Things That Go Beep In The Night

Sweet Hubby is in Kiwi-a-gogo-land for the month. I miss him. A lot. Especially at night. Because I can't sleep. I could be all romantic and say that my sleep is dependent on having the curve of his body against mine. It would be a romantic thing to say but it would also be a lie. While I do LOVE the curve of his body - I usually sleep better on my own. Not this time. This time is very different. This time there are things - THINGS - in the room interfering with my sleep. Beepy things. Beepy-in-the-middle-of-the-night things! Beepy and blinky and flashy things even!

Maybe twenty minutes after I fall asleep the first night there is a loud "Ba-whoosh" and a green flash. SH's computer and monitor come alive and demand passwords. The computer seems as disoriented as I feel - as if we're both staring at each other thinking "Why the hell did you wake me up?" The only possibility I can come up with is that the dog must've bumped the desk and jiggled the mouse and woken us all up. I get out of bed to turn the thing off and hear Wasabi startle awake in the other room. He comes running in to see what's going on. Eeeek. Now I have NO IDEA how (or why) the computer woke itself (and me and the dog) up. Bad dream? Maybe not but it sure doesn't want to go back to sleep! I can NOT get it to hibernate or suspend or anything. I know better than to try to turn it all the way off because SH has it programmed to do regular maintenance (supposedly during the day!!) and also to record 'Eureka' - the only TV show I've cared about in almost ten years. I finally think to turn at least the monitor power off. The computer is NOT happy. Actinic light is frantically flashing from the computer's brain box on the floor. I throw a pillow at it (and miss and have to throw two more) to block whatever message the machine is trying to send. I am so NOT in the mood to decipher. I want to get back to sleep.

I finally drift off again. A nanosecond later there is a strange electronic trill. I am wide awake. (Again.) I listen. I wait. I hear silence. And more silence. Twenty minutes more silence. And then five more minutes. And then I have no idea how much more because I fall back asleep. Beep, beep, beep-be-beep. Grrrrr. I sit bolt upright. I throw a pillow at SH's computer. After launching the pillow at the computer on the floor, I wake up enough to realize the peppy chirping is coming from the TOP of the desk and to the right. In addition to the location differential here, at this point I have a large enough statistical sample of sounds to compare and the indignant, crackling sh-sh-ing and small, muffled, whumping sounds now emanating from the floor are nothing like the sound that woke me this time. Hmmm. Maybe he left his phone? But no. I know all of his phone's sounds - and this is not one of them. Besides, I distinctly remember handing him his phone and watching him tuck it into his carry on. I go back to sleep. For maybe an hour. There it is again. Dammit!

This is getting annoying. Worse is that the sound itself is pleasant. It is not the mournful, eeyor sound of 'low battery'. It is not the Chicken Little cry of text message 'alerts' zapped to SH's phone to warn of downed servers in the OR. This sound is...sweet. If it weren't repeatedly waking me up in the middle of the night I would not be contemplating hurling a hammer at whatever it is.

I finally get up and locate the bugger. It's a pager. On his desk. I have no idea why there is a tiny pager hunkered down under a stack of papers. I don't even know why pagers exist now that there are cell phones with text messaging capabilities. Poor, obsolete thing. That I still want to smash with a hammer. I don't though. I have mercy. I smother it with my next to last pillow and go back to sleep.

In vain. The phone rings. Wrong number. I contemplate the effort it would take to introduce a bill to Congress that would make calling the wrong number at 4:17 a.m. a federal crime with the death penalty attached to it. I fall asleep just in time for my alarm clock to wake me up with its horrendous, broken-sounding buzz. (Aside: It sounded broken even before I threw it at the wall this time - because, er, um, it is not the first time I have thrown it against the wall. I have LOATHED the sound of this alarm clock since we got it. I hate it enough that I usually wake up and turn it off the split second before it's set to make that horrible sound. The problem arises on days when I'm too tired for the split second timing bit to work well. On those (i.e. bad) days, when I am awakend by the screechy-buzzy-makes-me-want-to-beat-the-fuck-out-of-somebody sound, I typically sling the alarm clock across the room in the split second before I am awake enough to realize the poor machine is merely doing what I asked (i.e. forced) it to do when I clicked the 'alarm on' button the night before.)

Mama is not happy. (Neither is the alarm clock.)

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I am even more not happy after two additional nights of this. SH's computer is still frantically trying to communicate with me (or maybe with aliens) in the wee sma's. I have managed (with some help from my buddy Mat-a-tat-tat) to make the happy pager shut up. But for some reason (and Mayhem is his name-o) the timer on the kitchen stove took up where happy pager left off by buzzing in the middle of the night (and scaring the shit out of me). ("Uh, I thought I set the timer for 8 minutes. I guess I set it for 8 hours. Sorry mom.")

I have glared individually at all the noise-making appliances in the house and put them on notice. If one of them so much as makes a little, bitty peep or flashes one, tiny LED tonight...it's Hammer Time (only without the parachute pants.)
Peace.

