm pretty sure that I am probably the sort of sentence you may be looking for."

The interviewer said, "Sorry, but I'm afraid you're over-qualified."

heeheeheeheeheehee

Down South in New Orleans

2008-04-13T22:11:00.003-04:00

We switched planes in Atlanta, but we stayed in the terminal. It was in the 60s when we left Newark, and I didn't notice anything different in Georgia. (After all this time back in NJ, I have become used to not paying attention to the weather. It's hot or it's cold for months at a time, and as long as I do not have the top off the Jeep, I don't even care if it rains. It's not like I can play hooky and go to the beach.)

We stepped onto the Jetway at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, and the recirculated air of the cabin was pushed back, and I felt it - that part of New Orleans that is like a presence, another character in the theatre of the absurd which is the Crescent City. The Humidity. It's the low thrum, the background noise that accompanies every scene. It's the cause, even more than the full moon, for Tennessee Williams-like caterwauling in the street, for the insanity that natives and those who have adopted the city as their home take for granted now.

The heat and humidity slapped me in the face like a wet rag, and I was glad I had made that extra stop to get a short haircut before this trip, so that I do not resemble a human dandelion for the whole visit. Almost before I had the time to form these thoughts, we were in the terminal, and the icy conditioned air sapped the moisture and made my breathing easier.

Later that day, we went to the playground, but Owl could not rally enough energy to swing or slide, but could only whine "Mommy, I'm HOT. I'm thirsty." We'll actually, he said "thorsty," but I knew what he meant. (Don't worry, some ice cream revived him.)

The next day, a cool front came through, and we went to brunch at The Court of Two Sisters and thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the courtyard in the shade of some overhanging vines. We followed that with a day in the Quarter at the Festival. Good company, good food, good music, good weather: It was one of those glorious days that are over too quickly. Owl loved the Fest, and enjoyed seeing the Mississippi River (which is simply called "the river" here, much in the way New Jersians refer to NYC as "the city.")

Yesterday itself was worth the price of the trip.

Owl, M.E.

2008-03-31T21:03:00.004-04:00

We have a little Tuesday night tradition, my son and I. It harkens back to the days before we had Tivo, and when his dad had Tuesday night dart league. I would tuck him in, and run back downstairs to watch NCIS, which is inexplicably on at 8PM. One night, unable to sleep, and with no daddy to snag him upstairs, he crept down into the living room and stood, silent and transfixed, in the doorway, watching my TV show. I finally heard him shift, or breathe, and I turned and gasped! How long had he been standing there? I quickly switched the channel to Food Network, which can usually be counted on for kid friendly programming regardless of the time of day, but my little boy squeaked "No, put it back on the one with the scientists!" He was about three at the time, and had walked in on an autopsy scene.

"What do you mean scientists?" I hedged and stalled, haunted by the look on that cherubic face, bathed in the blue flickering light; wondering if I had scarred him for life.

"The scientists that cut open the body and show the blood." Oh God, what had I done? How did he get down here so silently? What had he seen? What did it mean to him???

We had a long conversation about it. I decided to look at it as an educational opportunity. It turns out he is very curious, and recognized science for what it was. He was not scared at all, nor was he inordinately interested in the gore or violence surrounding the death of the body. He just thought being able to see inside the body was cool.

Well this led to the purchase of several children's books about the body. These books were his preferred bedtime stories more nights than not. When he was four, we took him (with his four and six year old cousins) to New York to see "Bodies: The Exhibition." WOW! I loved it and could have stayed all day. My sister and I, both with health care experience, wished we had such a thing to see during our college Anatomy and Physiology classes. Indeed, there were A&P classes there touring alongside us, lead by professors and teaching assistants.

As we corralled the kids prior to entering the exhibit, a woman came out of the exit and looked at us in horror: "You are not going to bring CHILDREN in there?" Yes, we were. "Oh, it would be too frightening for them." We both looked at each other as if to see "Lady, you do not know these kids."

All three of them LOVED it. They were amazed and engrossed (without being grossed out). We were forced to endure the young ones pointing out the location of the penis on every single body, but hey, it's a natural fascination at that age.

The best part, though, was when we looked at the gestation portion of the exhibit. My sister was eight months pregnant at the time, so we had the boys pick out which fetus was closest in age to their unborn brother or sister. That was so cool, for them to see not just a drawing, but an actual body that let them match their imagination of what "their" baby looked like.

After that, Owl showed even more interest in "scientist " shows. I watched a few more episodes of NCIS and realized it was better for his development that "My Gym Partner is a Monkey" or "RugRats" any day, so I decided to let him watch it with me. That became our "Tuesday night when Daddy isn't home" thing to do: curl up in bed and watch Marc Harmon et al solve mysteries. It's like Scooby Do, but with badges and guns. When we watch it he asks me "who is the suspect?" and is duly impressed when I predict who the bad guy will be. One episode, he picked the Director of NCIS as the perpetrator, so I can see he has a long way to go to becoming a detective.

(I just realized one of the great things I've managed to do is have confidence in myself as a mother. I know that many people would disapprove of this as a TV choice for a child. I don't dispute that, but I know my son, and I know what else he is or may be exposed to, and I decided I will allow this, while still blocking most shows on the Disney Channel and all video games. It may make no sense, but it feels right to me.)

This all comes back to a conversation I had with Owl as he was falling asleep tonight. (That is my favorite time. His eyes get all fluttery, his voice gets all sleepy, and he speaks to me from the land just between here and dreams, and it gives me a glimpse into his world.)

"Mommy, will we watch NCIS tomorrow night?"

"If it's on. Sometimes it's not," Darn writer's strike.

"If it is not on, can we watch it on Tivo?" Note how he just knows I've got episodes in reserve from the USA reruns.

"Wow, Honey, you must really like NCIS." And here I thought it was snuggling with me, and the show was just gravy.

"I like the boss guy, and the doctor, and his assistant. I like the way they talk." Now my mind is whirring. How do they talk? Do they have accents? Do they lecture? Do they joke around?

"What do you mean how they talk?" He denies the accent thing, but tells me "It's like the sectacula Spiderman. It's just how kids live." Say WHAT? Now I am really puzzled.

"How is Spiderman related to NCIS?"

"No, Mommy, not Spiderman ... sectacula - I can't say it. Kids can't say the whole word." Oh, great, now I have to watch every episode of this new Spiderman series to see if I should ban it, too? What bad words is he picking up? Then I figure it out; he doesn't mean the show, he just means the word "Spectacular." He can't say it.

"Do you mean you kids can't pronounce some words?" YES.

"You like the way they talk in NCIS because they use words that kids can't pronounce, and when you hear it on the show, you learn the right way to pronounce them?" YES.

There you have it. He likes the show with the scientists, because it helps him develop his vocabulary and learn correct pronunciation. I AM IN GEEK MOMMY HEAVEN.

An Even Dozen

2008-03-30T09:42:00.004-04:00

Twelve years ago today, we stood at the altar and promised to stay together. We went in with our eyes open, everything discussed and analyzed, after sharing our lives and our home for many years. He said he would rather be married to me without kids than be with someone else with kids. We were ready for the hard hard days ahead, facing the world together.

I approached marriage as a challenge, a task to accomplish no matter what. The first couple of years were blissful: full of discovery and warmth and the realization that your life does change when you get married. Not on the day to day level, but whenever you think about the future - you know the other will be there. No matter what. But I knew after the newness wore off, it would be hard, not as much fun. I was prepared for that.

This is what I wasn't prepared for:

Twelve whole years have gone by? Twelve? Years? That was an eyeblink. When is the hard part going to come? It was actually harder in the beginning getting used to being married than it is now. Now it just is. And it is right. It feels like this is the way it should be.

We have a son? I didn't see that coming. I had no idea how awesome it would be. Better than I ever expected. I had Owl because I knew Knightly HAD to be a dad. But I thought it was a sacrifice I was making for him. I had no clue how marvelous and fantabulous our life together would be once we were three. Watching and listening to Mr. Knightly with Owl, just being a dad and boy together, it makes me love him more.

My love can grow? That day at the altar, I could not conceive that our love was only in its nascence. I didn't know that what we faced together (happy and sad, fun, difficult) would make our bond stronger. I had heard the words, but I didn't KNOW it.

And finally, after twelve more years, we will still not have come to an agreement on the placement of dirty clothes prior to washing? Really, I would have thought one of us would have thrown in the towel on that one by now!

Happy Anniversary Honey!

Copyright Controversy

2008-03-27T10:29:00.007-04:00

(Oh, I am a sucker for alliterations)

As you know, I love to read NOLA Notes. Nola is a friend and a good writer. This I knew for a long time. She started sending out group emails to her friends in the diaspora after Katrina, and I saw that her writing chops were not limited to the exciting world of Tax Trusts & Estates. (NB: I am a law geek. That last comment was not meant to be sarcastic or ironic.) Nola decided to embark into the blogosphere, and reading her posts gave me the impetus to start my blog. And all of that is the topic of another post. For today, it is just a set up for this topic:

Blog Etiquette and Copyright Protection. The former is what we think is desirable behaviour, and the latter is what those before us thought was desirable enough to protect or prohibit by law.

Yesterday, Nola posted this entry regarding a blog aggregator people had been complaining about. Her observations sparked quite the exchange in the comments section. I did my best to avoid leaving a pedantic comment about the law. (Tried and failed. I only lasted about 35 seconds.) I was moved to delve deeper into the issue, because I have always been fascinated by intellectual property law (IP for short), but chose another path, so I never got to scratch that itch.

When I was in law school, I had never seen anything published on the Internet. The law school, and my firm, had a dial up connection directly to the computers at Westlaw, for which we paid by the minute. There was no surfing or browsing. You would develop your boolean connector search, call the West reference attorneys to refine it, then log on, hit enter, download the list of cases, and quickly log off. You then went to the library to photocopy the cases. (Which may or may not be a copyright violation. US Government works are not copyrighted, but West's headnote system is.)

Likewise, the authors of the copyright law had not seen, or even conceived of, the Internet when they designed it a hundred years ago. They did not even have TV or radio then. It was just print. In the 1970's the law was tweaked to cover the new media, and to no longer require that we attach formal claim of copyright protection. Now, all works that are published are presumed to be protected by copyright law. However, the law has not been changed to explicitly address things like blogs, so we have to apply existing law and recent court decisions to determine what is a violation of a blogger's copyright.

This is nether legal advice nor an exhaustive treatise on how copyright law applies to things published on the Internet. It's just my thoughts. If you want the exhaustive treaty go here and here. Also, check this out.

So, if the concepts of copyright as envisioned by Congress in 1909 and 1976 apply to the 21st century medium of internet blogging, how do we compare? Well, think about broadcast TV. You know, B.C. (before cable). Just because you can watch Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley for free just by turning on your TV does not mean the show is in the public domain. In fact, one of the most famous copyright infringement cases was based on this concept. In Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984), the Supreme Court heard the case of owners of copyrights to TV shows who sued the makers of the Betamax video cassette recorders (remember them?), claiming VCRs and Betamax videotapes allowed viewers to copy TV shows, which violated the copyright. The Court found that yes, viewers could use the technology to infringe on the copyright. However, it refused to hold the creator of the technology liable for this infringement, because the systems could also be used for legal activity, like viewing your wedding video.

It follows then, that publishing an anecdote or essay on your blog, and making it available for free for anyone to read does not equal putting it in the public domain. And wholesale copying of the blog content is like videotaping a TV show - it's probably infringement. But just like the fair use exception for literary criticism, if I clip a sentence or two, in order to talk about your post, it probably OK. And, just like a newspaper with a book critic, or a TV show that reviews new theatrical releases, the fact that the reviewer is supported by advertising does not make the clipping an infringing commercial use. Commercial use of only clips for reviewing is probably OK. The fact that some blogs reserve only some rights does not mean they gain other rights not afforded by copyright law.

But really, I think it all comes down to etiquette. Most bloggers seem to not be in this to support their families. They just get pissed when someone co-opts their stuff without asking. Even if its legal, it's a breach of expectations. I've seen many peole take stab at codifying blogger etiquette, but it's ever changing, and probably regional or topical. I've even been thinking about blogger ethics. Does that exist?

Well, that's my two cents, adjusted for inflation.

Rare Coinage

2008-03-16T22:32:00.001-04:00

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I have coined a new word. Actually, I have forged it.

But first, background:

On of the things I love about Mr. Knightly is that he is a quick wit with words (try saying that five times fast!) He loves to spout puns, and counts it better if the turn of phrase actually makes me groan out loud. A few years ago, before we left New Orleans, he was commenting on the slew of new restaurants, tourist attractions, and general architecture that simulated the authentic character of his home town. For example, there is a certain hotel/bar in Fat City that is built as if it originated in the French Quarter, and was moved brick by brick into the middle of a late 1970's strip mall. In actuality, it was build to look that way, but has no historical significance. Likewise, you can see chain restaurants with the fake crumbling plaster on the walls, as if the walls weren't sheathed in gypsum drywall.

The Fleur de Lis is a symbol of New Orleans. The NFL team wears in on their helmets, you see it on official city documents, and its in the architecture everywhere. So, Knightly decided that when someone used New Orleans design elements to make something look like authentic N'Awlins stuff, he would dub it "Faux de Lis."

This makes me smile every time I think of it. Not just because he looks at the world in such a way that he noticed the trend, but that his mind caught a perfect opportunity to name the phenomenon that merges two French inspired terms to lampoon the "genuine reproduction" craze that aims to part us from our money.

If you live north of Baton Rouge, or east of Pass Christian, and you have decorative wrought iron scroll work with "Romeo Spikes," you most likely have Faux de Lis.

Any street signs put up in the last 50 years to emulate the classic French Quarter street signs - Faux de Lis.

A business that puts tiles into its newly poured sidewalk to make it look like its been there a hundred years is using Faux de Lis to gain your trust. Note - any copying of evocative memorabilia sold as a souvenir or art piece that clearly is a homage, but not meant to fool you, is NOT Faux de Lis. It may or may not be in good taste, but at least it is not trying to be something it's not.

Giving things made up French or Cajun sounding names to indicate a relationship with NOLA or NOLA cuisine is Faux de Lis. Calling something "Bourbon Chicken" doesn't change the fact that its Chinese food! It's good, but is it creole?

So, gentle reader, you may ask, "What does this have to do with St. Patrick's Day?" Patience, I was working my way around to that.

I stumbled across this definition in Merriam Webster online recently:

hibernaculum \hy-ber-NAK-yuh-lum\ noun :

a shelter occupied during the winter by a dormant animal (as an insect or
reptile)

Example sentence: The park ranger explained that a good
hibernaculum might be used by many different snakes year after year.

But, in my slightly dyslexic mind, the first time I looked at the word, I saw "hibernulacrum," which , if you deconstruct it, seems to be made up of hibernia from the Latin name for Ireland, and "-ulacrum," the ending of the word simulacrum, meaning "an image or representation; an insubstantial, superficial, or vague likeness or semblance." Naturally, I thought this new word referred to the condition where something has a superficial or shallow semblance to Ireland or being Irish. Y'know, like St. Patrick's Day!

Plumbing again the depths of my wealth of useless and inconsequential knowledge, I reveal to you that St. Patrick's Day is NOT an Irish holiday. It was created
by Irish immigrants in America to celebrate their heritage. But it is no more
rooted in the culture of Ireland than Independence Day on the 4th of July. However, St. Paddy's Day is one of my favorite American holidays.

Then I realized, my new word is basically the Irish equivalent of Faux de Lis. When someone goes out of their way to appear Irish or to have links to things "old country" or Celtic, beware of hibernulacrum!

If it works for things Irish and Vieux Carre-ish, there must be cool words out there to describe other Disneyesque recreations of authentic cultural tropes. Can you think of any? "Tuscany Raiders"? "Greek-to-me"?

Also, Las Vegas doesn't count. It's too easy.

Two Stories; One with A Visual Aid

2008-03-16T21:51:00.003-04:00

This is how I know he is my son, and did not get mixed up in the hospital with another baby:

"Mommy, the next day I don't have school, you know what I want to do? I want to take all my socks, and lay the ones that match on top of each other. And then we can put them in the drawer together, and the ones with writing will be with the ones with writing, and the plain ones will be with the plain ones. That's what I want to do."
____________________________________

We were reading his TOP SECRET spy book. It said "No Unauthorized Access" on the cover. After I explained what "access" and "authorized" meant, he told me: "That means YOU are not allowed to look in here." Then he proceeded to ask for my help filling out the forms inside.

We came to this page, which purports to evaluate your current spy skills; an SAT, if you will.