Havoc's Collection

When we took the kids to the science museum at Easter, Havoc spent all of his money ($22!) on a round, handblown glass paperweight. Sweet Hubby tried to talk him out of it. After all, Havoc's seven. The paperweight is glass. In the shape of a ball. There are all manner of bad combos there. Havoc would not be swayed. "It's a beautfiul orb! I really, really, really, really want it. Pleeeeease! I promise I'll take care of it." Orb?
Turns out Havoc collects* orbs. He has one. This one.

(*Sidenote to St. Ann - I know, I know. Apples don't fall far from the tree, do they? I told him that if he called it a proto-collection and whined about how he'd been trying for YEARS to collect them, then suddenly he would have orbs galore.)

Havoc LOVES this orb. I have (on more than one occasion) found it in his bed. We had to put a stop to that though, since braining Mayhem (who sleeps on the bottom bunk) in the middle of the night would not be cool. Mostly Havoc's orb lives on my desk when he doesn't need it. Need it? He giggled gleefully when I asked him what he could possibly 'need' it for. "It's the Orb of Confusion, mom." With that non-explanation, he snatched it and ran. He's cute but weird. I may have mentioned that before.

So the other day, Havoc and I were eating breakfast together after the big kids had gone to school. Havoc turned to me and said, "You know what I'd like to try?"
I said, "What would you like to try?"
"Bats."
"Bats?!"
"Yep."
"To eat??"
"Yes."
"People don't eat bats."
"Well, maybe not for breakfast, but they do for dinner."
"Yuck. They're like mice that fly. People do NOT eat them. For breakfast or for dinner."
"Mom, they don't fly. They swim!"
"Bats don't swim. What are you talking about?!"
Pause. Blink. Blink.
Giggles poured forth from my child. Howls followed. When he could finally get a hold of himself somewhat, he said, "I don't want to eat baTs. I said 'bass'. The fish! You know how we're going fishing with Cub Scouts? FISH! You thought I wanted to eats BATS! You are sooo weird." Me? Forget the bat part, he's the one who was thinking about eating bass for breakfast! I'm weird? This from a kid who collects orbs! Speaking of...the Orb of Confusion: it was sitting on the kitchen counter right behind us. I pointed to it. I asked him if THIS is what he used it for. That set him off again. He absolutely dissolved into belly laughs. "BATS! You thought I wanted to eat a bat." The child could NOT stop laughing. I asked him if he had added to his collection. I wondered if perhaps he had acquired the Orb of Silliness when I wasn't looking. "Mama, you are soooo weird." He made himself snort he was laughing so hard. Just when I thought he'd pulled himself together, I heard him say "Bats!" while he was putting on his shoes in the other room. He got on the bus and shouted out the window, "Bats for breakfast!"
We're having hamburgers for dinner tonight. I think I'm going to be hard pressed to keep myself from slipping a plastic bat underneath the top bun on Havoc's plate. I'd do about anything to make him laugh like that again.
(I try not to imagine a thirty-year old Havoc explaining his childhood. "Well, there was this one year when my parents gave my brother a toilet seat for his birthday and then my mom served Batburgers for dinner. ")
Peace.

Above And Beyond Whelmed

Overwhelmed is an understatement.
September 11th.
I'm sure there will be brilliant and heart rending posts today.
Not here. Not mine. I feel sad and scared.
Sad when I look at the hole in the NYC skyline. Sad to think that even a hole that big can't represent the holes left in people's lives.
Scared when I think about how many terrorists we've created in the last five years. Scared to think that our administration has wasted thousands and thousands of lives (American and otherwise) on a course of action that has made the world a worse place. I'm trying not to be scared that my sweet husband is on a plane over the Pacific at this moment.

He says that he can't think of a better day to fly. I guess he's right. There are bound to be many who wouldn't dream of flying today. And I'm sure airport security is as 'tight' as it can get. I also admire a certain amount of the 'we'll show 'em' attitude. All the same, I'm looking forward to his call this afternoon to let me know he arrived safe and sound.
Peace. Peace. And more Peace!

Calendar Mom

Usually I like being the keeper of the calendar. Sometimes it wears my ass out. Recently it's been much more of the latter than the former.

Collecting the information to put on the calendar can be somewhat of a challenge. My boys seem to lack the ability to transfer information from the school to the parent in any reliable way. Chaos will say things like, "Hey mom. There's a dude coming to speak at the high school sometime and they said to make sure to tell you about it. He's an expert." Date? Time? Subject of Mr. Dude's talk? "I don't know, mom, that's all they said." I used to think that when Chaos said the words "at school they said..." that he was telling me about an announcement made at assembly or over the intercom. Knowing my child and his Calvinesque ways, I was not surprised that the pertinent facts were either garbled or completely absent.

I convinced myself that I had to make do with Chaos' paltry hints about middle school happenings. My options (as I saw them last year) were to use his vague, factless statements as diving off points for major research projects or (more often than not) miss events entirely. The middle road between those two extremes involved comparing rumors with Chaos' friends' mothers and seeing if we collaboratively could arrive at an idea of what was going on at the school. My saving grace was that the REALLY important stuff goes on the sign in front of the school which is on Main Street and hard to miss. (And er, well, you do receive a personal phone call from the Vice Principal when your son gets OSS.)

We are only three weeks into the new school year, but the tides, they are beginning to shift! The ratio of elementary schoolers to middle schoolers having gone from 3:1 last year to 1:3 this year means I have a new resource at my disposal: the Ninja Princessa.
Here is a sample of how the new system works. (Sidenote - the family rule is that they have to participate in ONE school-related extracurricular, be it a sports team for a season or a special interest club for the whole year.)

First Shot:
Me (the first week): So, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Chaos (age 14): I want to play paintball.
Me: Yes. And you can. But that is not an organized school activity. I repeat, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Chaos: I guess I'll join the Geography Club. They go out to eat.
Me: Ok. How often do they meet? When is the first meeting? Do they eat out every time? How much does that cost?
Chaos: I don't think it costs anything. They said at school that it would probably start meeting in September but it's during the day so we don't have to worry about it.
Me: What's during the day? The meetings? Well how do they go out to eat? How often do they meet?
Chaos: I don't know Mom! They just said it would start in a few weeks. I'm sure I'll find all that out at the meetings.
Me: (silent but with raised eyebrows)
Chaos: Ok, ok - don't spaz. I'll ask my homeroom teacher.

Next Victim:
Me (just a few minutes after the conversation with Chaos): So, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Mayhem (age 12) : Club? I have to join a club?
Me: Yes, remember we talked about this? A sport or a club - but something social at school.
Mayhem: Oh yeah right. I remember now. Ok. I'll join the Math Club. Math is awesome.
Me: Great. Math Club. You sure they HAVE a Math Club? Did they make any announcements about it? Did they give you any papers? When does it meet? How do you sign up?
Mayhem: I have no idea. No one has said anything about it. I KNOW they have one because my friend was in it last year. (Sidenote: anyone Mayhem has talked to once, even if it was for one second, he refers to as 'my friend'.)
Me: Your friend was in the Math Club at the elementary school last year? We need info on the middle school Math Club.
Mayhem: Mo-om. My friend is in the seventh grade. He's older than me. (Sidenote: my child is rolling his eyes at me.)
Me: Ok. So what else did he say about it? Or wait - really what we need is official info, buddy. Has your homeroom teacher said anything or passed out anything about sign ups?
Mayhem: Nobody has said anything except my friend. But I'll find out. Math is awesome.

Final Victim:
Me (just a few minutes after the conversation with Mayhem and one final sidenote: the Princessa and Mayhem are in the same homeroom): So, what club did you decide on and when does it meet?
Ninja Princessa (age 11): I want to join the Writing Club! It doesn't start until September 6th at 2:45 in Ms. Crawford's room but I want to start working on something before then. We meet twice a month - on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays, I think, I'll have to double check - but Heather and I were thinking that we could get together on the other Wednesdays and have a writing club of our own outside of school. What do you think about that? Oh! And here's the paper that our homeroom teacher gave us yesterday about all the clubs. I would have given it to you last night but I was copying it all into my planner. Oh! And here are two forms that don't have to be turned in until Friday, but we get extra credit if we bring them back tomorrow. Oh! And they made an announcement about the parent information website. It has a new address. I wrote it down for you. Here. Oh! And on that sheet - it says the sponsor for The Something Something Club is Ms. Soandso, but it's not really, it's Ms. Suchandsuch so if you ever need to call her be sure to use the right number and not mix them up. Can I go over to Rachel's?

My head almost exploded at this most unusual and unexpected influx of actual information.
I know my temper exploded. The Princessa and Mayhem are IN THE SAME HOMEROOM! They are exposed to the EXACT SAME information. The are given the EXACT SAME papers.
"I promise Mom. I've never seen that paper. I don't know where she got it!" Grrrrr. We're in the process of developing better systems so that everyone acquires some organizational skills - but the Ninja Princessa is certainly helpful in the checks and balances department! Also - I just have to add that the Geography Club does NOT meet during school, but after school just like every single other club does.

And then! (Tapioca warning - my apologies for letting the rancidness ooze twice in one week - but if you only knew how much I could say and don't!!!) My ex (Mr. Tapioca Head) has a fucking HISSY fit that I didn't tell him about the Open Houses!

Lucky for you I have just erased about 6 paragraphs but the gist of it is - I sent the man paper - hard copy - black and white notice! I handed him a bag full of papers including forms and calendars. I had gone out of my way to xerox standardized test scores (which I could have made him request directly from the school). I even put in two papers that I only had because my step-daughter (i.e. NOT a child he and I have in common!) gave them to me. I instructed the boys to be sure to show their dad the schedule in their agendas. (The school requires that the kids keep these planner/agenda thingies and write down all of their assignments. It's a fabulous tool and I check it all the time now. But honestly, it was a long shot that either boy would remember to show their dad the planner. It was only a layer, a side item, not the main dish.) Mr. Tapioca Head received not only but extra. Lastly, he has the exact same access to the sign on Main Street, the website, and teacher email that I do!