(Spy Aptitude Test)

I read the words to him, and he decided whether to check the box or not. He checked "Quick thinking," but opted for the red X for "Cool under pressure." He was happy to switch back to the green crayon for "Good on computers," and "Observant." But then we got to "Patient."

He knew he wasn't successful at displaying patience, so I was curious to see if he would go with the green or red; the checkmark or the X. Imagine my surprise when he reached for a new crayon. "I'll put M for maybe," he told me, "because I am trying really hard and sometime I can be patient."
As you can see, he was pretty confident in most of the spy abilities, but when he got to "Good at writing reports," he did not put yes, no, or maybe. He reached for the brown crayon, and inserted the non-verbal equivalent of "not applicable." He figured, he could not say he wasn't good at writing reports, since he can't write yet.

I love the way a simple yes or no exercise becomes a chance to deconstruct his own skills and develop a few shades of gray between the black and white answers expected of him.

Boy, I sure do hope his teachers have the same appreciation for subtlety and complexity as I do!

BlogHopping

2008-03-10T21:55:00.002-04:00

I just learned there is a name for what I do when I can't sleep at night - Blog Hopping! I usually don't comment, but I found out about this group created by BusyDad, so I think I will start leaving notes. It's too bad they don't have a button for those hopping on cafeine (mine's tea).

Walking to New Orleans

2008-03-09T23:35:00.005-04:00

Great News! I'll be going down to New Orleans next month for a conference, and I'm bringing Owl and Mr. Knightly with me for the first three days! I've just learned that our visit coincides with the French Quarter Festival! (Yes, Virginia, it is a coincidence.) Knightly also informs me the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival falls on that weekend as well! Two of my favorite southeast Louisiana festivals! You know I'm going. Good thing the meeting doesn't start until Monday.

I hope to hook up with a certain NOLA blogger whom I haven't seen since before she became a mom. I have it on good authority (hers) that the comic book shop she and hubby own does in fact carry Yugioh and Pokemon cards, so Owl will think they are awesome...

We will be celebrating Owl's paternal grandmother's birthday, which means we'll see whatever family is in town. It's weird - I've only been back once since Katrina - so many people we haven't found yet. If we lived in NOLA and saw mutual friends, I'm sure we'd locate them, but we miss out on just stopping by when we are on a whirlwind visit like this one.
_______

We are moving the treadmill back in to the house, so I'll be going back to my Virtual Walk down the jersey shore, but I'll also be doing some actually walking through the old neighborhood, maybe along the levee, and definitely around the Quarter. The counting of calories, however, shall be suspended during that trip. Too much good food that I can't get here.

A Fortuitous Post

2008-03-08T23:35:00.008-05:00

Do I believe in coincidences? How could I not?

NOLA Notes has asked this question on her blog, and I could not resist posting the brain dump that follows....

I'm not sure what people mean when they claim not to believe in coincidences.

I don't believe in umbrellas. Let me make something clear: I do not dispute that they EXIST, I just do not feel the value of avoiding a few drops of rain directly on top of my head while the rest of my body gets wet (and the humidity wrecks my hair anyway) outweighs the general inconvenience of carting the darn thing around. It's a long pointy thing which spends half its time dripping in the corner, or left behind on the back of a chair, necessitating purchasing of a replacement, or worse, having to retrace one's steps to locate it. Bah, humbug. Just man up and get a little wet. How soft are we anyway?

So, why do I have a problem with the statement "I don't believe in coincidences"? I, too, have heard this line in movies, usually when the detective character is about to crack the case wide open. But they don't mean the coincidence didn't actually happen, they mean the coinciding events are actually related in a meaningful (but not yet apparent) way. Sure, everything is related to everything else (See, The Force) But not every related thing means anything in the context of our lives. I defer to chaoticians for the details, but just because something is tangentially connected doesn't make it significant. With all the possible occurrences over eternity, can we really have a problem getting our minds around the idea that sometimes you just happen to park next to the same color and model care in a parking lot?

Again, people don't really mean that they don't believe that like things coincide, right? What they mean when they say they don't believe in coincidences is they don't believe the two occurrences are not somehow related. So, in the murder mystery scenario, a chief suspect ate dinner in the same restaurant as the victim on the night he died. Proving that this is not a coincidence is the detective's job. But really, it only becomes probative if the suspect tried to hide it. Most people would say "Oh, God, he's dead? I just saw him at dinner last night!" This springs out of the fact that many people DO NOT believe in coincidence, and therefore avoid mentioning having been with the dead guy, for fear of making themselves a suspect. But come on, a lot of people were in the same restaurant that night. Not all of them were complicit in his death. It's a coincidence!

So, that's my definition of coincidence: When two events coincide, and are actually unrelated, regardless of the initial appearance of a meaningful relationship.

OK, I'm all over the place here (experimenting with stream of consciousness writing to see if I can post more if I do not over edit and throw away half of it.) Let's try again:

To assert that one does not believe in coincidences is to fall prey to one of the oldest and most basic logical fallacies: post hoc, ergo propter hoc ("after this, therefore because of this"). I washed my car, and therefore it rained. I thought of my friend, and then she called me. I read a post about Dudley More, and Arthur was on TV that night. (That last one did not really happen, it's a gift for NOLA.) Sometimes there is a causal link between things, but sometimes, it's just a coincidence.

Denying the existence of coincidences also doesn't make sense if you believe in free will. Let's say you think that running into a specific person just when you needed him or his services can't be a coincidence, that there is some invisible hand guiding events (God, Fate, voodoo dolls). Then, how do you make decisions for yourself, and claim responsibility for those decisions? If "it was meant to be" is a valid statement, then you don't get credit for all that hard work you put into school, or raising your kids, or improving your marriage. You're just along for the ride. Living in that world scares me. You can believe in fate, or God's intervention, and still believe in coincidences. But to totally rule out coincidences, that means its all planned, down to the smallest detail. That would be like watching a movie you've seen several times before. You know what's going to happen, and you know the characters can't change it.

I can't breathe when I think of that.

I like the idea that the world exists and although we all are directing our lives, we intersect randomly sometimes. Knightly and I went to Cape May this winter for a weekend getaway. Walking down the street, we ran into a colleague of his from his office, a three hour drive away. Coincidence? YES!! Last week, we saw a concert with musicians playing a New Orleans sound. We ran into another associate, who is known to Knightly to be a huge fan of this band, Coincidence? NO - it follows that two people who live in the same area would attend the local concert of a band they like. I don't think it's a coincidence if we both shop at the same store, given that the store sells something we both like. But it may be coincidence if we are both in the store at the same time. Unless I'm stalking you. But that would be creepy.

I think the likelihood that these so called coincidences are in fact unrelated is so much higher then the likelihood that all seemingly meaningful/related events actually are the result of someone or something scripting our lives. So, dammit, YES, of course I believe in coincidences!

But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in hearing an opposing point of view. Any takers?

Star Wars: The Next Generation

2008-03-05T21:39:00.005-05:00

Mr. Knightly and I both saw the original Star Wars movie in the theater as kids. When we met, we discovered that we were both readers of the series of novels following the characters after the trilogy (Spoiler Alert: Yes, Leia and Han get married and have kids.) Oh, and yes, we are that big a pair of geeks. But it was geek love for real. A few months after we met, I caught some awful cold/virus/flu thing after 35 hours on a Greyhound bus, and he brought over the latest installment in the series, and read it to me while I languished in bed. And he brought me chicken soup and M&Ms. Clearly, this was THE guy!

After we were married, we did go to see the 20th anniversary rerelease of the original film in the theater. it was great, the whole audience laughed outloud at whiny Luke on the moisture farm. And at how cheesy the then-revolutionary special effects looked in 20 years later.

Fast forward another 11 years. After the unforgivable, wretched morass that was episodes 1 through 3, we got the DVDs of the three good movies, and introduced our offspring to the galaxy far far away. He is now enamoured of all things Jedi and Sith. For his birthday, he requested the "Force Unleashed Color Changing Light Saber." Yeah, he got it. His cousin is all the rage with the combination Darth Vader mask/helmet and voice changer ("Luuuke, I am your cousin").

We do not have a gaming system in the house. We do not allow him to play the shoot-em-up games at the arcade. You'd never know it. Observe how he takes normal household items and uses them as weapons (such as the gunner station on the Millenium Falcon). Sigh.

Spring Cleaning

2008-03-01T21:48:00.003-05:00

Six months ago, I had a bit of an epiphany about where I was headed with my life, healthwise. I wrote about it, and a friend told me I should read that post everyday to remind myself what I was making the changes for. I look back at it about once a month. Today was one of those days.

Many times in the past I have vowed to change. I have usually not lived up to my own high expectations. This time has been different.

I have changed my eating habits, and (with the help again of Jenny Craig) am 17 pounds into my my new body. I have stood up for myself at work, and negotiated a 10% raise. I have started the long delayed de-cluttering campaign in my house, and have thrown out or given away things I haven't used in years, yet felt compelled to keep.

Today, I took a picture to be framed. I ordered it when we bought this house, to go over the fireplace. Then, I was too cheap to pay to get it framed. Today, I decided I'm worth it. it was expensive, but I did it because I will enjoy it. I actually met this woman in the frame shop who watched the framer work with my and put her two cents in on the color of the mat, etc, and we had fun. I usually don't talk to strangers, because I am afraid they'll think I am weird, or needy.
(As the lawyer who handled my first house purchase said: "If you can't have fun when you are spending a lot of money, when can you?")

Now that spring is just around the corner, there are more opportunity for calorie burning, muscle building outdoor activities; more impetus for spring cleaning; fresh healthy fruits and veggies... so it will get even better. A good time to continue this fresh start.

What do you look forward to in spring?

I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight

2008-02-28T22:28:00.005-05:00

"But I want a drink of water..." whines the small one.

"No, you've had a drink of water, we've read a book, I've tucked you in. You will now go to bed," the exasperated mommy replies.

"But I'm ...not...tired," he groans.

Heavy sigh. Must.resist.urge.to.scream. "Honey, it is past your bedtime. You have to sleep to stay healthy." Logic? This will not alter his behavior. But yet: "Look, we can do this easy, or we can do this hard. You are done for the day. Do you want to go to bed peacefully, or do you want to have a fight?"

"Ooh, mommy, I want to fight, let's fight!" The boy assumes a karate stance, because after all, his mother just offered to spar with him for entertainment.

It was so ingenuous, I relented, traded punches with him, and sent him to bed tired and happy.

"Just Call Me Moondance Hussein Anne" Day

2008-02-28T21:22:00.005-05:00

Just Call Me Hussein Day was started by the MOMocrats "in response to fools like Bill Cunningham who is obviously still seven years old.."

So, surprise, Moondance is not the name I carried as a child. But mine was a brutal name; I never knew anyone (except my mother, grandmother, aunt, and cousin) with my name. It was a double name, because, like all girls born in the northeast of Irish or English dissent in the mid 1960s, my middle name was Anne, and I was force to use it, to differentiate me from the others in the family with my name, who were born first and got all the cool nicknames. I hated my name, and rued the day my parents gave it to me. I felt like "A Boy Named Sue."

I now love my name, its formality and rarity making it special. People come up with nicknames for me, but I go back to my real name (minus the middle name - I'm quirky, not crazy) every time, because I've grown into it.

As I'm sure Barack Obama feels about his name. Look, Bill Cunningham: attack the guy's politics, his youth, his oratory, but not his name! He didn't choose it. At the time his parents gave it to him, it was a family name: How were they to know the connotations and gut reactions 21st century Americans would have to the name because an Iraqi dictator carried it?

Because that is clearly what he intended by using it. It's not like his middle name is an embarrassment to him, but it is also not an indication of his sympathies to dictatorships or terrorism, or even feelings about his father's or grandfather's culture or religion. It was a name given to him, and we all know he has a staff who have done public opinion research and determined it would not help him get elected if he started using it.

Look at Hilliary Clinton. If my memory serves, she was known as Hillary Rodham until about the time her husband decided to run for President. Studies must have shown having a different last name as your wife was not conducive to getting elected to the highest office in the land, so she became Hillary Rodham Clinton. (I did not change my name when we got married, but if I thought taking his name would get us into the White House, I'd hyphenate in a minute. To attract the vote of narrow minded old fashioned conservatives? Whatever, it's the White House baby, you'll do more for feminism in that office than sitting in Arkansas with your chosen name.) Now, she's just Senator Clinton.

"What's in a name?" Romeo asked. A candidate, were (s)he called by any other name, would still smell as sweet (or words to that effect).

So call me Mooondance Hussein today. For the names of our immigrant (or indigenous) ancestors are something all of us carry, whether we know it or not. We can carry them proudly, or be ignorant of their existence, it matters not (as Yoda would say). Ultimately, we are responsible for ourselves.

Yoda? What the hell kind of name is that?

The Happiest Place on Earth

2008-02-17T21:16:00.006-05:00

We spent a few days in Orlando earlier this month. It was Mardi Gras, so there were more New Orleanians at Disney World with us that inhabited the entire City of New Orleans in the months post Katrina! Or maybe not; most of the Louisiana folks we saw were sporting LSU garb. But it was fun walking around on Fat Tuesday in Florida seeing kids and their parents in the purple, gold and green of Carnivale, complete with beads and feather boas!

My brother in law brought three king cakes with him. And crawfish. We swam, went on rides, ate surprisingly healthy food, visited with family, and had an all around good time.

Owl was too young to remember his first trip to Disney World. He was a little scared to go on the Mission:Space simulater at Epcot, but here's what he said after the ride:

I don't know who is the biggest "Pirates of the Carribean" fan, he or I.

Of course, his obsession with Captain Jack Sparrow and mine come from different places.

We rented a house, which was great. Not as great as staying at - let's say - the Grand Floridian, but better than staying at my parents' timeshare or the Airport La Quinta. (Note to scmary: You ARE coming with us next time!) We had our own swimming pool, and kitchen, and laundry room. Oh, and air hockey, foosball, and darts. And four bedrooms. And free delivery from the Indian restaurant. Life is good.

Well, I'm back at work now, but I sometimes put on the piratey mouse ears and remember to have fun.

Worse Than Writer's Block

2008-02-17T20:54:00.002-05:00

I have that dreaded scourge of tentative bloggers - not writers block; I can think of plenty of things to write about. No, I compse lovely posts in my head whilst driving the car, and when bedtime rolls around for the young one and I tuck him in, I scoot over to the keyboard, and - POW, all the great prose is gone. The idea that was so entertaining or thought provoking earlier in the day has slipped away.

I'm tired, I'm drained, I'm thinking about the bills I need to pay, or the meeting I have tomorrow, and all I want to do is channel surf (I mean, the new "Knight Rider" is on tongiht - now with less Hasselhoff!). I like to fancy myself a writer, but it is my husband who is able to channel his drive into actually writing. HE wrote a novel during NaNoWriMo. HE is the on who HAS to write. Maybe I'm just a wannabe.

That's depressing.

My question to you regularly posting, prolific bloggers out there reading: How do YOU do it? Do you make the time no matter what? Do you hand write notes to yourself, or email paragraphs to yourself while at work? Do you post no matter what, and eventually you get used to it and its a habit?

I worry about writing something boring, or too much of a "me too" post (when I'm inspired by another blogger). I worry that I've become the boring woman at the party who can only talk about how cute/precocious her kid is. I'm a perfectionist, so I'll sit on a timely post until the timeliness has worn out and it's too embarassing to put it out there two months atfter the fact.

Any hints on overcoming this "fear of blogging?"

Font of Information

2008-01-30T20:54:00.000-05:00

My nephew's baptism was last weekend. His mother is Roman Catholic, and his father is Jewish. He, like his brothers, will be raised Catholic. His cousins on his dad's side are all Jewish. They celebrate all the important holidays and religious observations of both families. After the ceremony, I was talking with one of his aunts, whose son (not Catholic) asked us to come with him to get a drink. Then he led us up to the altar. "No, no, honey," she said to her seven year old, "you can't get a drink from there." (The holy water receptacle.)

"But, it says that's where you go for refreshments," he told us.

He was right, that's what it said.

The Wages of Sin

2008-01-24T13:38:00.000-05:00

Do you have these books on your shelf, in various stages of "unread"?

Books with names like "Just DO IT" or "How to Conquer Clutter and Still Show Up for Dinner in Pearls," or "Feng Shui Your Life"?

Because of my strict Catholic upbringing, I of course believe that any shortcoming of mine is a sin, and I will be, or am being, punished for them. My nephew, eight years old, is in CCD and will receive his First Holy Communion this year. Yes, it gets capitalized like that. Prior to receiving the Eucharist, the "Body of Christ" (also caps), he must confess his sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (OK, so you get the idea with the proper names for everything by now. No more commentary from me on it.)