And what do I get from him? I get a completely sarcastic, vile email (that I could read but not respond to) saying he is done trying to work with me as a co-parent. He has found out about the open houses in spite of the fact that I did 'tell' him about them. When I do finally have a way to respond, I send the NICEST email possible. Not chummy - but very polite. Not apologetic - but rational, and calm- explaining that I did indeed 'tell' him. I mean it - my letter should be sent to the Nobel committee. What do I get back? A completely UNHINGED response. The most bizarre part of which is where he chides me about my opinion of the sexual orientation of one of our sons! Um - WTF???? (For the record, I have formed no 'opinions' as my boys don't seem to be much interested in girls or boys 'that way' and when they do get interested, I promise you I don't care which orientation they choose!!) The least bizarre thing the man said is that he's scheduling appointments with the principals of the schools (presumably to tell them what a terrible mother I am and how I am trying to keep him out of his sons' lives).

Being Calendar Mom is a difficult and unrewarding job. I think I'll put in for a transfer. Do you think there's an opening in the Rich, Bon-Bon Eating, Margarita-Drinking, Has Maid Service Mom department?
Peace.

Ixnay

Ixnay on the Ishfay! I sooooo have to get one of these. There are other great fish here, but this is the one I have to have. It will go great (here in my studio) right next to my bumper sticker "So many Christians. So few lions." Here's the thing. I am a woman of deep, abiding, and somewhat complex faith. I LOVE church. I am ALL ABOUT liturgy. I talk to my kids all the time about values and faith. But Lordy, Christians know how to work my very last nerve.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Gamer's Life For Me

"Mashed goblin heads." (<-- My older son's answer to my question, "How was game? What did you do?") That's what my kids did last night - they mashed goblin heads. Here in the Bible Belt, Wednesday nights are sacred fellowship time. Sports practices and school assignments are arranged to leave the night open. Most of my neighbors gather with their church families and pray. My family? We do gather. We gather our kids and their like-minded friends. We usually feast. And then we get down to serious family activities like goblin head mashing. (Praying is entirely optional.) I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. I am raising a herd of gamer geeks. RPG's R Us. I love it. My kids know how to follow a cross-referenced index; they have to use diplomacy to gather the party together and develop strategies; they have to write character backstory; they learn to speak up in a group; and they are whizzes at adding/manipulating the numbers on thrown dice. But there are times when I realize how sweetly not-normal my kids really are.

For example:
This summer when we helped VBGF move, she treated my crew to dinner out at the Chinese Buffet. My children LOVE the Chinese Buffet. They were dashing around, happily babbling, comparing choices, and racing each other to the best stuff. Did I mention that they LOVE the Chinese Buffet? Me? Not so much. I was sitting at the table waiting for the whole thing to be over when my youngest, Havoc, rushes to me holding one hand up with the other, blowing on his bright red finger tips.
"Lovey, what happened?!" I asked, as I scooped him up into my lap. With tiny tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, he said, "I encounterd a steaming hot plate and suffered one HP damage." Then he held his fingers up for me to kiss it all better. I gave him extra squeezes and didn't let him see me chuckling. He is definitely sweeter and geekier than the average bear.
Peace.

Better, Stronger, Faster And Also? Oozing Tapioca

My computer? She's ALIVE! (Again.)
We (and by 'we' I specifically mean Sweet Hubby all by his lonesome) had the technology to rebuild her. All that had to be done was to remove her brain and stick it in a smaller, sleeker, newer body with about quadruple the memory. The only 'hitch' is the possibility that a few recent, snarky emails from my ex (Mr. Tapioca Head) may have been lost forever.
Same brain but smaller, sleeker, younger body with a better overall memory and fewer specific memories of my ex?? SIGN ME UP, I say!

In other news - I've changed my self diagnosis from 'sporadic grammar nazi' to plain and simple 'word nazi' because really? (and obviously) I don't actually get punctuation. Fragments are cool with me. Spelling mistakes don't bother me too much either. (I have a cousin who is brilliant and a PATHOLOGICALLY horrendous speller. It fascinated me all through high school and didn't seem to hold her back as she went on to get a Master's from Harvard and a PhD from Vanderbilt.) But the 'wrong word thing' can make me twitchy. Previously, I've worried about my son's chances of getting a job (since he suffers dreadfully from a serious but common form of almost-malapropitis) but apparently I need not worry AT all. There are jobs a plenty (especially in the food service industry) for people who don't know one word from another. At Kroger's recently, I saw a sign posted that instructed folks making their salads at the salad bar to "disgard" any food that is dropped. (Aside from the 'ick' factor that they would have to post a notice like that - what were people doing before the sign?? - I have to admit that it COULD have been a simple spelling mistake.) My local bagel shop has posted a 'Help Wanted' sign that says they are looking for someone who is "friendly, able to follow instructions, willing to work weekends, and conscience of others." Jiminy Cricket!

And there is one other word confusion (non food service industry related) that has amused me this week. (It is possible that you will not be as amused as I was but to put my amusement in context you have to understand that at the time my other entertainment options were pamphlets about STD's, information on the state's most wanted 'deadbeat dads', and horrifyingly graphic posters informing me of the truth about meth bugs.) You see, I spent quite a while at the child support enforcement office this week trying to understand what the heck is going on with our 'case'. The case worker kept talking about garnishing my ex's paycheck. I tried not to snicker (really!) - but the image I kept seeing was of some official state personage drawing cute little doodles and pasting precious stickers all over his check. I know they use the word garnishee (to mean the person whose wages are being withheld) and I know that they use the word garnishment (to mean the amount they are withholding), but I was taught in school that the verb for withholding pay was 'garner' and the verb 'garnish' was along the lines of fancy restaurants decorating their signature dishes. It's possible that I was wrong to begin with. It could also be that the word usage has shifted thereby rendering my understanding archaic. I'm ok with language shift. I find it interesting and generally think it's a positive force in the world. However you'll just have to disreguard my chuckling at the silly pictures my archaic understanding paints in my head.

Back to the inordinately long time spent in the child support office on Monday: I've been trying NOT to blog about my ex all week but he has been such an icky, icky pain in the potatoes that short of not writing (like the past five days) I think I just have to let a little bit of rancid tapioca leak out into the blogosphere.

Here is the smallest peice of it:
For about the past three years, I have wanted to have my child support switched from being paid directly by my ex to going through the state. He and I have had any number of unpleasant disagreements over silly little things like my ex deciding he'd 'overpaid' me and skipping an entire check (at Christmas - twice!) or his trying to argue that he can't pay me anything for a month because he lost his job even though he has just received ELEVEN THOUSAND dollars in severance. Aside from the fact that the state and I agree that severance pay does in fact count as 'income' in terms of maintaining one's children - someone please explain how he could justify to himself having a fat bank balance while his kids get nothing on which to eat?! Anyway... each time I have suggested we let the state decide what's fair, he has bullied and badgered, wheedled and argued, and generally made life unpleasant in the extreme for me (and more subtly for the kids.) He has thrown hissy fits about how having his wages withheld by the state for child support would make him look to his employer like a 'deadbeat dad' which he is not. I bought that - because for all the financial shenanigans he's tried to pull - at heart, he is no where close to a 'deadbeat'. He does eventually come through with most, if not all of, what we agreed on. He is way more annoying than criminal. In the interest of finding compromise, I have protected us by getting the amount of child support officially updated by court order but never gone on ahead and turned the whole case over to the state. It's just not ever gotten to the point of being worth the inevitable price of extra emotional stress on the kids when he gets into passive-aggressive mode. So imagine my surprise when I get a postcard from child support services saying that a case has been 'opened'. (<-- Dated the day after our most recent mediation session failed, btw.) I could only assume that he had done this in an effort to get his child support lessened.

Apparently, once a case is opened, the state goes ahead and processes it and informs you about the outcome later. While I was biking, a lot happened. My stack of mail included:
*a request for me to provide a copy of my divorce decree (oops - missed the two day deadline on that one!)
*a judgment setting our child support AT THE EXACT AMOUNT it's been for years. (Maybe that will change later, but it was a relief to see it reiterated all the same.)
*a copy of the form sent to my ex's employer requiring them to garnish his wages (as you can imagine, hello kitty stickers were envisioned but not actually included)
*a very serious looking (and confusing!) affidavit of income/expenses to be turned in NO LATER THAN Aug 28th (hence my time spent desperately trying to look at anything EXCEPT the meth bug poster!)

The case worker, who by the way had not returned any of my phone calls, despite the increasingly desperate messages I left as the deadline drew near - was GREAT in person. She answered my questions. But she was puzzled why I was asking so many. Why hadn't I asked all the procedural questions when I opened the case? I explained to her that I hadn't opened the case, my ex had. She looked at me. She looked at her file. She looked more closely at her file.
"But you're the custodial parent?"
"Yes."
"And you've always been the custodial parent?"
"Yes."
"But your ex - who pays you child support - opened this case?"
"I assume so. I didn't do it. I think he was mad at me when he didn't get what he wanted in mediation."
"Does he realize he opened a case with the child support ENFORCEMENT office?"
"Again, I assume so. Is everything ok?"
"It's fine - I've just never, ever heard of anyone opening an enforcement case against themselves."

She mentioned at one point that he could 'close' the case if he wanted to. I panicked a bit about that asking whether that meant he could decide to go back to paying me directly instead of through the court. "Oh no honey! He'll be paying the court for, um let's see, 11 years. There's no going back on that. But he could come back and close the enforcement case against himself." (She chuckled and shook her head, muttering under her breath "Lordy - a case against yourself." I really liked her.)