I called him to talk to him about it, and he told me "I am so nervous." Poor kid, he's eight years old and is being taught that his little child ways are sinful. He should confess to God that he hit his brother, or watched TV even after Mom said not to. It is our job as parents to use a system of rewards and punishments to teach our children that there are consequences in life for what we do. But it is training and remediation. It's not yet time to make them feel shame and that their immortal souls are in peril because they jumped on the couch.

I watch my mother with the grandchildren. She uses guilt to punish them when they commit some transgression in front of her. She calls them lazy or mean, she tells them they are bad people because of their actions. I have to stop her. They are still learning manners, and societal norms. They are not evil if they note out loud "that man is fat." He is! The way I look at it, we have to teach them empathy and compassion, we can't expect it unless we explain it to them, and model it for them in our own behaviour. Instead of seeing opportunities for teaching and discussions, she tells them there is something wrong with them to act that way.

Hey, I think I just figured something out! No wonder I feel like a defective person because my office is a mess and my dining room still isn't painted. I feel incomplete because I can't keep up with my Tivo recording. This is the woman who raised ME. She built in these buttons, these hard wired responses. She is a large part of the reason I am so freaking neurotic about almost everything, and so hesitant to call attention to myself. After all, if people notice you, you'll get berated and shot down.

What an epiphany!

Bub and Pie asked her readers if we think people can change. I said I hope so, because I have to. I think knowing how I got this way, and that it is not the way I have to be, will help me change.

* * *

OK, now back to the notion I wanted to discuss at the beginning of this entry, before the tangent about not ruining your kids. I am so disorganized and procrastinating, that it actually costs me money. Case in point:

I love to write. Sometimes, the words come faster than I can put them on paper. However, my real problem came when my employer (first law firm) made me stop writing my briefs in longhand, explaining that the secretary could type it faster if I dictated. Once I discovered the joys of merely speaking your thoughts out loud and having them returned to you in twelve point Times New Roman, I was hooked.

My next job introduced me to the desktop PC. Sure, I'd worked with computers in the computer labs at college, but to have your own into which you typed emails and letters, with a printer attached - this was new. The problem is, I cannot type. My speed is poor, my spelling abysmal, and my keyboarding skills worst then that. I've improved appreciably, but it's still bad. I have some kind of brain blockage between the part of my brain that thinks of words, and the part that tells my fingers which keys to punch. With pen and paper, the words flow without thinking. With a keyboard, I am slowed down to letter by letter, and my sentences float away into the ephemera before I can tie them down on the page. This is not good.

So, I bought Dragon dictation software. I priced it online (at several sites), and at Staples, and Office Depot near my house. it takes a while to spend this kind of money, but I finally do. I load it onto my computer and learn that I do not possess adequate RAM to run the bloody thing. So, I go through the same process in purchasing another gig of RAM (the online search, several trips to the strip mall). A few moths later, I install the extra memory. Then, I can't find the box with the program in it. Several more months pass before I find myself with a quiet Saturday to look through the piles of papers in my office and unearth the CD. I install it in my upgraded computer. Now it asks for the serial number on the box. The problem is, I threw out the box when I opened it the day I bought it. I go online and Dragon tells me if I have receipt, they can give me the code. However now I can't remember if I ordered it through Amazon, or bought it at a local store. If I bought it from the sore, which one? Where is the receipt? I still haven't found it.

The point of this long monologue is that the $99 I spent a year ago on this software is wasted, because I can't use it. I can't use it because I am a messy, disorganized, slothful person. Sloth, that's a Deadly Sin - look it up.

The Wages of Sin...

Gesundheit, Dr. King

2008-01-24T10:38:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah, I realize the official holiday was Monday, and his actual birthday is the 15th, but honoring orators like Martin Luther King Jr. cannot be confined to one day a year.

I remember being a school child and learning about MLK. We were told he was a great, inspiring public speaker. We were told he fought for peace and justice and equality. If we were shown it, I was too young for it to sink in.

I took several public speaking courses as an undergraduate, and I remember studying some of his speeches. But, over time, one forgets. The immediacy of his message and his delivery become icons, shortcuts to stand for something, but not the thing in itself. They become tired and generic catch phrases, but no longer resonate.

On Monday, the NPR radio station I was listening to was playing some of the speeches and sermons Dr. King delivered. I got chills and misty eyed when he spoke of his dream that one day his four little children would live in a world where they were judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their characters. I called up the whole speech (delivered at the Lincoln Memorial) on YouTube, and watched the news coverage of the event, with lots of crowd shots of black and white people moved by his skillful delivery. Try it. I was thinking about the world they lived in, and the things we take for granted in our world, that would not be possible without the steady, excruciatingly slow, and often disappointing steps toward progress those people made, and those after them. But the result has been change.

In my car on Monday, I also got to hear two pieces that were new to me. One was a speech in which he talks about his own funeral. He says he does not want the person who speaks for him to talk about his Nobel Peace Prize, or where he went to college, or about awards he received. He wants to be remembered for trying to feed the hungry, trying to help the poor, trying to make a difference. I think THAT dream has been fulfilled. He did not sound like he was being disingenuously humble. Instead, he was relating how his sense of pride came from doing those things, not from getting awards and good grades. Interesting. (I note that there is a movement afoot, I read about it in Oh The Joys, to make MLK Day "A Day On, Not a Day Off." What a great way to honor his life and add to his legacy for our children. I am going to start small - the animal shelter. Owl can understand being nice to animals.)

The second speech recounted how, after he had been attacked and stabbed by a woman in New York, he received a letter from a 9th grader in White Plains. The child wrote that she heard that the knife was so close to his aorta, that had he so much as sneezed before they opened his chest and took it out, he would have bleed to death. Then she said "I'm so glad you didn't sneeze." Much laughter in the audience. Ultimately, it was another attack by another human being that did kill him, but his work and his words are still with us.

Gesundheit, Dr. King. God Bless You.

In Which I Introduce Mr. Knightly

2008-01-16T20:15:00.000-05:00

I've been blogging for about a year now, but I have so far failed to come up with a way to refer to my husband (while maintaining the pseudonymity I desire to avoid the uncomfortable situations of employers or clients getting to know me too well through the disclosures I make in this blog).

With no further ado, I present to you - Mr. Knightly. Jane Austen fans know him well, and my Knightly takes his name from his gentlemanly demeanor, as well as from my lifelong fascination with the nobility and chivalry and fairy tales. It is said that women all want rescuing by a knight in shining armour. I want to BE the knight in shining armour. And he lets me. So, he came to my rescue by giving me what I want. See how that works? He's perfect.

He is a champion of others. In the archaic use of the term. He fights for those who can't speak for themselves. He speaks softly and commands attention. He tells me that he never got into fights in high school, because as a black belt in tae kwon do, he knew he would badly hurt whomever he fought. And he carried himself in such a way that he never was challenged and had to find out.

He is a musician. He plays guitar by ear. He used to play in a band, and I got to be groupie. Groupie to a band of 35+ y.o. lawyers whose kids came to their jam sessions. In which they played traditional Celtic and American folk and blues.

He is a dart player. A good one. Nationally competitive.

He is an athlete in Scottish Highland Games. Men in kilts drinking Guinness. 'Nuff said.

He is a daddy. He is the reason I had Owl. Because it wouldn't be fair if that man, of all men in the world, didn't get to raise a child. He's that good.

He shares my interest in sci fi novels, James Bond movies, and Indian cuisine. I couldn't ask for more.

But of course, I do. It's just my nature. And he accepts that. Because that's his nature. Like I said, he's perfect. How lucky am I?

In Bed

2008-01-16T20:09:00.000-05:00

"Oooo, you are so hot!" he breathes as he slides towards me under the covers. He reaches out to me, and as his hands touch my skin, I gasp and shiver....

Because his hands are ICE COLD! Because his comment to me was not the husky whisper of a lover extolling my sexiness, it was the matter of fact observation of my relative body temperature. Relative to the cold hands of a five year old. He loves to take his sub-zero feet and press them into my shins, while rubbing his hands on my arms or belly. Because we mothers, we live to serve. Even if it means sacrificing body heat to make our offspring comfortable.

Although, frankly, I think he just does it to hear me screech!

Inches

2008-01-10T02:03:00.000-05:00

Last night my Jenny Craig consultant re-measured me, for the first time since I started losing weigh in November. I lost an inch at my bust, waist, abdomen, and hips. Or, as she pronounced it "FOUR INCHES!!" At the time, I just smiled sweetly and accepted her encouragement. But inside?

Inside I was thinking, "It's not actually four inches, you know. You just measured the same loss in four places. If I measured my thigh, and added that, you'd say I lost five inches when in fact I am the same size as I was when you measured me. What you actually mean to do is take several measurements, and average them out to approximate my loss of circumference, as it were. Except you left out the second step, the averaging of the measurements. So your results are neither meaningful nor statistically valid."

OK, I just added that last bit in a fit of pique. But apart from the irrelevance of statistical validity, it is a little weird to add up measurements like that. So, driving home, my mind wandered, and I realized the measuring in several places would actually be an appropriate way of measuring a person's change in volume. We know how much weight I've lost, from the scale, but the tape measure is used to measure how much space I am taking up. The more samples, or measurements, you take, the closer you come to actually figuring out how much less of me there is. It's sort of like sampling to measure the area under a curve, and then rotating it around the axis, and using derivative equations to calculate the volume of the solid thus created.

I swear, I actually rotated curves in my head as I drove home, and tried to remember the equations for calculating the volume. I am that geeky. Or nerdy (Nola, tell me which it is.) However, I also have lost the brain cells that know Calculus, so I couldn't complete the analysis. How sad is that?

Looking at it from another vantage point, I recently had to move to the second hook on my bra, because the first one is too loose. Same concept, but more "reality TV" friendly.

Wintersea

2008-01-08T00:55:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't talked about this a lot since last summer, but I have been working in small ways to change my life. Most notably is that I have taken control over what I eat. Instead of mindlessly filling my body with whatever is convenient, I decided that I deserved real food. You know, the kind with actual nutritional value. I don't allow my five year old to eat crap, why should I permit myself to act like a human trash can?

As a result, I am becoming more healthy. I am getting used to going out of my way for the sole purpose of benefiting me, to finding healthy eating alternatives for me, just because I am worth it. Huh. Who knew? I can make time for myself. Of course, none of this would be possible if I did not make it all about someone else. But taking care of myself is easier for me if behind it all, I know I am not just doing it for me, but to be around and active and in Owl's life for a very very long time.

So far I have lost thirteen pounds. This should bring both my blood pressure and my cholesterol down, decree my risk of heart disease, and decrease my chronic back pain. It's all good.

Believe it or not, this is one of the biggest disclosures I've made in this blog. I have to decide how I want to address that, or if at all, but my weight management issue has been invisible so far. No longer. I feel like I've told you a secret about myself.

Corporate Thank You Gifts

2008-01-08T00:54:00.000-05:00

I've been making a list, checking it twice, and casting my mind about to come up with gifts that will be appreciated by family and friends. That got me to thinking of gifts I have received. Last month, I spoke at a conference and got a "thank you" gift from the association sponsoring the conference. It was a coffee mug wit the association logo, and a package of local chicory coffee. I don't drink coffee, but I still thought it was a good gift: It had local flavor (pun totally intended), it was useful, and it was not prohibited on an airplane. Over the years, I've gotten many such corporate thank you gifts - some spot on, and some which made me wish they had just kept it and send me a nice letter instead.

From American Health Lawyers Association, I have a set of brass and leather coasters which I have carried from job to job. They always sit on my desk. They have also given out canvas tote bags, which I swear reproduce like tribbles in my hall closet. Next time I get one of those, I am just leaving it in the hotel room.

From the law firm of Jackson and Lewis, as part of the registration fee at one of their seminars, I have a cool satchel /computer bag that morphs in to a backpack. Very cool. Again, useful. If I am going to parade around providing free advertising for your company, the item you give me better fill a need I have more elegantly than what I am using to do it now. This hasn't replaced my leather briefcase, but it works well on planes and when I have binders or books to cart around and need to keep my hands free.

From various hospital fundraising galas, I have countless glass paperweights. the first one was beatul, useful and captivating to my son. The eith one I lef ton the table. I think the job of fundraisers should include corporate espionage. If another organization likely to get support from the same donor base is giving out a gift, you should strive to best them, not copy them. How many glass paperweights does one person need. I could put together a game of clue" "Miss Scarlet in the library with the etched globe."

Refrigerator magnets. Yeah, they're cheap, but you can rub a glue stick on it and attach kids' artwork to the fridge. So, free is good. Asom if they include a little "picture frame without the marketing material, they are nice for snapshots.

Chocolate. Yes, this was from a meeting in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Enough said.

One organization gave me an engraved key chain, and that was nice. it had their logo and said thank you on it. Most memorable about that was that they presented it at the end of my portion of the program, thanking me publicly. That kind of recognition goes beyond the mere fact that they put a gift in their budget - it really makes you feel appreciated and want to come back again.

I've gotten plenty of pens. They range from nice to "why bother" All in all, not very original.

So here's my fantasy Christmas list of corporate thank you gifts I'd like to see:

For an inspirational speaker at an Apple executive retreat: An iPhone with a years subscription plan.

Random Acts of Kindness

2008-01-03T22:50:00.000-05:00

I have nothing to write about, so I am stealing from my sister's experiences and observations.

This Christmas season was especially stressful and hectic for her, so she was really looking forward to a glass of wine after dinner the other night. Knowing that the only way a glass of wine was going to appear in her hand when needed would be if she drove to the wine shop, purchased a bottle of said wine, and brought it home. Which she proceeded to do. With her 11 month old child, a circumstance that caused her further stress, because we all know moms with babies NEED extra help relaxing sometimes, but no one wants to be the one with a baby in a liquor store.

So she bundles up the little one, buys the wine, shuffles back to the car through the cold, and puts the bag on the hood of the car in order to fasten junior in to his NHTSA approved car seat. You know where I am going with this. Yes, the bottle fell and shattered on the ground next to her car.

She takes the baby OUT of the car, trudges BACK to the the store, to let them know there's broken glass in the parking lot now, and to find the owner of the car under whose tires the broken glass is hiding. On her way in, she passes some patrons coming out of the store, who appear to be too young to be frequenting such an establishment. (Don't you love how the older we get, the younger 21 year olds look?) She asks the kid if that was his car, and explains. He thanks her, showing surprise that she would go out of her way to warn him, especially while toting a well insulated bundle of potential wailing.

He follows her back into the store and finds the same bottle of wine for her (on the high shelf), and then he convinces the clerk that he shouldn't charge my sister for the second bottle, since it's obviously not her fault it broke, and she never got to enjoy it. He goes out to the parking lot to bring back part of the broken bottle to show that she's not faking it, and the clerk gives her the second bottle gratis. What nice guy (both of them).

This really made a difference to her. The young man reminded her that now she has to be nice to someone as a way of thanking him. I know she will be.

She told me this story in the car, and later that night, as she keep the motor running (and the heated leather seat activated) while I popped into the grocery store, she saw something else that made her smile:

If you hadn't noticed, it's been a little windy here on the east coast these past few days. And cold. And did I mention, cold? So it's about 9:30 at night, and she sees a man in a business suit leave the supermarket. Late day at the office, he's picking up a few staples on his way home, she surmises. The wind starts blowing a cart out of the "cart corral" and across the parking lot. It's headed toward a lone car. The man starts running, in his dress shoes, in the biting cold wind, and gets to it before it dings the car. And then he walks away. It wasn't even his car. He ran in the opposite direction of his warm car, after a 12 hour work day, when the owner of the car wasn't even there to see him. I hope that man gets some good karmic payback.

Hearing those two stories from my sis made me feel like the Grinch did when his heart got all big. That's the holiday spirit, already popping up in 2008.

A Wish to God

2007-12-23T22:54:00.000-05:00

"Mommy, you know what I wish to God?"

"What, Honey?" [Note to self: Child his age should know wishing to God is called praying. Prepare response in case he uses such verbiage in front of church going grandparents.]

"I wish that...I wish to God that..." These deep thoughts are a long time coming, and I don't want to break his stride while he's putting it all together. All the same, he's losing me. I'm anticipating his next words. I think I know what he his going to say. I think he is not clear on the difference between God and Santa, and I half expect him to start reeling off a lost from the Toys R Us catalogue.

"I wish that the world will never end and that if it gets to the end, He makes it start over again. The dinosaurs would come back, and then us, and then the future again. I don't want the world to end."

Hmmm. Wasn't expecting THAT.

January (chow chow chow chow chow)

2007-12-23T22:26:00.000-05:00

OK, so NOLA is not really my friend - she send the blog equivalent of a chain letter. At least it does not promise that my children will never amount to anything if i let this die son the vine.

The Rules:
1. Mention the person who tagged you and create a link back to them.

2. Copy-paste the traits for all the twelve months.

3. Pick your month of birth.

4. Highlight the traits that apply to you.

5. Tag 12 people and let them know by visiting their blogs and leaving a comment for them.

6. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve done it!

SO, I'm skipping #5.

Here are the January attributes that apply to me:

I've been told that I am stubborn (although I think I am a pushover), but never hard hearted.

My ambitiousness has been burned out of me, but I am very serious.

"Loves to teach and be taught." That's spot on.

"Always looking at people’s flaws and weaknesses." Some people say I am never satisfied. I don't SEEK flaws, but the are apparent to me, so I guess this might seem to be an accurate description.

"Likes to criticize." See above.

"Hardworking and productive." Well, that's my goal, so I'd like to think this applies to me.

"Smart, neat and organized." On my wish list.

"Sensitive and has deep thoughts." Ditto.

"Knows how to make others happy." I wish I did, but no.

"Quiet unless excited or tensed." Check.

"Rather reserved." One might say that.

"Highly attentive." What was that last one?

"Resistant to illnesses but prone to colds." Hardly.

"Romantic but has difficulties expressing love." Not anymore.

"Loves children." People look at you like you are a Nazi if you answer it in the negative, so I'll take the fifth.

"Loyal." Define loyalty.

"Has great social abilities yet easily jealous." This is not me.

"Very stubborn and money cautious." You already said "stubborn," so I'm going to have to deduct that mistake from your fee.

________________________________

Here's the list of attributes:

JANUARY: Stubborn and hard-hearted. Ambitious and serious. Loves to teach and be taught. Always looking at people’s flaws and weaknesses. Likes to criticize. Hardworking and productive. Smart, neat and organized. Sensitive and has deep thoughts. Knows how to make others happy. Quiet unless excited or tensed. Rather reserved. Highly attentive. Resistant to illnesses but prone to colds. Romantic but has difficulties expressing love. Loves children. Loyal. Has great social abilities yet easily jealous. Very stubborn and money cautious.

FEBRUARY: Abstract thoughts. Loves reality and abstract. Intelligent and clever. Changing personality. Attractive. Sexy. Temperamental. Quiet, shy and humble. Honest and loyal. Determined to reach goals. Loves freedom. Rebellious when restricted. Loves aggressiveness. Too sensitive and easily hurt. Gets angry really easily but does not show it. Dislikes unnecessary things. Loves making friends but rarely shows it. Daring and stubborn. Ambitious. Realizes dreams and hopes. Sharp. Loves entertainment and leisure. Romantic on the inside not outside. Superstitious and ludicrous. Spendthrift. Tries to learn to show emotions.

MARCH: Attractive personality. Sexy. Affectionate. Shy and reserved. Secretive. Naturally honest, generous and sympathetic. Loves peace and serenity. Sensitive to others. Loves to serve others. Easily angered. Trustworthy. Appreciative and returns kindness. Observant and assesses others. Revengeful. Loves to dream and fantasize. Loves traveling. Loves attention. Hasty decisions in choosing partners. Loves home decors. Musically talented. Loves special things. Moody.

APRIL: Active and dynamic. Decisive and hasty but tends to regret. Attractive and affectionate to oneself. Strong mentality. Loves attention. Diplomatic. Consoling, friendly and solves people’s problems. Brave and fearless. Adventurous. Loving and caring. Suave and generous. Emotional. Aggressive. Hasty. Good memory. Moving. Motivates oneself and others. Sickness usually of the head and chest. Sexy in a way that only their lover can see.

MAY: Stubborn and hard-hearted. Strong-willed and highly motivated. Sharp thoughts. Easily angered. Attracts others and loves attention. Deep feelings. Beautiful physically and mentally. Firm Standpoint. Needs no motivation. Easily consoled. Systematic (left brain). Loves to dream. Strong clairvoyance. Understanding. Sickness usually in the ear and neck. Good imagination. Good physical. Weak breathing. Loves literature and the arts. Loves traveling. Dislike being at home. Restless. Not having many children. Hardworking. High spirited. Spendthrift.

JUNE: Thinks far with vision. Easily influenced by kindness. Polite and soft-spoken. Having ideas. Sensitive. Active mind. Hesitating, tends to delay. Choosy and always wants the best. Temperamental. Funny and humorous. Loves to joke. Good debating skills. Talkative. Daydreamer. Friendly. Knows how to make friends. Able to show character. Easily hurt. Prone to getting colds. Loves to dress up. Easily bored. Fussy. Seldom shows emotions. Takes time to recover when hurt. Brand conscious. Executive. Stubborn.

JULY: Fun to be with. Secretive. Difficult to fathom and to be understood. Quiet unless excited or tensed. Takes pride in oneself. Has reputation. Easily consoled. Honest. Concerned about people’s feelings. Tactful. Friendly. Approachable. Emotional temperamental and unpredictable. Moody and easily hurt. Witty and sparkly. Not revengeful. Forgiving but never forgets. Dislikes nonsensical and unnecessary things. Guides others physically and mentally. Sensitive and forms impressions carefully. Caring and loving. Treats others equally. Strong sense of sympathy. Wary and sharp. Judges people through observations. Hardworking. No difficulties in studying. Loves to be alone. Always broods about the past and the old friends. Likes to be quiet. Homely person. Waits for friends. Never looks for friends. Not aggressive unless provoked. Prone to having stomach and dieting problems. Loves to be loved. Easily hurt but takes long to recover.

AUGUST: Loves to joke. Attractive. Suave and caring. Brave and fearless. Firm and has leadership qualities. Knows how to console others. Too generous and egoistic. Takes high pride in oneself. Thirsty for praises. Extraordinary spirit. Easily angered. Angry when provoked. Easily jealous. Observant. Careful and cautious. Thinks quickly. Independent thoughts. Loves to lead and to be led. Loves to dream. Talented in the arts, music and defense. Sensitive but not petty. Poor resistance against illnesses. Learns to relax. Hasty and trusty. Romantic. Loving and caring. Loves to make friends.

SEPTEMBER: Suave and compromising. Careful, cautious and organized. Likes to point out people’s mistakes. Likes to criticize. Stubborn. Quiet but able to talk well. Calm and cool. Kind and sympathetic. Concerned and detailed. Loyal but not always honest. Does work well. Very confident. Sensitive. Good memory. Clever and knowledgeable. Loves to look for information. Must control oneself when criticizing. Able to motivate oneself. Understanding. Fun to be around. Secretive. Loves leisure and traveling. Hardly shows emotions. Tends to bottle up feelings. Very choosy, especially in relationships. Systematic.

OCTOBER: Loves to chat. Loves those who loves them. Loves to take things at the center. Inner and physical beauty. Lies but doesn’t pretend. Gets angry often. Treats friends importantly. Always making friends. Easily hurt but recovers easily. Daydreamer. Opinionated. Does not care of what others think. Emotional. Decisive. Strong clairvoyance. Loves to travel, the arts and literature. Touchy and easily jealous. Concerned. Loves outdoors. Just and fair. Spendthrift. Easily influenced. Easily loses confidence. Loves children.

NOVEMBER: Has a lot of ideas. Difficult to fathom. Thinks forward. Unique and brilliant. Extraordinary ideas. Sharp thinking. Fine and strong clairvoyance. Can become good doctors. Dynamic in personality. Secretive. Inquisitive. Knows how to dig secrets. Always thinking. Less talkative but amiable. Brave and generous. Patient. Stubborn and hard-hearted. If there is a will, there is a way. Determined. Never give up. Hardly becomes angry unless provoked. Loves to be alone. Thinks differently from others. Sharp-minded. Motivates oneself. Does not appreciate praises. High-spirited. Well-built and tough. Deep love and emotions. Romantic. Uncertain in relationships. Homely. Hardworking. High abilities. Trustworthy. Honest and keeps secrets. Not able to control emotions. Unpredictable.

DECEMBER: Loyal and generous. Sexy. Patriotic. Active in games and interactions. Impatient and hasty. Ambitious. Influential in organizations. Fun to be with. Loves to socialize. Loves praises. Loves attention. Loves to be loved. Honest and trustworthy. Not pretending. Short tempered. Changing personality. Not egotistic. Take high pride in oneself. Hates restrictions. Loves to joke. Good sense of humor. Logical.

'Zat You, Santa Claus ?

2007-12-18T01:37:00.000-05:00

'Tis the season... for examining our parenting choices. Nolanotes is holding out for a Green Santa, and Mom-101 is tackling the "what to tell the kids about Santa" decision in this post, which cites on this article in babble [N.B. do not read the comments in babble; some people are just dense/fanatical/literal]. I read all this after having a discussion with my parents about it earlier in the evening. (Oh, did I tell you my parents live with me now? Yeah.)

I had checked the homework, read the books, and kissed the little one goodnight. He was upstairs alternating getting his PJs on with brushing his teeth - and not getting either one done. I heard the sirens. And the air horns. I thought "It's 8:30 at night, that can't be what I think it is..." Fire trucks and other emergency vehicles have no reason to use their audible warning devices in my neck of the woods - there's no traffic. And on the occasion they need a little bbwweeep! to get another motorist out of the way, it's over as soon as it's started.

But not tonight. The keening went on and on, never fading into the distance. I knew there could only be one reason on a frosty night in December that the volunteer fire company would be slowly driving through my neighborhood sounding the sirens: It must be Santa Claus. I called Owl downstairs.

"Hurry Hurry, it's Santa."

He appeared at the top of the stairs, holding his hands over both ears (he still has not outgrown his distaste for loud noises. He was four and a half before we could sit through a fireworks show). He was also half dressed (bottom half). I scooped him up and headed out to the front lawn so he could get a good look at the man with the bag on top of the ladder truck. The flashing lights and bells and sirens continued. Owl reminded me that he was not, in fact, dressed for the weather. I brought him inside. He eagerly went back to Daddy and to bed. No excited conversations about how he had seen the big man himself. (No, Clarence Clemmons was not in the fire truck - stay focused).

That's when I remembered how we had just not made a big deal about Santa and Christmas in the past. And how that choice had been a big deal for my mom, who felt we were depriving him of the magic of Christmas. (This is the woman who has a framed copy of the "Yes, Virginia, There is A Santa Claus" letter on her end table.) This year, he was a little more eager to talk about it, a little more anticipating of presents, but, as evidenced by his blase attitude about the visit tonight, he is not obsessing about it.

That is not to say that he has not reminded me 30 times that I should not light a fire in the fireplace on Christmas Eve. But there has been no request to assemble a long list of demands ... I mean gifts ... he wants, or trips to the mall to sit on Santa's lap. I think he knows. I think he's okay with the idea of Santa as a literary figure, but, like Pokemon and Spiderman, such characters are for lunchboxes and bedtime stories and playing, but not real people he expects to actually see in real life.

Or, I could be projecting all of this and he's planning how to not get coal in his stocking.

Rockin' Robin

2007-12-18T01:10:00.000-05:00

(Y'know..."tweet, tweet, tweet.")

Well, well, well, friend nola has introduced me to the wonder that is Twitter. I thought this was just for kids, but have been trolling around and found a few familiar and friendly faces. It feels a little weird reading other people's updates, but that's what it's out there for, right?

I first heard about Twitter on an episode of CSI. One of the characters said "these people don't value their privacy much." The response, from the younger tech guy, was "It's not that they don't value privacy; they do value openness."

Openness is fine with me - I am an open book. In large print. But it's the implied obligation to participate, to respond that brings me up short. "Playing well with others" is not my strong suit. Last summer, reading so many reactions posted by those who attended the BlogHer convention, I got insight into how I feel, and how this Internet technology calls to people like me. We like our friends, and wouldn't mind having more, but don't like to put ourselves OUT THERE. Somehow, publishing a blog available to be read by anyone in the world is not inconsistent with that feeling. it's as if, if they can't see me, or hear my voice, I don't feel exposed. But, as those who went in person to Chicago found, it is a whole different thing to sit in the same room and talk.

So, I forced myself to follow a few people, and may retreat into my hole if this gets too frantic, but hey, it could be a good thing.

Now, I just need a phone with SMS.

Home Sick

2007-12-17T10:56:00.000-05:00

This has been going through my family since Thanksgiving. My poor sister was homebound for two weeks straight with one or more assorted sick kids or husband or self, and I missed a day of work last week. But I pushed myself this weekend and now I am home again. At least Owl is OK. He had the whole sore throght ear pain thing last week, but hasn't complained since. This whole "He knows if you've been bad or good" thing has been working out well for me.

Glad I stayed home. I just found this post malingering in the "draft" section of my blo. Seems I didnot have the presence of mind to finish it or actually post it. Don't think I should be practicig law in such a state of mind.

Daddies

2007-12-16T20:39:00.000-05:00

I don't care what anyone says, there is nothing sexier than a man caring for his child. Whether its an expert diaper change, tying an errant shoe, or carrying a toddler on his metaphorically broad shoulders, child care shows what a man's really got. The comfort and joy oozing from the father-child dynamic explains why so many couples have more babies - who can resist her partner after watching him wipe a nose and kiss a booboo on a child looking up at him in trust and wonder?

I'm just sayin'.

Last Thursday

2007-11-29T22:35:00.000-05:00

It was quite up there. Too Quiet.

Two five year olds, a four year old and an eight year old should be making more noise. But I'm too worn out and my back is too sore from washing Thanksgiving Dinner dishes, so I'll enjoy the company of my extended family, and ignore the growing tension caused by the unexplained lack of yelling and jumping.

What were you saying? I can't hear you over the silence. Must. Check. Destructo Children. Upstairs. They made a tent out of his bunkbeds and are playing quietly. False alarm. Well, as long as I am up here, might as well use the bathroom in my bedroom, leave the one downstairs for guests. I step into my closet/bathroom area. There is fabric everywhere. Dresses have been dragged off hangers. Piles of blankets strewn about. "OWL!"

"Hi, mommy. We were making a fort. Do you like it?" Oh yes precious thing. You are more valuable to me than a few old dresses, no matter how much they cost retail. I scold him firmly but kindly about using other people's things without asking, and send him back to play with his cousins.

It is not until after he leaves that I see the roof of the fort is ivory, and the back door is trimmed in antique Venetian lace - my WEDDING DRESS!!!

And, proof that I spend too much time reading blogs, the first phrase that popped into my head was: Oh.The.Joys.

A New Enterprise

2007-11-25T16:52:00.000-05:00

My son is ideally suited to be a Federation Starship Captain. In the car, from his elevated throne-like booster seat (complete with armrests Jean Luc Picard would be proud of) he asks me "what is your speed?" Not "how fast are we going?" Then, when he decides this needs to be changed, he instructs me "Make your speed 35." And I, of course, Make It So.

I Can See for Miles and Miles

2007-11-25T14:06:00.000-05:00

Three more miles to add. Miles walked weeks ago, and then a long time of restlessness with no physical activity. Putting out fires. Reacting to events without thought or purpose. No plan to stop walking, or stop writing. But no plan to avoid stopping either.

That's what I need. A plan, a schedule, something I can look at and say, no, sorry, I don't have time to do X today, I have to be at the gym.

But, before that, I do want to write about my last two trips on the treadmill. I was in Louisiana on business. I had an 8:30 meeting, so I had to fly in the day before. My plane left Philadelphia at 6:00 am, so I left my house before 4. I changed planes in Chicago with a two hour layover (not complaining - breakfast at Wolfgang Puck's with real cloth napkins), and arrived in my hotel about 2. All afternoon in a silent hotel room. I worked on my laptop for a while, catching up on email and voice mail from the day. The train went by a few times, its lonely whistle reminding me of living in New Orleans, where the train was far enough away not to be a nuisance, but close enough to hear in the middle of the night, keening and careening though the town, romantic in its solitude. It was separate from what was transpiring in the houses it passed, yet it linked us to those who dwelled in those homes in the past, and heard the same steam whistle.

Back in my hotel room, in addition to the chugging of the freight train, I would occasionally see a riverboat pass by, silent and stately. I am reminded of how the mighty Mississippi ties us to our past. I think of Mark Twain's writing, and that of those who have followed him.

The hotel had a fitness center, and I walked two miles on its treadmill. When I returned from the trip, I walked another mile at home, but it's been two weeks that I've been reacting rather than acting. Like a leaf blowing in the wind, like the feather in the beginning of Forest Gump, like a bit of flotsam in a stormy ocean, I have been aimless and purposeless. I have been very busy, working, taking care of the house, mothering, cooking, writing (for work), thinking, but none of it toward any progress. Time to start planning.