I told her that I'd gotten one check - but that it was short by several hundred dollars of the amount he was ordered to pay. She said that since it was the first one, the garnishment probably hadn't taken hold yet and he'd just mailed in a random amount himself. (Why he didn't mail in the amount he's been paying that happens also to be the amount he was ordered to pay - I cannot begin to guess.) She asked me if I wanted her to send a letter of contempt. Er - no. I just want the fair amount of money. She said he would probably make it up at the end of the month - but she reassured me that he couldn't 'skip' checks anymore. The amount in arrears would always show and he'd have to catch up or the state would take steps. (She said one of those 'steps' could be putting him in jail overnight. Heaven forbid!! Can you imagine how awful that would be for the kids (not to mention for him)? I suppose that's what makes it effective - but really! There is no way I'd be ok with that.) Her parting words to me were, "Well if you change your mind on Thursday - just give me a call and I'll send out that contempt letter."
If only I could convince her to garnish the letter with some 'my precious pony' stickers, I might be tempted.
Peace.

Blogstacles

I finally have time in my studio to write, surf, and blog - and guess what??

My computer is sick. Really sick. Sweet hubby made me pull the plug. He tried to walk me through some patches or fixes or whatever and we discovered that my browser had been hijacked and the spybot search and destroy program was itself devoured by whatever's lurking. Until he can bring home some major diagnostic suite, he had me unplug her to make sure that whatever is going on can't replicate and eat the hard drive or randomly email anyone I've ever emailed. She might need the computer equivalent of chemo. Sigh. I guess I'm grateful that, unlike when the kids get sick, I don't have to do extra laundry.

I spent the first half of the morning moping around, whining (to Wasabi) about how much it sucks not to have computer access. I even railed against the gods of the ether who seem to enjoy sowing obstacles along my blogging path. I resigned myself to cleaning out a huge box of old paper/mail/random crap that's been skulking around since we moved (LAST YEAR!!!)

In it, I found an old address book. As I was trying to decide if I had the energy to sort through it or if I should just toss it, a card fell out. It was a nine year old Christmas card from the sister in my French host family. Twenty years ago (last month!) I stayed with her family and over the next ten years we kept in touch. I never got back to France, but I saw her when she was here. She (and later she and/or her husband) would stay with us or we'd meet her/them wherever they were going. That Christmas card was all about how she and her husband were finally getting to immigrate to the US. A few months after she sent the card, she called me and left me a phone message with her new address and phone number. Before I got around to writing that info down, a huge storm zapped our machine and killed it. We had just moved into a tiny (770 sq ft!) cabin and I was pregnant with Havoc. I couldn't keep any food down; I had two small boys at home; we had NO money (to replace the message machine, much less make an international phone call to her old number to try and get her new one); and by the time I sorted things out - I had no way to find her.

Her old number was dead and my letters got returned. I have mentioned my mad computer research skillz before, right? I tried Googling her a couple (er, well maybe 4 or 5) years ago with no luck. Her name is Roxane and Google would ask me if I meant "Roxanne". Her last name happens to be a past passive participle (? I think) of some irregular French verb. Aside from some odd French websites, I found nothing. When I saw the card this morning, my first thought was how sad I was that my computer was comatose. If my computer was working, I'd try again to find Roxane. I walked into the bedroom, stubbed my toe on SH's office chair, bumped his desk, and eeeked when his computer screen lit up. (RIGHT! That's a COMPUTER!) It's not MY computer, but hey, she won't mind. I have computer access again. YAY! (Go ahead, ask me how much more work I've done sorting through papers.)

I HEART Google! I got two good hits! The first one listed both her and her husband's names and gave their street address (and the name of the realtor who sold them their new house - but I didn't give a shit about that). The second one was her name (spelled correctly) in an elementary school PTO newsletter thanking her for her help with career day (computer science). BINGO! That's MY Roxane! AND the newsletter gave me the zip code so I didn't even have to look that up.

I called Sweet Hubby and bragged about my amazing research abilities (neglecting to mention the role my poor stubbed toe played) and do you know what he said? (Hint: it was NOT along the lines of "Honey, that's great!")
He said, "So did you call her yet?"
I said, "Um, no. I'm going to WRITE her. I have her ADDRESS."
He said, "Why didn't you use that to get her number? "
Aside from the fact that it hadn't occurred to me (and that even now that he's brought it up, I have no idea how to convert the one to the other), I realized I'd be too nervous to call. I think writing a letter is more up my alley. Chicken Street. That's where I live, apparently. Google me and I bet that's what you'd find. (Well, you'd find that and a question about a recipe for lasagna in French. If you want some serious fun (or are just trying to avoid a pile of year old mail on the floor), try having Google 'translate' that recipe into English for you.)
Peace.