All has not been bad, though. When I realized I had been sleepwalking though the past few weeks, I took some steps. I have started eating better, and lost a few pounds. I have been to the doctor for a cholesterol and blood pressure check (no word from the lab yet, but the pressure was within acceptable limits). Also, although I chose to ignore the stress of NaBloPoMo, I have been considering attempting 30 posts in 30 days to get me back in the habit of writing.

So much for blog housekeeping. See you soon.

_____________
This post title brought to you courtesy of The Who.

The Beat Goes On

2007-10-16T21:48:00.000-04:00

Two more miles today. Owl watches me on the treadmill, and copies me. He can cover a quarter mile in less than 5 minutes. That's faster than I go.

On my virtual walk down the beach, I'm only about a half a mile from Mc Loone's Riverside If you look on the map on the sidebar near mile 7, and click on the martini class, you can get a link to their webpage. We like it because it's one of the places in NJ you can watch the sun set over the water, because it is on the river/inlet side of this spit of land. We found it by accident one day, on a serendipitous journey to see how far east we could drive before Owl (then 4) would fall asleep. We ran out of land before he ran out of consciousness, so we all dined on the patio. (Owl had crackers, because he would eat absolutely nothing else on the menu.) We've since been back alone, and it can also be a romantic dinner spot, as well as a rowdy place to drink with friends. And no, this is not a paid advertisement.

Also, it's cool if you zoom in on the map, you can actually see the outdoor deck and large parking lot.

Five Percent Done

2007-10-11T00:29:00.000-04:00

OK, so if instead of walking on the treadmill I were actually walking down the shore, I'd STILL be in Sandy Hook. I really want to escape there.

I do have a good memory of a day spent on the beach there. I have a picture (which I can't show you) I took that day. The summer my sister was pregnant with her first child, I came to visit and we went to the beach. I couldn't believe how beautiful and pregnant she was. It was a peaceful day, and we didn't know it at the time, but it was probably the last time we'd ever get to spend time alone/together ever again. Even when we take time away from our families to try it now, we have four kids, two husbands and six grandparents between us, and we're never totally in the moment when they are not around. We are always thinking of them.

Even though we were both married when we took that drive that day, we weren't in charge of families. So, a day on the beach with your sister was just that. Now, we have to worry if we've lost cell reception, and if so and so will agree to eat for Daddy, or will try to con a grandparent into dispensing extra cookies, and boy we really miss them, how soon can we leave. We talk about wanting alone time, but even when we meet up for an afternoon at the spa for massages, we are not disconnected from them. We know we need to recharge in order to do it better, but we just talk about them the whole time.

That day on Sandy Hook, we didn't have those connections yet, and we had the unbelievable luxury of focusing on ourselves, and each other. I value that, and I remember that. I even miss it. But, having said that, aside from all my envy of people who can still do it, I wouldn't trade a minute of this, for that again.

Sandy Hook

2007-10-04T01:02:00.000-04:00

Well, I covered two miles today, sweating large drops in my eyes as I watched Criminal Minds. That Spencer Reid, being so smart and yet unable to locate a barber shop...and the awkwardness of having your bosses' boss catch you flirting with a co-worker over the phone - good times, good times.

I actually find going uphill hurts my back less, so I cranked it up, which accounts for the excess perspiration. And the ability to double the distance.

On the map today, I am still on Sandy Hook. As a child, I was lucky enough to visit this beach on several field trips. Or maybe it was just one that was so interminable it just seems like several. Three impressions come to me when I think of Sandy Hook and those educational science class field trips: the backwater smell of decomposing vegetation and sea life on the bay side, where the instructors took us; the horror of the large horseshoe crabs we were forced to examine (my nightmares still teem with this image, thirty years later); and the wet wet rain on my face as I donned borrowed wading boots and walked into the water, wondering what I was doing on the beach on a day with no sunlight.

Somehow, not withstanding that childhood trauma, I still consider the beach as the most calming and relaxing place to be, and head there often. But not to the bay side. And I steer clear of giant bug-like animals.

The Virtual Walk

2007-10-01T00:18:00.000-04:00

It's day two of my plan to walk 100 miles, and I've got my ~~gimmick~~ original idea for making these 100 miles concrete. I am going to log the equivalent of the number of miles I walk each day on a map of the Jersey Shore. Who doesn't love a walk on the beach? Then, I can feature some aspect of wherever I have "walked" to ~~if I need blog fodder~~ in order to put the distance in perspective and highlight cool things about the beach.

I started my walk yesterday at the tip of Sandy Hook. I am now two miles south, on the beach. Look on the map as it appears on the side bar, and click on "View Larger Map," if you can't see the mile markers. I will work on inserting text and graphics as I go.

Sandy Hook is a peninsula of sand and part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, which means it's a National Park, which means it has Park Rangers, which makes me think of this. And that distracts me enough that the mile today wasn't bad at all.

I Would Walk 500 Miles

2007-09-29T23:14:00.000-04:00

Curtis Edmonds is a friend of my husband, whose blog I enjoy reading because:

a) he has differing political leanings, and it's always interesting to get into the mind of someone you like and respect, but with whom you disagree;

b) I know he won't mind that I do the equivalent of a Tivo fast forward over all of his sports posts; and

c) I have to make sure if he says anything bad about New Jersey, I can call him on it!

Well, I just caught up on his blog today and have found myself inspired. You see, I am married to a southern boy transplanted to the Garden State, and he loves to exercise. I don't get it. Why would you do something that unpleasant by choice? Curtis also hails from below the Mason-Dixon line and finds himself "up east." He however, has the abundantly more reasonable point of view that the whole "endorphins"story is a fairy tale. On this we can agree. Nevertheless, Curtis has challenged himself to walk 100 miles by the end of the year. And he's doing it, sometimes one grueling mile at a time. Hating it every step of the way. Now here's a sports story I can get behind. I understand the disinclination to get out of the car, the giant hurdle that is changing into sneakers, the sweet, sweet distraction of sitting on the couch instead.

So, tonight, during a break between the first paragraph and the second, I logged One Mile on my treadmill! I followed that with some crunches on the exercise ball, and an episode of L&O:CI with an M&M chaser (plain, not peanut). Baby steps.

I will now spend the rest of the night coming up with a cool gimmick that pays homage to, but does not copy, Curtis's clever "mile marker" graphics to keep track of how many miles he has walked.

Game On!

____________
BTW, the title to this piece is the name of a song by The Proclaimers, which has nothing to do with exercise, but does mention getting drunk and growing old, so it seemed apt.

Poreferaphobia

2007-09-28T21:39:00.000-04:00

I was cleaning out my tea mug at work today, thinking, "This would probably be more sanitary if I just rinsed it than if I scrub it with this sponge." It's not that I think my coworkers have cooties. It's that I know too much. Take my health care training in the use of "aseptic technique" (the poor man's version of "scrubbing in" for a procedure), my graduate studies in human disease and transmission of foodborne pathogens, and my legal experience with defending life safety code violations (how big does the air gap have to be on the drain of an ice machine in the hospital cafeteria before it no longer causes contamination of the ice?)...now, stir all that in with a predisposition to OCD personality traits, and you've got high anxiety in the kitchen.

Seriously, at home, I do not even have a kitchen sponge. I go against every environmentally conscious fiber of my being, and use paper towels and harsh chemicals to wipe all countertops. All dishes go in the dishwasher unless Martha Stewart says it's not allowed. And even sometimes then. There is no transfer of salmonella or e-coli from my food to my kitchen surfaces. If I am guarding from such germs at home, of course I will take steps at work as well. The problem is, not everyone at my office has the same behavior altering fear as I do.

Therefore, if I want to use the sponge at work, I have to rinse it out and microwave it for a full minute before I do. Then, I have to let it cool before I can pick it up. And of course, I have to wash my hands before I touch the newly sanitized sponge, to prevent cross contamination. That's a lot of work just to remove a few tea stains from a cup only I use. So, maybe I will go the paper towel route.

But I cant, because he sits there, lurking in a rapidly cooling pool of semi-rancid water, taunting me. I know he's there, silently mocking me: "Wait 'til Susie uses me to wipe off the countertop where she will next serve the BAGELS YOU WILL EAT, and to wash the knife she uses to cut them in half." I think of the children of my poor coworkers, having to listen to Mommy or Daddy barfing all night long because they contracted food poisoning from the office kitchen.

Yeah, I think about this kind of stuff too much.

Fat Man In The Bathtub

2007-09-27T23:10:00.000-04:00

My first year in New Orleans, I lived like a tourist. I went to the zoo, and museums, and bars and parades. I drank it all in, without discernment. I was infatuated. Everything was different. Everything was exciting. Like a new lover, I could not get enough of it.

One of my first memories of New Orleans takes place in the stairwell on the way to the basement of the University bookstore, where I was going to pick up my law school books. I recognize that the books stores of all the universities I've attended (and those that I've just visited to pick up cheap souvenirs) are probably melding together in my mind to bring me this memory, but I'm going with it nonetheless. To the ghastly dismay of any fire inspector who might be visiting, the landing halfway down this staircase contained a bin holding rolled up posters and maps, samples of which were displayed on the walls around it. So, in addition to creating a bottleneck and a hurdle, they also encouraged people to look up, rather than where they were going. I wasn't in Kansas (or NJ) anymore - safety rules did not seem to apply. But this did not surprise me anymore, since I had recently learned there was no law against open alcohol containers in a vehicle.

One of the posters really caught my fancy, and put me in the mind of a Little Feat song. I have no idea what the poster was called, but in my mind, it will always be "Fat Man in the Bathtub with the Blues." It was a print, maybe of a watercolor painting, of a bathtub containing a man playing a horn, and to me, it screamed "New Orleans." I wanted to buy it and hang it on my wall, but funds were tight back then, and I never did. So in my mind, it will always be linked to that stairway, and that first impression of New Orleans. The man who couldn't stop playing music long enough to take a bath. Or who was so hot, he needed to stay wet. Either way, even as my relationship with the Big Easy matured, and infatuation faded, replaced by a deeper yet calmer love and understanding, that image will remain with me.

Drink Up Me Hearties

2007-09-21T22:35:00.000-04:00

Wednesday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I blew it as far as coming up with something to celebrate the day, so, until next year, please make do with these pirate links:

- A book about how to raise your children as pirates - they're still unruly, but now you've got an excuse;

- My favorite pirate rock band; and

- My favorite pirate political party.

Now I'm off to convince my HMO that the Coronas I plan to drink tomorrow night should be covered medical expenses because I need the limes to fight scurvy!

New York Is For Mothers

2007-09-21T22:04:00.000-04:00

A new law in New York gives nursing mothers the right to pump at work. It is now expressly against the law for an employer to tell an employee she can't have the break needed to pump, or as the statute puts it, "express milk." It's even in an easy to read and understand form. It says:

An employer shall provide reasonable unpaid break time or permit an employee to use paid break time or meal time each day to allow an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for up to three years following childbirth. The employer shall make reasonable efforts to provide a room or other location, in close proximity to the work area, where an employee can express milk in privacy. No employer shall discriminate in any way against an employee who chooses to express breast milk in the workplace.

Let's hear it for the New York Legislature, which passed this law unanimously. I never got a single bad look or word at wither workplace where I pumped, but in an office job, it's not so hard to finagle. This will really affect new moms in service and manufacturing, where time spent privately pumping is time you are missed on the floor.

As a human, I am glad to hear this. As a corporate lawyer, I wouldn't want to be the employer with an employee who wants to keep pumping after the 36th month. That is going to be an interesting debate.

Also, how will this affect cops, ER docs, and flight attendants/pilots? Any thoughts?

In God We Trust

2007-09-12T21:36:00.000-04:00

We discussed a lot a BlogRhet about whether the blogosphere was "colorblind," i.e., your race or cultural identity was invisible. As much as I like that idea, I want to talk about God, so I have to disclose part of my background to tell the story right. I agree with many in the blogging community that it's all about the writing. Some can write great volumes of quality work without revealing much about themselves or their pasts. I feel compelled to write about things that draw from my personal experiences, inevitably uncovering bits of myself to view, willingly or not.So, key to this story is that I was raised as a Catholic. By two first or second generation Americans from Brooklyn, who attended mass held in Latin until they moved out to the sticks in semi-rural New Jersey. (For those of you who think I'm being ironic about the "semi-rural" part, come visit - we don't call it the Garden State as a joke, it's really quite lovely in these parts.) Anyway, my church when I was growing up was very progressive. I received my first Holy Communion in first grade at a ceremony held in my dining room with only my family in attendance. Why? I think because I asked, and the priest wanted to reward my interest. He became a friend of the family, and ate with us often. My mom said it was because we were the only family that would serve him leftovers and treat him like one of the family, rather than like he was some royalty from out of town. I remember how he would sit in the kitchen and play with the dog, and us kids, in his plaid flannel shirt and corduroys telling bad puns. I never knew my grandfather, so he filled that space for me.I had a great relationship with the church - my family was very involved, and I was a leader at the weekend youth retreats. We were encouraged by my parents and other church leaders to question established traditions in order to make them meaningful to us, and to leave them behind if they did not enrich our relationship with God, all while retaining a respect for the old ways to the extend it meant respecting God or those around us. It was a very healthy way experience organized religion. No bad experiences.At one of the youth retreats, I was asked to speak on what it meant to me to be a good Christian. I wrote about what it meant to be a good person, because the two were indistinguishable to me. If you were a bad person, you were a bad Christian. If you were a good person, how could you then not also be a good Christian? Unless you were not ever a Christian, in which case we would call it being a good Jew, or good Buddhist, or whatever. When some of the adult facilitators of the group pointed out to me that a person who considered himself Christian could be a good person, but not be a good Christian, I got my first taste of why religion is so polarizing in society. I pulled away a tiny bit that day, because no God I respected would separate the criteria for being good into "Christian" and "other."Fast forward ten years or so. A friend of the family got pregnant out of wedlock. She and her boyfriend had planned on getting married and having a big family, but not until after they graduated from college. They were embarrassed by this lapse in family planning techniques, and inconvenienced about becoming parents earlier than expected, but accepted this new turn of events. She was a healthy active girl, and took good care of herself. Nevertheless, the baby was born several months premature and died the same day in the hospital. I visited, and could say nothing. The grief was another presence in the room. Later that day, at my mother’s house, she told me her friend (the baby's grandmother) was anxious over whether the hospital had gotten someone to baptize the baby before he died.

(For those unfamiliar with the Catholic doctrine, the logic goes like this: We are born with "original sin" due to Adam and Eve's actions with the apple. Baptism removes this sin. If you die without being baptized, you can't get into heaven, because you are not "in a state of grace" - what with the original sin hanging around your neck like an albatross. But, in the middle ages, some theologians decided it was not possible that unbaptized babies who died after taking one breath in life could be damned to hell, so they started talking about "limbo,” on the edge of heaven and hell - but not purgatory, that's just like heaven's vestibule, where you wait a while until the receptionist calls your name and takes your copay. Oh, wait, not, that's just the doctor's office. You know what I mean.)

Anyway, so in my mom's friend's mind, her dead grandson would never see God, and would never join her in heaven after she died, but would hang out permanently, for all eternity, in limbo, neither here nor there; unless he had water poured over his head and a prayer said for his immortal soul before it left his tiny body. And my mother, out of real belief, not just to make her friend feel better, said "That baby never did anything wrong. God would not deny him access to his presence based on what some one else did or did not do while we was alive on earth.” Listening, I found myself an outsider, as if I were reading one of my sci-fi/fantasy novels with a made up mystical religion that I know is not real. I understood that I could only feel this way because I did not believe in “limbo,” or heaven, or hell. Did that mean I did not believe in God?

I started thinking about this a while ago, but after hearing that Mother Teresa spend years of her life unable to sense the presence of God, it’s really been taking up a lot of my thinking. Because my experience in the Catholic Church was good, I am surprised at this outcome. Nevertheless, I no longer feel any truth in the church’s doctrine. Ironically, unlike the almost (and now not so solidly anticipated) Saint Teresa, I sense the presence of God all the time.

So what’s different? Most of the teachings of the church (those that do not relate to pleasure being equivalent to sin, sex being bad, and women being inferior) are consistent with my own thought on desirable moral and ethical behavior. Not surprising, since that’s where I got those ideas from. However, I do not feel any sureness that the power that created the earth actually put us in it and watches us and answers our payers. I think more of a benign and neglectful God. He gave me a body, and if I fill it with saturated fats and more sugar than it can metabolize in a day, it will grow fat with cholesterol coated arteries. Why would he reverse that because I asked him to? He granted me the brains to learn from scientists and doctors how to reduce my risks, and ignoring that is my choice.