Idea Bunnies

I have started about twenty entries this morning and haven't been able to settle into any one of them. I seem to be having the opposite of writer's block. Or maybe not exactly opposite. It feels a bit like chasing mental rabbits. I dash into a herd of them and they scatter. When I try to run one down, it manages to dart ahead and hop to the side. I chase and chase and no joy. I give up. I flop down (huffing and puffing) with no idea bunnies in sight. If I stay here quietly, I suspect they would slowly surround me again - but to be honest - I have WAAAY to much housework to do to sit here and wait for the mental rabbit herd to regather.

So I'll leave you with this - yesterday I was on the interstate behind a Batesville Casket Company semi and on the back it said, "Drive safely. Heaven can wait."
Isn't that great?
Peace.

Fun Facts About You - It's A Middle School Thing

Apparently, every single teacher gave the kids a 'Fun Facts About You' sheet to fill out in class on the first day. My two sixth-graders and my one eighth-grader complained mightily about how 'boring' this was and they implored VBGF (whose school doesn't start for two weeks) not to torture her students this way. She told them it really helps her to know her students as individuals and besides they're often hilarious and teachers need all the laughs they can get.

Wondering if my kids were more on the 'boring' side or the 'often hilarious' side, I asked them what kind of questions were on the sheet. The Ninja Princessa said that one of her teachers asked her to list her three favorite foods. She answered (honestly): pomegranates, tofu, and cabbage.

That's my girl. Her favorite foods are a weird, seedy, fruit thing; a gelatinous, bland, non-meat thing; and a stinky, vegetable thing. I'm not an expert, but I suspect her answer will stand out amid her classmates' answers of pizza, chicken fingers, and french fries. Chaos' favorite movie answer ("8 Legged Freaks") might stand out too, but then again, it might not. I'm pretty sure that all of Chaos' friends love that movie too. (But did they write it down, that's the thing.)

I know teachers at the beginning of the year are incredibly busy. Do you think they could possibly have had time to READ all of those answers? If teachers had unlimited time, just imagine what they could do with all that information! They could know who was in which friend clique. They could spot new pre-teen trends. They could compare this year's answers with past classes and chart subtle, historical shifts in adolescent attitudes. They could entertain themselves by playing guessing games tomorrow evening at Back To School Night - matching incoming parents with student sheets before reading nametags!

But surely the teachers have only had time to skim. Right? Right?
Oh Lordy. I might need some fashion advice. I need something clear, but understated. Something classic. I need the kind of outfit that says, "I really do cook normal food" and "He must get the gene for loving mutant, alien spiders from his father."
What do you think? Black, strappy sandals or closed-toe flats? Hmmmm?
Peace.

What I Did This Summer

Biking 450 miles from Central Vermont to Montreal (and back) is fantastic. You should do it. However, if you decide to, here are a few bits of advice:

(Pre-Bike Trip Advice)
Do:
Bike the Blue Ridge Parkway for a couple of days on your way up to Vermont if you happen to get stranded in Wytheville, VA and towed to Roanoke on a Saturday after all the mechanics have left and won't be back until Monday.
Do:
Get your hair cut by the Vietnamese barber on Williamson in Roanoke. He's open on Sundays, charges $10, and cuts hair like Edward Scissorhands. Really. (Also, if you tell him you want your hair to look like Armando's from the Mexican restaurant, it'll be short enough to fit under your bike helmet and be much cooler (temperaturewise) - but it'll be spikey on top, which is fun. Even if you don't remember until later that you have no hair gel and no room for hair gel in your bike bag so it'll really only be spikey that first day. For ten minutes. Before you put your bike helmet on to ride back to the hotel.)
Don't:
Believe the mechanics who think they might be able to find out what's wrong with your car and get you on the road by Thursday.
Do:
Go right ahead and rent a car and drive yourself the rest of the way to Vermont on Saturday. It'll save you the cost of hotel rooms and you won't have to put off your bike trip to Canada by almost a week AND you won't miss your nephew's first birthday. (Alternatively - if you don't take the advice about the rental car and you do take the advice about biking the parkway - DO wear sunscreen because then you'll be able to ignore some of the advice once you get to Montreal. Keep reading and you'll see.)

(Actual During The Bike Trip Advice)
Do:
Bike with your Very Best Girlfriend. She rocks.
Don't:
Talk to her after breakfast and before actually getting on the road. (Especially if that amount of time is a long time because you haven't gotten your poop in a group.) VBGF's rock in general, but take it from me, they're a leetle grumpy at that particular time of day.

Do:
Get a good map before you go.
Don't:
Assume a map obtained at a bicycle shop, written by cyclists, for cyclists qualifies as 'good' or even that it will be remotely helpful. (On the other hand - DO get this 'cyclist-specific' map if you are the type of person who doesn't want to be bogged down by pesky details like names of cross streets or beside-the-point information like, say - that the bridge you have to take is CLOSED and the ferry that runs only runs NEXT MONTH. In fact, if you are the type of minimalist person who would want to make do with such a map, shoot me an email and I can hook you up, baby!)

Do:
Follow the cycle shop's advice to enter Canada at "quaint" crossing stations.
Don't:
Be put off by the fact that what appears to be a tiny, stone outhouse in a corn field that smells overwhelmingly of cow poo is in fact the 'crossing station'.