I read one short story where God was a graduate student and the universe was his dissertation project. He He. That makes me laugh. Whenever I think of God as a person, I remember that. Mostly I think of God as nature: beauty, power, hugeness. Or Love: friendship, charity, service. I am not prepared to let go of my characterization of God as an anthropomorphic figure, but I just don’t get the feeling that if there is a God, and not a random fractal chain of events that put us here, he would want any more from us than that we show our love by taking care of each other and the world he put us on.

So I will go on trying every day to be a good person, and make no attempt to determine if anyone considers me a good Christian. I will raise my son to respect others, and give him enough of a basis that he can understand the idea of worship. But I don’t want to tie him to religion. At the same time, I am afraid not to. I’d pray for guidance on this, but I don’t believe there’s anyone listening. Hmmmm.

A Portrait of My Mother

2007-09-10T22:49:00.000-04:00

I looked at myself in the mirror the other day, and my mother gazed back at me. At this point in my life, I have the same hair color as she does, I weigh about the same, our choice in eyeglass frames was similar, and I just look like her. I had never seen the resemblance this strong before. The Kelly genes are very strong - every one of my siblings or cousins who has reproduced has produced offspring identifiable as a member of our family at 50 yards. My dad used to carry around the studio portrait of me as an infant and ask people, "want to see a picture of my three kids?" and show them just that one. Why? "That's exactly what they all look like!"

So I shouldn't be surprised that I look like my mother. I'm glad I do. Both of my parents looked a good ten years younger than their actual age for most of their lives, and in a society that values youth and discounts maturity or the appearance of non-youth, that's helpful. But I didn't always want to look younger. Once, in high school, an adult yelled at me because my sister shouldn't have let me drive. The speaker thought that I (at age 17) was too young to drive. Why she thought my 13 year old sister had a license, I still don't understand. In law school, I was at a church event when one of the blue haired ladies asked what school we went to. My sister gave the name of her college, and I mine. "Oh," she responded, "when I said what school, I though you were going to tell me what high school you were in." I didn't humiliate myself further by explaining I was 25 at the time, and she was off by two whole levels of secondary education!

As a new lawyer, I tried every trick in the book to appear older. I attempted to banish all slang and generation specific colloquialisms from my speech, dressed very conservatively, and practiced eliminating "like," "y'know" and "cool" from my vocabulary. I was always the junior person in the room. Then, I got a new job, moved half way across the country, and suddenly, at 37, I was one of the 5 oldest people in the company - an old timer. Almost everyone I interact with is early 30s and younger. I now see pictures of myself and marvel at how matronly I've become. When was I ever worried that people would think me too green, too new to handle something?

Can I have that time back?

Now, I am a mother. Like my mother.

It's not so bad, but can I have a few years back to try again to do it better? No?

___________________
Next Post: Part II - Another Portrait of My Mother (with photos)

Changes

2007-09-08T22:22:00.000-04:00

I spent a week at the beach last month, with a laptop, four children, my sister, and my mother. Of the seven days we were there, it rained all day for five of them. It was not the vacation we planned. It was memorable nonetheless.

My new header is a photo of my son and two of his cousins on the one day we all spent at the beach. (I took a week's worth of pictures in forty-five minutes.) After hours resizing and cropping the picture, I have decided (a) I can be a little obsessive sometimes, and (b) it's time to spring for some decent photo editing software. Y'know, one that would allow me to post a photo without visible pixels!

Anyway, after that trip, wherein I was denied the week of contemplative relaxation while the young ones tired themselves out in the waves, denied the opportunity for some much needed resolarization (I stole that from a coworker who used it on his request for a personal day), denied even the immersion in the fluff beach novel I bought for the occasion, I realized that things don't always go as planned. I knew this intellectually, but now that Owl is entering Kindergarten, I am faced with it on a gut level: That's it, he's done, he'll never be a preschooler again. All my plans, all my "someday we'll do this or that -" Gone. GONE...gone...gone.

That week on the beach, we brought my mom, who always wanted to spend a summer in a beach house. She's 69 this year, and it's the first time we've managed it. She has emphysema, and brought her portable oxygen to the beach. She fell three times, partially because she has cataracts and one eye not recovering well from surgery, partially because she gets out of breath and loses her balance. I would have liked for her to be able to swim with the kids, stroll on the wet sand, lie on the blanket without needing help to get up again. We waited too long for that. I hope we do this again every summer, but how many more will there be?

That week on the beach, I took a week off of work. Somehow, they got along without me. Hey, they actually don't fall apart if I'm not there to obsess about every little detail. The new guy I hired did a great job, and people actually understood that I needed some time off. I checked my email everyday, but only to avoid the onslaught when I got back to the office. I prioritized, delegated, and hardly replied directly to any of them. Hey, if I do this on days when I am in the office, I would actually be more productive. The point here is that people deserve a vacation, and it was me (only me) who wanted to deny me the time off. To the rest of the company, it was no big deal that I wasn't there. No one thought I was a slacker for taking a vacation.

That week on the beach, we thought alot about food. (Remember the five days trapped in the house?) My mom thinks bagels are a health food, and my sister is raising three healthy children who are only allowed bagels (too many carbs) once a week. They snack on grapes and baby carrots, while my little guy is eating Cinnamon Life for breakfast lunch and dinner, in order to avoid eating anything scary like sliced turkey or hummus, or (gasp) broccoli. I have the same tastes as my mom (bring on the donuts and cookies), but the same knowledge as my sister ("Honey, We're Killing the Kids"), without the willpower. I have been planning to fix my diet and my sedentary lifestyle all my life (or at least the past 35 years), but never, except for a brief stint with Jenny Craig a few years ago, did anything real toward that goal.

That week at the beach, I looked at my mom, now with diabetes, and wonder if that is my path too. Not enough of a wake up call? How about my son? Am I teaching him by example that ice cream sundaes and chicken nuggets and fries are OK, along with long hours at the computer followed by a few more hours on the couch staring at another screen in order to unwind? I hate to exercise, to move my body, to exert myself. It's not too late to make the best of the time I have left, but it will take a complete change of habits, of assumptions, of goals. I want to do it for my parents, for the time we still have together: for my son, for the rest of his life, the best of his life - to give him the best start I can. I want to do it for my sister, for her sons, for the joy of them. For my husband, my brother-in-law, my brother (who understood that we love them and let us have the beach to ourselves that week). For my clients, and friends and coworkers, who actually think I am worth it more than I do. Who know I deserve a vacation, and a life, and time to work out, and be home for dinner, and to rest, even if I don't.

This week, after the beach, I realized the key to this all is me. I have to think I'm worth it. And that will take a change, a big change, a sea change.

This week, after the beach, I looked at the blog, and realized I needed to start here. Change it. It's simple and cosmetic, but symbolic. When I look at the banner, and the three little boys at peace with themselves, together in this, facing the open ocean ready for everything, ready for life, I will think of my responsibility to them, my opportunity with them, my ability to be like them. I will be the changed person, even before the change occurs.

This week after the beach, I say goodbye to bad habits, to letting it all pass me by, to putting my job before my life. I say hello to the rewards of the work of the first half of my life, and starting to to all the things on my "to do before I die" list, instead of my "to do" list at work.

That's a tall order. I had to write it, to put it out there, to draw a line in the sand and be answerable to myself and to you about it. Stay tuned for details of how its working out.

Name Change

2007-08-30T02:04:00.000-04:00

I'm getting a new name for my blog (too many "Moondance" blogs out there), and a new look, but so far I plan on keeping all the links the same.

We’ve Made Our Beds

2007-08-29T02:01:00.000-04:00

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late. -Ogden Nash

Bon wrote a great post about memories of beds, and since the first paragraph of her post described exactly my addiction to sleeping in, I thought I’d try it:

My childhood bed. A full sized bed I shared with my (5 years younger) sister, until we convinced my parents to turn the mudroom into a bedroom so we could each have our own room. It had a homemade bedspread with a seam right down the middle – “my side” and “her side.” George Bush wishes he could construct a wall along the US southern border as inviolate as that line!

In college, my sister came to visit me the weekend I built my dorm room loft bed, complete with fire retardant paint. We drove around half of southern Connecticut with lumber tied to the roof of my Chevette looking for that paint. My roommate and I could both stand up straight underneath that bed. To avoid sleeping through my eight o’clock class, I placed my alarm clock on a shelf across the room. The alarm malfunctioned half the time. That is, I thought it was the clock’s failure, until one morning, I woke up with one hand on the snooze button, one leg in the bed, and the other leg and arm dangling in thin air over my roommate’s bed. I’ve heard of sleepwalking, but I was performing sleep acrobatics. Passed the class, though.

When I moved back in with my parents after college, I bought a fold out couch so I could pretend it was my living room instead of the same bedroom I had slept in for 20 years. This bed was SO UNCOMFORTABLE, I actually threw the mattress on the floor and slept there.

The bed where I fell in love. My second year of law school, I came back from Christmas vacation with a nasty stomach virus (35 hours on a Greyhound bus will do that to you). My new boyfriend brought me chicken soup in bed, and read to me while I fell asleep, from the new Star Wars book, that he happened to pick up because he liked it, not knowing I was also following that series. Who would do that except somebody who loved you? This bed was relegated to the guestroom when he moved in. Twelve years later, when I moved back to NJ with Owl, and hubby stayed behind, it was this bed where I would fall asleep nursing the baby, and think about those feverish days when I first knew he loved me.

I always sleep better in hotels than at home, so the many many hotel beds I have used have left no impression on me. I thought I could come up with some interesting international sleep stories, but my best bed memories are lying about in the late morning; cat curled up by my feet; sun streaming through window; turning the pillow over for the cool side. In the last few years, instead of just me and him and the cat, it’s little Owl with us, “reading” his books in imitation of Mommy and Daddy, stretching out with that sound you make when it’s a really good stretch.

For someone who identifies with international travel and adventure, this post took a funny turn, when I realized I had ended up writing about nesting instead. I'll let it stand. The things you learn about yourself while blogging...

Luxury is in the Eye of the Beholder

2007-08-07T23:10:00.000-04:00

We didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up. My goal was to earn enough money as an adult so I didn't have to wait for something to go on sale before I could buy it. I wanted Coke or Pepsi, not RC or Shasta.

Well, old habits die hard, and I am still very frugal, even though it is from choice new, rather than necessity. However, there are certain things I splurge on. In no particular order, here is my list of Things I Used to Think of as Opulent Indulgences for Foolish Rich People, But Now Never Want to Live Without:

Underground Lawn Sprinklers
I no longer have dead grass. And really, Owl is much more worthwhile to spend time with than the garden hose. This is awesome.

In Door Ice and Water Dispenser
What do you mean pour it from the tap and put it in a pitcher? That's for serfs. I have machines to do that for me now.

A Cleaning Service
Shame upon shames. I no longer clean my own house. Well, yes, I do spend hours on Sunday preparing the house to make it presentable for the cleaners to come and clean... But someone else actually removes the dust and grime.

Tivo
It will record every Jackie Chan movie, even if I don't know it's on. I no longer need to watch commercials. I can now waste time in less time. Now that's progress!

Real Furniture
What a difference. I am phasing out my cheap college furniture, and real wood, well made furniture lasts longer, feels better, and makes me feel like a grownup.

I thought it would be a longer list. I must still be in the parsimony mindset to a degree.

What do you want never to give up?

Making Lemonade

2007-08-04T23:27:00.000-04:00

Did you ever play drinking games?

I did. I wasn't very good at the ones requiring hand-eye coordination - at best, I am a klutz; once drunk, I can't even hold a quarter, let alone bounce it into someone else's drink. No, in inebriation, like in sobriety, I preferred the games you could play while sitting on your butt on the couch. I am talking, of course, of the TV drinking games.

Like inside jokes, these seldom make sense to anyone who was not there when the game was created and refined. At college, we'd play "Star Trek." The rules changed as the program evolved, but basically, you got to take a drink when your assigned character came into a scene. When they showed an outside shot of the Enterprise, everybody drank. Every time Kirk kissed an alien, or Spock raised an eyebrow and uttered "fascinating," everyone chugged. I can't tell you what happened when Bones said "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor not a..." because this is a PG rated blog!

We expanded this game to Saturday nights on camps ("Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island"). My roommate created new slang when she declared, upon learning that all the main characters on that night's FI had been called for: "I'm foliage!" Indeed, about half way through the show, she was exhibiting the cogitative power of a shrub. For the rest of the semester, "He's foliage" came to replace other quaint descriptive terms such as "wasted," "three sheets to the wind," and the like. (OK, the latter is really more from my mother's generation, but again, most college euphemisms for impaired are too...er...colorful to use here.)

Fast forward to my responsible, alcohol deficient, adulthood. We lived near a railroad crossing on the road my husband traveled to go to high school when he was a kid. He said the train came by so often, he and his brothers would have to think up things to do in the car while waiting for the freight train to ooze by. Since we moved close to his childhood home, we got caught by this train often. So, instead of a drinking game (which technically would not have been illegal in Louisiana at that time), he proposed another game. Every time the train goes by, you put the car in park and kiss!

I told you my husband was brilliant. I am assuming this was not one of the diversions he thought up with his brothers! So, for the years we lived in Old Metairie, the passing of the freight train through town was not a source of despair to us, it was a chance to smooch. I had forgotten about that until he reminded me of it today. Now, every time we are in the car together and have to wait for a train, or a drawbridge, I am going to lean over and kiss him.

Because he has taught me

When life gives you lemons,

Make Lemonade!

(That Owl is a chip off the old block)

The Game of Kings

2007-07-30T23:13:00.000-04:00

Owl is learning to play chess. I am in full geek mode in the way that I am loving this. I never learned to play, as excessive braininess was considered bad form in my family of origin. My mother chastised me whenever I had the audacity to suggest that I might possibly Know something, if it was different from what she learned at her mother’s knee. By the time I realized I had the ability to learn the game, all my friends were so advanced, I was embarrassed to show my ineptitude, so I let it go.

A few weeks ago, we were visiting friends, at least one of whom, incidentally, played on the high school chess team. I mentioned wanted to get Owl interested, and one friend showed me No Stress Chess, a game where you incorporate more structured play, involving cards, to let kids get familiar with playing gradually. It even added an element of chance so I can actually stand a chance against the master of battle strategy known as my husband. We bought it the next day and with great (yet hidden) trepidation, I unwrapped it and casually suggested to Owl that we play a game. Much like one tempts a skittish animal to eat from one’s hand, I skirted around the idea that it might be fun. Don’t want to be too enthusiastic, or he’ll wisely catch on that this is the game equivalent of a vegetable – good for growing bodies and brains, and therefore to be avoided at all costs. Don’t want to just throw it out there, or he might not bother to sniff around. I figured two games of chess cancel out one game of surreptitious online Sonic the Hedgehog that Daddy lets him play.

Well, imagine my delight when we finished our first game and he looked up at me and softly said “can we play again?” And how I congratulated myself on his irrefutable acceptance into Princeton in thirteen years, after he asked me, the next morning “Does Pop Pop play chess? Can I bring the game to his house?”

His being good at the game is not as important to me as his enjoying it. But, still, I gave him about two weeks until he is beating me consistently!

The Nursing Mother's Little Black Companion

2007-07-03T22:39:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning, as I hoisted my briefcase and purse, and grabbed my keys and morning caffeine jolt, I added another item to my load. As I slung the black nylon backpack over my right shoulder, I heard the familiar jingle of the metallic zipper pulls clinking together, and it tweaked a memory that zoomed me back over four years, when I last carried the bag. It was for a moment as if I were that person again, and none of the intervening time had passed, and I remembered what it was like to be that woman. Before all the growth of the past few years, before the additional mellowing of time. Before I was who I have become.

It wasn’t the bag I’d used when backpacking across Europe. It wasn’t my book bag from my college days. It was my breast pump. The woman whose eyes I was figuratively looking into for those few moments was a new mom whose baby couldn’t latch on, who felt nauseating guilt (worse than morning sickness) for leaving her baby in the care of another while she selfishly returned to the clean quiet of the corporate world. The girl who sobbed behind closed doors at work when she realized she didn’t have the same reserves as she did before giving birth, and maybe she never would.

I smiled at that woman, and felt better about the present, because, honestly, it’s not so bad now. Eventually, my little one started wanting people food. My daycare is wonderful and he has met delightful friends and learned so much. I still give it my all at work and even outdo myself sometimes. It all worked out better than I could have expected. I wish I could have told that girl not to worry, not to take it to heart, to enjoy every minute of it.

I took the breast pump out of the closet after all these years, where it remained safe in case my sister ever needed it, to send it to my friend. I was the recipient of a pump from a friend so I could decide if I wanted to use one, and I wanted to be able to do the same. I ended up buying this one instead of using my friend's, because it was in a backpack and did not look like a breast pump to the casual passerby. I don’t know if my friend will like it, but I love that I can give her the chance.

There is so much more that I want to say to her, but it all comes out sounding like “me, me, me, me.” And really, this is about her. So I didn’t. Well, maybe just a little.

But this blog, this is about me, so I can speak about it here. And she can read it when she wants to deal with hearing about me. I want to tell her how for three months I pumped every two hours, after which I would transfer the milk into a bottle and then spend just as much time feeding the baby. How could anyone say this was EASIER? I wanted to give up, but I was convinced I would be failing my son if I did, that I was as worthless as a mother as I had turned into at the office. How I silently railed at all the new parenting literature that seemed to convey the idea that it was a wonderful natural thing to be a parent and how it was all worth it because of that feeling you get and I wondered, am I broken because I don’t get that feeling? Everyone just wanting to comment on how cute the baby is and how happy you must be, when inside you are screaming “just leave me alone, I am not ready to put on my best face yet and I am so dead tired I don’t have anything left to give you.” I want to tell her it’s OK to feel that way, and OK if you don’t. That the baby will eventually learn to nurse, or not, and either way it’s OK. And that it is all worth it.

These days, I speak without irony about the joys of being a mom to my little man, and tonight when he told me I didn't need to lose weight because “I love you as you just are,” I resolved to go to the gym anyway, so I would have more years to hear him profess his love for me. He brings happiness and smiles all the time, and I am a confident and easy parent now.

I am glad that I nursed as long as I did, and that I took that black nylon backpack with its vacuum contraption inside it across the country with me when I traveled (how to freak out a TSA agent too soon after 9/11). But you know what? The way I feel now, I think I would be just as OK if I had thrown in the towel after three months and put him on all formula. Statistically, his chances are better now in a lot of areas, but I would love him just as much (and he would be just as happy) if he got sick more often, or developed food allergies, or any of the other things they tell you will happen if you deny your child breast milk. He’ll still be OWL, and he’ll still enjoy pretending to be Spiderman when we play hide and seek.

While I hope the portable pump makes life easier for my friend if she continues nursing, I also hope it doesn’t serve as a guilt inducer to make her feel like she has to persevere if she decides to stop. And I hope she give me many more baby stories and good tales of life as a mommy.

Does Blogging Empower Women?

2007-06-22T22:33:00.000-04:00

Ok, I was sort of lukewarm on this idea, thinking I did not have anything worthwhile to say on the matter, but then I read in Her Bad Mother’s blog that there was candy involved, and so here I am. Will blog for chocolate. I don’t even know if it’s a “we’ll pick a random winner” contest, or if there are celebrity judges and the like. Actually, I think I procrastinated beyond the point of no return and missed my chance for candy, but the deed is done, so read on.

Empowerment of women. I have to get all technical now, because…well because that’s what I do. “Empower” is one of those words that have gained currency and are used as part of the “shortcut” language Orwell was so worked up about. Naturally, I had to look it up in Webster’s, and that shortcut of shortcuts, Wikipedia. Always good to know I am talking about what I think I’m talking about, and not have to channel Gilda Radner: “It’s not ‘flogging powdered women’? Oh, Never Mind!”

So, do I think blogging empowers women? Yes and No.

Yes, because anything that gives you a voice, and a place to use it, is empowering. Blogging is a way to use this technology and this forum (the internet) to express ourselves to anyone who is listening. And there are a lot of people listening. Blogging is like the consumer-powered version of the mall opinion research pollsters. We’ll tell you what we think of things, no need to ask. The relative anonymity (or at least pseudonymity) of blogging platforms lets us be free to say things we would not say to the faces of our bosses, husbands, or mothers-in-law, because we have been raised as Nice Girls and don’t want to be rude. (Some of us were raised to ignore that particular marginalizing rule for girls – they are the ones who use their real names.)

Since access to blogging is low cost or free (Ha, I just called a computer and an internet connection ‘low cost’ – I guess I am showing my middle class bias), those of us without the kinds of jobs that pay a lot (or at all) can still participate. And, if your family already pays for the computer and the internet connection, you don’t have to justify the expense of it by trying to make money off of your blog. Where I am going here is that you don’t have to hope for a J.K. Rowling Cinderella story to get some publisher to believe in you in order to have the world hear your story. Just put it out there.

But alas, that’s where my “No” comes in.

Because of the easy access to blogging, and its popularity with those traditionally not considered contributors to the market supported publishing world, have we stumbled into a ghetto of feminine self expression? It reminds me of a conversation I had about 20 years ago when I remarked to a colleague how the field of emergency medical services (EMTs and paramedics) seemed to NOT be quite so male dominated as medicine, police and fire. She responded “Yes, women do seem to be well represented. I hope it doesn’t become another ‘women’s field’ like nursing or teaching.” Now, current market trends may not hold up her predictions, but what she was saying was that she feared a preponderance of females in any career path would have the effect of keeping wages depressed, men uninterested, and, basically, fail to empower the profession. Was she right? I don’t know. But I find myself asking the same about blogging for women.

For more about the contest, go to Mommy Blogs Toronto. Winners will be announced soon.

Some Essays Are More Equal Than Others

2007-06-01T22:13:00.000-04:00

My husband read this essay by George Orwell, and forwarded it to me, knowing I would enjoy it. I love examinations of language, and take this piece as an indictment of my whole profession. If you look at some of the examples he uses, you realize some things that were just bad metaphors in the 1940s are an integral part of everyday language now. EXACTLY what he feared.

I have to disagree with some of Mr. Orwell’s value judgments here. He stretches some of his pet peeves a bit too far, and they don’t hold up fifty years later. But maybe only because we’ve assimilated the Greek and Latin terms he so hated, and can no longer distinguish them from words with Anglo roots. I submit that we don't chose words because of the etymological roots, but by how they have been introduced into our world. That was his point in this essay, so I have to give him credit for his foresight. I take issue with his characterization of certain words as evil, but the beginning and the end of this essay are powerful, removed from the political context in which he discusses his theory.

In essence, he reminds us that not only do we shape the world around us by using words to describe it, but the words we (and others) choose to describe what we find around us shape our minds and the way we think.

Hmmmm.

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic. Animal Farm was not about animals, or a farm. Discuss.

The Benediction of the Neon Light

2007-06-01T21:38:00.000-04:00

For Mother’s Day, we trekked over to Great Adventure, the nearby Six Flags amusement park. The young ones wanted to go on the flume, and my sister and I wanted to check out the free concert. Now, after my time in Louisiana, I am a big fan of the outdoor daytime concert. I like seeing daddies with toddlers on their shoulders grooving to the Beach Boys, or college kids in tie dye drinking beer and swaying to the tunes in the sunshine, or youngsters dancing with their parents to a Cajun beat. It’s all good. However, there are lines that should not be crossed.

There are moments and sensations in life that belong segregated, lest viewing one experience or memory along side another create the kind of cognitive dissonance that causes one to giggle, sigh sadly, and hightail it back to the security of one’s boisterous and wholesome family. I am talking, of course, about Rick Springfield.

Some music does not transcend the generations. Some songs were not meant to be passed down to your kids. Some teenaged exuberance is best left unexamined.

I am not in anyway disparaging Mr. Springfield’s music, or the quality of his performance. From the back row, he looked very fit, and just as good as I remember from when I was sixteen. Unbelievable, but true. He’s just plain cute. I still like the songs, if only for the nostalgia of feeling like a high school girl again. But concerts such as these need to be held in dark music halls, with the liberal application of alcoholic beverages and five or six girlfriends; so you can squeal, pretend to be a teeny bopper again, and forget for a while that you are a middle aged mom with a 401k and a mammogram appointment.

I borrowed the title of this post from Jackson Browne (a Moondance approved outdoor daytime concert experience, btw). The song is “Tender is the Night” (the title of which he borrowed, in turn, from F. Scott Fitzgerald). He intended it to be ironic, I think. I do too, but in a less pathetic way. Artists like Springfield don’t belong in the daylight, as part of my adult life. They didn’t grow with me. They belong, like a snapshot or a music video, forever in the moment, forever in the past. I really WANTED to stay and listen, but not while rocking the stroller with my nephew in it and waiting for the rest of them to come back from the flume and show off who got more wet. Instead, I would have preferred the “benediction of the neon light” indoors, in the dark, remembering how when my sister was eleven (and Rick Springfield was thirty three), we stood in the very front row with our friends, singing back every word, and “ohmygod-I-can’t-believe-it-he-looked-at-me-and-made-eye-contact!”

In the daytime outdoor word, it takes a lot more than a singer looking at me to get me that excited (points to the fans who got that inadvertent song reference). I mean, kid tying his shoes all by himself? That’s noteworthy. Client or co-worker thanks you for a contribution to a project? Drinks all around! Husband remembers to get the kind of milk you like AND calls the plumber to fix the sink? Yeah, someone’s getting lucky tonight! But a sexy stranger gazing provocatively at me over a microphone? Ho hum, did someone say there’s a Ben & Jerry’s in the park now?

I never noticed this change before, because as I grew and changed, most of the music that I liked still fit my life. And if I download Rick’s classics like “Jesse’s Girl” onto my ipod for fun, I’ll still sing along at the top of my lungs and get weird looks at traffic lights, but it just feels better to keep the separation. I don’t want to leave it behind, but I need to make room for so much good new stuff that deserves the daytime attention, and sharing with my family and friends.

Critical Thinking, Part 1

2007-05-02T22:56:00.000-04:00

So, I need a license to operate a motor vehicle, to practice law, and to fish. All of these involve signing for the instruction book, and taking a test. OK, maybe there’s no test for fishing, but there are rules, and I’ve heard lots of stories from my husband’s people about what happens to you if you break the rules.

There should be an instruction book for becoming an adult. It’s not safe to let people out into society if they haven’t been trained for it. It’s dangerous to them, and their carelessness can hurt others. And we’ll need continuing education, because the rules change. I’m talking about two things here: Cultural literacy (sort of the liberal arts section of life) and critical thinking (the practical survival skills part). I’d love to teach a high school or freshman college course in Critical Thinking. It seems that there are less people thinking that way now.

I wonder if my perception is skewed.

I have been accused – most recently the other day by someone I respect, and to whom I report at work – of “thinking too much.” My wise crack remark “Isn’t that what you pay me for?” died on my lips when I realized that, although he was saying it in jest, he meant it. And he didn’t mean it as a compliment. Now, when I was a teenager, my friends and I could make a three hour telephone conversation over the following exchange between one of us and a cute guy at school:

Cute Guy: What chapter are we supposed to read for homework?
One of Us: Four
Cute Guy: Oh, thanks.

Yes, I feel experienced enough to be able to identify this so called “over thinking.” And I acknowledge it is possible to do. And I admit I’ve done it. But apparently MY threshold for over thinking is markedly higher than average. My psychiatrist informs me it’s not OCD. But my not-at-all obsessive nor hypochondriacally induced online research reveals there’s a thing called OCPD, which is not OCD, and this I’m sure I have. So the over thinking thing is just to be expected. I just have to figure out a way to use my powers for good.

That’s where the Critical Thinking class comes in. Those readers who have a slight tendency in this direction will immediately sign up for the local franchise to teach this class, because it has the potential to smooth out the bumps in the road by eliminating some bonehead moves by clueless people. Clearly, if you have a good idea that makes the world a better place and reduces suffering, you should share it, right?

Here’s the idea. You have to teach people not to just sit there and let media wash over them with not filter. Or to abdicate the responsibility of thinking to someone else and have them just tell you what to do. When someone tells you hydrogen fuel cells are the answer to the negative environmental effects of fossil fuels, don’t just accept it. Ask: what resources go into making a hydrogen fuel cell? The car may have less exhaust, but does it require more electricity to make it, increasing our coal burning? Are cloth diapers better that Pampers? Sure, they don’t sit in a landfill failing to biodegrade, but they result in the discharge of detergent into our wastewater, electricity and water to wash then, and gas or electricity to dry them. Well, you could wash them by hand in cold water with organic non-detergent cleaner and dry them in the sun, but I don’t want to be folding THOSE diapers with my bare hands, let alone put them on my baby’s bare bottom.

I have no answer to these examples, just the encouragement to raise more questions, make people support their answers with reputable studies, and (gasp) Question Authority.

I am going to be thinking and writing about this more. But, to close this installment, here is an authentic dramatization of an actual conversation I had with Owl at dinner last night:

Owl: Mommy, you know Moon Sand?
Me: Yes, I do, Honey.
Owl: You know that commercial I saw on TV for Moon Sand?
Me: No, I did not know there was a commercial.
Owl: Well, they were wrong!
Me: What was wrong with the commercial?
Owl: They said “Not available in stores” and that was not true because I went to Toys R Us with Daddy and they had Moon Sand in the store.
Me: (putting on my innocent puzzled expression and using my best law school Socratic Method voice) You mean they said something on TV in a commercial that wasn’t true just to convince you to buy the toy?
Owl: YES, and it wasn’t true, because it WAS in stores.
Me: So I shouldn’t believe something just because they say it on TV?
Owl: Right Mommy, ‘cause they can LIE!

At this point, I have already metaphorically taken off my laurel wreath so I can rest on it, feeling as if my work for the day is done. There is no more I can teach him on this subject, and he has come to this conclusion on his own. In the future, when he is whining about getting something because it is “new and improved,” I shall refer him to this conversation. In fact, I shall be so bold as to name this “The Moon Sand Axiom.” If I were a drinking man, I’d be pouring a single malt whisky in celebration. Since I am not, I shall instead (again metaphorically) crack into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream – the anniversary edition with mini chocolate cows. Cheers!

Wax On, Wax Off

2007-05-02T01:11:00.000-04:00

So, my son has officially enrolled in the local dojo to learn karate. He’s in the five to nine year old class, three times a week. The instructor is excellent. On the first day, he not only had my little guy calling him sensei (and pronouncing it better than I can), but also yearning to be like the other kids and count his reps in Japanese. He already knows to bow before entering the mat area, and wants to make the master proud. I guess it helps that he’s a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so he understands the concept of discipline and training.

Funny, here’s a list of things the boy wants to be when he grows up:
1. Ninja
2. Spy
3. Dart Player
4. Daddy

In that order.

So as I watch him execute clumsy moves and purported pushups, I considered dubbing him “Grasshopper” in this blog, in place of his real name. However, my laziness, coupled with my fervent desire to avoid superfluous typing is so vast, that I cannot bring myself to commit to such a long nickname for someone I will be writing about so often. For the same reason, I cannot use “my young apprentice,” which we often cooed to him in his infant days when he was just catching on to the ways of this world – the walking, the talking, the solid foods. I was also known to hiss “my precioussss” to him in those days, but really, that’s a little too creepy, even for me, now that the post partum depression has cleared!

So, for the immediate future, this young soul shall be referred to as “Owl,” for reasons that are apparent to some dear readers. Owl now has his very own size 00 gi to wear to class, with his first belt – white. He is neither the youngest nor the smallest in the class, but he is certainly the least coordinated. It’s fun to watch. What I love the most is, at his age, he has no embarrassment at failing, he just gets up and tries again. How long does that stage last? I want to cram a lot more in there before he starts feeling afraid to try things because he doesn’t think he can do them well.

Let us look back in 15 years of so, and see if he has chosen an undergraduate degree program that will bring him closer to his current career choice as a dart playing daddy working in black ops at the CIA.

Oh, one more thing. He is going to make some woman very happy. After he told me what he wanted to be when he grows up, including the part about being a daddy, I asked him what his wife was going to do. Being that we were talking about babies and daddies, I fully expected this answer: “She’ll be the mommy and she’ll take care of the baby.” Instead, the exchange went like this;

“Owl, what will your wife be?”
“Why, anything she wants to be.”

How lucky am I to have such an enlightened child?

Playgroup?

2007-04-28T00:08:00.000-04:00

I was reading about other moms' experience with playgroups at Mom 101's blog. I have to admit, I'm puzzled. I've heard of these playgroups, but only know one mom who participates. Maybe it's because my son has been in daycare since he was 6 weeks old, so I felt no need to supplement his time interacting with other children.

I promised myself I would never do to him what my mom did to me - assume that every child of a friend of hers who was approximately my age was my "friend." I have introduced him to my friends' kids when we get together with them, and he has so far never failed to light up when I mention who we will be visiting. One day that may change, and I have to remember to respect that. But as I understand it, the playgroup is not hanging out with your friends and letting your kids entertain each other. It's either an enriching experience for your child that you endure so he will learn how to socialize with other children, or it's a catty group of moms who force their children to play together so they can expand their social circle. Or so it seems, from what I've read.

Thank God I was never asked to join one. I'm not much of a joiner anyway.

Is it a function of what we've become as a society? Here in suburban NJ, where my parents haven't locked their front door in thirty years, are we so afraid of letting our children run free, or have unstructured time, that we have to form a group in order to play? Hey, I am not saying this next thing is right, but using it as an example of how things have changed: My parents tell me when I was a baby in Brooklyn, the pharmacy on the corner had aisles that were too narrow for my stroller (although, apparently they were called "carriages" back then). Did they carry me in and leave the stroller outside? No, they parked the stroller next to others, each with its respective cooing infant, and went inside! It's OK, my mother tells me; if I cried, one of the other moms would soothe me if she heard. No wonder I have issues. My mother abandoned me in my perambulator when I was nigh on five months old!

I distinctly remember my parents leaving me and my younger brother and sister home alone while they went up the block to play cards at a friend's house. I was, maybe, ten? But not to worry - they would call the friend before they left and leave the phone line open (apparently we were too young to know how to dial a phone, but not too young to be left alone). That way, if we started crying, or if a particularly noisy burglar or kidnapper stopped by, they might hear it over the raucous talking at the card game and come home. To hear my mother tell it, there were no such things as pedophiles back then.

I think the pendulum has swung the other way. No longer do young parents feel that they can chance it to let their kid just play with the neighbor children of indiscriminate age, or play by themselves in the yard. We must organize, schedule and homogenize every encounter they have with other children. No, that's too harsh. So I ask, other parents out there (and explain it to me as if I am a three year old): What are the benefits of a playgroup over getting together with friends or letting your kid(s) play with neighbors? Or is that what it is, with a new name?

Silver and Gold

2007-04-27T22:28:00.000-04:00

A great thing happened while I was writing my last post. The more I thought about Ellie, the more I wanted to talk to her. It has been years since we’ve been in touch, and she’s moved twice since then. I know what she does for a living, so I figured I could look up some professional organizations she might belong to. I thought about calling my old school, and seeing if the alumni department had her contact information. But, just for fun, I decided to type her name into my Google browser, to see if anything came up. In about 3 seconds, I found her. I went to her employer’s website, got her email, and now we’ve been sending notes back and forth. She even forwarded my info to a mutual friend from grad school, and I’ve been catching up with him, too. I love the internet!

I’ve been so lucky with friends. I’ve moved a lot, changed jobs a lot, and I usually only make one or two good friends at each stop in this voyage called life. I used to feel sad that I never had more then a handful of good friends. But I now realize that I am not the kind of person who would even enjoy having a whole gaggle of friends, or entourage of acquaintances. I only want the real special ones. I want to pour my energy and get my support from rarity. That leaves me with a string of good friends all over the world. Most of them, I’ve been long distance friends with for much longer than we lived in the same town. My friends from high school are my friends now. Ditto the ones I’ve held onto from three jobs ago and those who moved to the west coast. I have a pen pal/Christmas card relationship with a friend in Arizona who I haven’t seen in over ten years, but I know what all of his kids look like in their Halloween costumes and Christmas finery.

In the early 90s, I had an opportunity for a job in Hartford . Yes, it was an insurance company. I called by friend who lived in Connecticut, but whom I had not seen in person in years. I asked if I could stay with her while I looked for an apartment. I ended up staying almost two years. She was doing me a big favor by letting me crash while I apartment hunted, but we enjoyed each other’s company so much, she invited me to stay. It was as if the ten years or so since high school had never happened. Well, we were women now and not teenagers, but the things about each other we liked we still there and our connection was strong. Many of my friends are like that. We may only see each other once a year, but it has nothing to do with how often we spend time together, or if we keep up with the intimate details of day to day life. The bond is there, the friendship transcends space and time. Now, that brings me to something I read many years ago that seemed like abstract theory writing at the time, but now makes perfect sense to me. In Jonathan Livingston Seagull, one character says to another: “If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood!”

I’m not sure about the destruction of brotherhood, but it makes sense. Some people, they’re nice to talk to because it is convenient, but if you move, or changes schools, or jobs, they soon fade from your thoughts. If you ran into them years later, you might not recognize them, or remember much about them. But with some people, time and space are not the only things that keep us together. So, if we are far away, or time rolls on, we still think of them, remember their words and the impact they had on us. We still live our lives thinking things like “Oh, my friend Sue would love this movie,” or “Ahmed would tell a joke like that.” It’s not always reciprocated, but when it is, the bond is strong.

That’s why some old college buddies are just vague beer-soaked memories, and some are godparents to your kids. It’s like they are siblings, but you get to choose them. So, as the old saying goes: “Make new friends and keep the old; one is silver, the other gold.”

The Whistling Tea Kettle

2007-04-26T20:39:00.000-04:00

It was with much regret today that I had to give up my whistling tea kettle. I am an avid tea drinker. I never acquired a taste for coffee, but I have several cups of tea a day. In my parent’s house, you would often find me with my mom or siblings at 1 AM sitting around the kitchen table, drinking tea and talking. My sister’s friend Bean, who worked the 3-11 shift at the hospital, would know that, no matter the time, she could stop by our house on the way home for tea and company.

So, you get the picture. I drink a lot of tea. Until this Christmas, I did not own a coffee maker. (It’s still in the box, but I wanted it for guests, just in case.) However, a good kettle is essential to the proper preparation of this hot nectar of the gods. As a teen, I learned (the hard way) that if you do not watch the pot, it WILL boil, but you will be on the phone in another room and not notice it until it burns the kettle and sets off the smoke alarm. Thus the need for the Whistling Tea Kettle.

In graduate school in New Orleans, I had an English style “hot pot” that you plug into the wall to boil water. No stove needed. But also, no whistle. It did have an automatic shut off to avoid setting the house on fire, but in my preoccupied studying days, I often had to start from scratch after completely forgetting I was in the middle of preparing tea. I would walk into the kitchen, see the mug with the tea bag hanging out, and the plugged in, boiled dry hot pot sitting next to it. So, I’d have to refill and re-set the pot, and start all over.

That is, until my friend Ellie gave me a whistling steam kettle. Now this was not your average wimpy whistle. This large, heavy stainless steel hemispherical contraption made a sound like a far off locomotive steaming mournfully through the night. It was a perfect soulful whistle that let you, and the neighbors, know that the water was ready for tea. It even had gold plating on the lid. It was so meaningful to me that my friend had picked out a perfect gift, that even years after she moved away, I still thought of her every day. Every time I filled the kettle.

In fact, one of the first words my son uttered was in response to this: One day, he was sitting on the floor, and from the kitchen, the whistle sounded. He started, and I looked at him and asked “What could that sound mean?’ He told me, delightedly, “TEA!”

So farewell whistler, we will miss you.

My Brave Companion of the Road

2007-04-22T22:07:00.000-04:00

I just got back from a weekend out of town, and me with no laptop. (Hubby had one from work, but he didn’t offer, and I didn’t ask.)

I am again freakin’ amazed at the good luck I had finding this guy. (I know airing one’s clean laundry in public is bad taste, but I have to expound on my good fortune with this one, if only to balance out the intolerant things I will undoubtedly publish about him later – probably in 28 day cycles). He is the most comfortable person to travel with. One time, (not at band camp), we were on the way to Morgan City, deeply in a discussion about either (a) some fine point of law, or (b) the Saints, and we MISSED the I-310 off ramp from the I-10. This means we had to drive no less than 25 MILES out of our way, into St. John the Baptist Parish, in order to make the U-turn and get back on track. This would have resulted in 3 hours of screaming, name calling, and “Why don’t you ever pay attention?” had it happened to my parents. My guy? Laughs and says how I’m so interesting to talk to, he forgot to take the exit. Well it’s just bad sportsmanship to fight back to a clever and amusing remark like that, so I put a new cassette tape in the player, and along we went. That was at least ten years ago, and I still remember it as a bright moment, because of the “could have been.”

So, this weekend, the young one and I drove down to Baltimore, where Dad had been all week at a conference. We met him for dinner, at a cool Cuban restaurant (whose ropa vieja did not hold a candle to NOLAnotes’). We chowed down but could not convince the child to try even a fried plantain. He was stoked on McNuggets , and entertained himself watching ice cubes melt on his plate. I swear, we do give him toys, he just likes this kind of stuff. We finished off the night with a visit to the hotel’s indoor pool, a requirement if we are paying real money for a hotel.

The next day started off with breakfast at the hotel buffet (great oatmeal, but if you put that much brown sugar on anything, I imagine it would taste good), and another swim. We walked the 11 blocks to the children’s museum, Port Discovery, but found ourselves a wee peckish, so we stopped at a bistro for a light snack. Apple slices and peanut butter for the preschooler, quesadilla for the manly one, and a bit of tomato, basil, mozzarella for me. Perfect. After an exhausting three hours at the kid powered museum, our kid declared himself hungry. Well, those McDonalds market researchers are no fools. Who wouldn’t put a McDonalds fifteen steps from the exit to a children’s museum if the opportunity presented itself? Sigh, if only the janitorial staff were so inspired.

We hit the road (after the walk back to the hotel), and checked into the Sheraton in Annapolis for phase two of the weekend’s activities. Here’s where I segue back to my point about my beloved being a great travel companion. So, the plan was: enjoy some nice waterfront dining and watch the sunset in historic Annapolis, spend Sunday visiting the Naval Academy campus, and take a kid’s pirate cruise, fitting in a few more dips in the indoor pool for the five year old who just learned to swim. Invariably, the best part of any trip for him is the hotel pool. This includes our trip to Disney World, I feel compelled to clarify.

Here’s what actually happened: We relented on our gourmet intentions, and allowed him to pick the breakfast spot. I was hoping for a donut shop, or even pop tarts from the local supermarket, but our child requested the ihop. So, off we hopped, for a singularly uninspired breakfast which none of us finished. But, it did lead us to a place called “Kinder Farm Park,” where he got to swing in the playground, go down the slide a few dozen times, and see a new baby kid. The goat kind. And some roosters. And sheep. And a tractor with tires taller than he is.

Navy, schmavy, he was having a great time.

Unfortunately, we were not alert enough to notice that the hotel pool closed between noon and five on Sundays. What? I never heard of such a thing. The lifeguard was kind enough to let us swim in the five minutes remaining when we arrived at the pool that morning, but we were a bit nonplussed about the change in plans. This could have devolved even more when a call to the pirate cruise line revealed that they were booked for the rest of the day.

Now, I was expecting a meltdown, a disappointed daddy, and a cranky mommy. Instead, we rallied and drove a little out of the way to take the Cape May-Lewes Ferry home. It’s like a cruise, but without the pool, or the room service, or the casino. They did have a bar, and food, and an arcade in which none of the machines worked. This in no way detracted from our son’s enjoyment of the video game: He commanded his father and I in pushing all the buttons on the game while narrating how we were defeating the pirates in the invisible submarine. So, we got our pirate cruise after all.

A spontaneous dinner in lovely serene Cape May put a nice cap on this weekend, and of course, continuing the water theme, we collected seashells and rocks along the beach, and my little beachcomber rolled up his pants and put his feet in the ocean until he got goosebumps, which he compounded with a dish of Ben & Jerry’s chocolate ice cream.

In my experience, snatching a day like that from the jaws of disaster (I won’t even tell you about the back roads race against time to make it to the Ferry with about thirty seconds to spare) is a rare occurrence, and I am not taking for granted the sweet disposition my little guy inherited (and I learned) from the man whose name he wears.

So here’s to the many meandering trips we’ve taken, allowing serendipity to enrich our wanderings, and forestalling disappointment in favor enjoyment.

L’Chaim!
_____
Today’s entry is a tribute to NOLAnotes, whose description of her gastronomical escapades in the city of great restaurants and homecooked meals made me turn green with envy. Luckily, I had recent happy experience with dining out, or I would be singing a different tune.

Music To My Ears

2007-04-17T00:11:00.000-04:00

When my first nephew was a baby, he loved reggae music. Something about the rhythms just made him happy, and he would bounce along to the beat. So I made him a mix tape of songs I thought he’d like. He’s seven now, and I found the unfinished tape in a box in the playroom last month. I don’t know if he will still like the music on the tape, but his mom will like the letter I wrote to go with it, as a time capsule of what I was thinking as I picked out the songs for my godson.

Two years later when my own baby started listening to Mozart (de rigueur for a baby born right around the turn of the century. Some hospitals even gave out a Mozart CD to all babies born in their maternity wings), I augmented his listening experience with some kid friendly tunes from my own library. I edited for inappropriate content, considering that once he learned to talk, there were certain catch phrases I did not want to have to excise from his vocabulary (Think Rachel and Ross on Friends: “I like big butts…”). When a friend had a birthday party for his twins, I brought a CD mix as a gift from my son. He had never heard some of the songs on it. “You have access to better children’s music than I do.” I imagine with twin infants, he had access to a lot less free time than I did as a parent of one.

What I didn’t realize when I became a parent, is that there is a whole genre of music out there labeled as “children’s music.” I had never heard of Raffi. I thought it was just lullaby music – a little “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” For most of my life, I knew I was never going to want to have children, so I never spent time mooning over baby outfits and crooning baby songs. I had sometimes heard parents lament about having to listen to their kids CDs nonstop, and I thought, “How bad could it be?”

Than I heard it. The drivel masquerading as music; the annoying, nonsensical, repetitive non-melodies. No, I would not allow my brain to be assaulted by this. I would resist. I would fight back.

So, when my own was born, I started putting together some music I thought he would like. I started out with an awesome CD from a Reggae for Kids Series called Movie Classics. It features reggae covers of well know (mostly) Disney movie songs. Songs that I loved since childhood. “Bare Necessities" is a song my dad would sing to me, and so it is meaningful and fulfilling to sing it to my own son, and tell him about how much PopPop and I loved Mowgli and Papa Bear. From there I went to “You Are My Sunshine,” written by former Louisiana Governor Jimmie Davis, the official state song of Louisiana (See La. R.S. 49:155), where he (my son, not the former Governor) was born.

Ringo Star’s “Octopus’s Garden” was a natural, and, not to be left out, “Yellow Submarine” clambered to make the list. The lovely “Inch by Inch,” often heard by regulars at O’Flaherty’s Pub, seemed a good fit. The Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Linus and Lucy” makes me want to get up and dance, so I added that one, two. The “59th Street Bridge Song” seemed kid-friendly, as did “Dance Dance Dance” by the Steve Miller Band, and CSN&Y’s “Our House.” (life used to be so hard/ now everything is easy ‘cause of you). Drop in a few Harry Belafonte tunes, and you’re good to go!

I have since created several ipod playlists for the car, and we never have to listen to “kid music.” We just introduced him to excellent music that sounded good to his ears. OK, sure, some would say that listening to a crab called Sebastian sing “Under the Sea” is listening to kid music, but if it didn’t come from a Disney movie, and if it weren’t sung by animated talking sea creatures, it would be a hit: “Life is much bettah/ down where it's wettah.”

The young one now asks for some of his favorites by name. Regrettably, “Ghostbusters” currently tops that list, but we also get requests for “Jambalaya” and “I’m Alright.” (Just pretend I'm technologically advanced enough to have placed a dancing gopher icon here.) He also likes “the one with good beats,” which is one of the Ramones songs, but I can’t tell them apart, so I don’t know which one it is.

And that’s how we avoided the tyranny of children’s music. I only hope we are so lucky with books.

Adventures in Absentminded Parenting

2007-04-13T21:04:00.000-04:00

I was reading Mamma Loves's post on waiting for the Easter Bunny, and I though of the faux pas (or is it faux Paas?) in the Moondance household this weekend. Seems the little man was not expressing much anticipation about getting a basket this year- in fact, he hadn't mentioned it all at. I was considering out loud just bypassing the great woven container full of brightly wrapped sugar, cholesterol and milk solids, when my brother-in-law reminded me that my son's quietude in the face of a candyless Easter morn would not last long once he compared notes with his cousins! Right-O: Artery-clogging, sugar-laden commercial foodstuffs it is. And we'll have to get the kid some candy, too!

My sainted husband (still trying to come up with a witty nickname for him) went out and got the goods, but I fell asleep Saturday night before putting the basket together. I awoke the next day and was halfway through a game of Candyland before I realized that there was no Easter basket to be found. I rushed upstairs to call for backup, and hubby again saved the day. He wandered into the living room a few minutes later, and casually mentioned "Last night, when I got up to get a glass of water, I tripped over something white and fluffy in the hallway." The little guy's eye's lit up and he gasped "The Easter Bunny!" as he scampered off to the bedroom hall to find his well hidden Easter basket. All is good and right in the world. "Thank You Easter Bunny!"