And Do:
Get so excited about your very first border crossing that you make the tiny, wizened, old, French-speaking man stamp your passports even though he is irritated beyond belief at having to do so.
Don't:
Get freaked out and run off the road just because there is a GINORMOUS, cow-manure spreading machine, driven by 10-year olds heading directly for you. (Instead, hold your ground - and your breath - and the boys will wave as they pass you with INCHES to spare.)

Also don't (this one is VERY important) - DON'T:
Pass up the first 'restaurant' you see just because it doesn't look anything like a restaurant. I promise you it may be the only food source in ALL OF CANADA - or at least the only one until Sabrevois which is 400 km from the border even though the well-meaning locals on the island in the middle of Lake Champlain just before the border will assure you that there are many, many amenities (like places to exchange money, pee, and get food - some food, any food) 'right as you go into Canada'.

Don't:
Believe any well-meaning locals.
Ever.
About anything.
Especially if you ask them "How far is ...?" and they look at you as you straddle your bike and then they proceed to tell you how long it takes them to drive it in their car and then they try to convert that into how long it would take THEM to bike it.

Do - by ALL means DO:
Bike the extra kilometer out of the way in Sabrevois to the 'restaurant' at the marina (even if it takes you 15 minutes to figure out whether or not the restaurant is open because (besides being in French and consisting entirely of abbreviations) the weathered sign at the crossroads doesn't list hours of operation or even days, it lists MONTHS of operation. Hint: it's Canada - and it's a restaurant at a marina. If it's warm enough for you to be pedaling, then chances are, you are there in a month warm enough for boating, which means that it is well worth your while to hie thee hither to the only food source short of your final destination of the day which appears to be
more than twenty miles away on your cyclist-specific map.
Don't:
Burst into exhausted, low-blood-sugar-fueled tears of relief when the nice little man and his wife who own the marina restaurant assure you that it is less than 10 km (not even 6.2 miles!!!) to your destination, no matter what your shitty (er, I mean cyclist-specific) map says.

Do:
Order this amazing Canadian comfort food from the nice little man and his wife who speak French AND English, take Canadian AND American money, don't get offended when you ask them twelve times if they are SURE of the distance (and they are not only sure but also RIGHT!) and who, incidentally, are completely wigged out by American girls who burst into tears.
Don't:
Be surprised (if you ignore my earlier advice about not bursting into tears) when the nice little man tries very, very hard to convince you to let him (and his wife if you don't trust him!) drive you by truck (that one right there in the parking lot) or by boat (that one right there at the dock) those last, little 10km even if you have stopped crying and pigged out on the yummy poutine and feel quite up to returning to the fray with renewed vigga (<--that last part being my beloved Grandpa Jack's phrase.) Do: Stay here. It is on the bike path, it's incredibly affordable, and is run by a wonderfully nice woman named Madame Boutine (which is NOT to be confused with poutine even though they rhyme and are both Canadian and comforting!) Really - Auberge Harris is a perfect cyclists' hotel.
Don't:
Get in a HUGE fight with your VBGF within sight of Montreal (even if the fight is about the fact that you can SEE Montreal, but due to the shitty (er, I mean, cyclist-specific) map, you can't for the life of either of you figure out how to GET there.)
Also, don't:
(VBGF-like) Pretend to bike off forever but really just turn the corner out of sight and throw your water bottles at a wall. (They bust open and you have no water to drink and it doesn't get you into Montreal.)
And don't:
(Me-like) Cry for an hour trying to figure out how you're going to get back to the States all by yourself. (It makes your eyes swell shut and gives you a blinding headache and still doesn't get you into Montreal.)

Do:
Make up with your VBGF (if you ignore the earlier advice about skipping the fight altogether)and then (this is key) toss out the shitty, cyclist-specific 'map', listen to the advice of a friendly local cyclist*, and when you finally arrive in beautiful, incredible, fantastic Montreal - stay here. It costs a ridiculous amount of money but it's the perfect place to celebrate your birthday. With your best friend. With whom you don't ever, ever want to fight again.
(*N.B.: 'local cyclists' are altogether different from 'well meaning locals'. A local cyclist is not a person who tells you they just love to bike and do it all the time. A local cyclist is a person actually on a bike who claims to have just this moment come from the very place you wish to get to.)

Do (and I never imagined I'd have to give such weird advice as this, but...):
Watch out for odd, Canadian men named Rene on the Metro. If you ignore my earlier advice about the sunscreen then by this point in your trip you'll have had to put up with twelve million and two coments about your peeling sunburn (which people in Canada have apparently never in their whole lives seen). And if you're not careful, a very weird dude will reach over and peel skin off of your back while all of his very, very drunk friends laugh - and THEN he will chat at you and tell you he's a dermatologist and he will crowd onto the same Metro car as you and he might even sit on your lap to the next stop. Um, all I'm really trying to say here is - wear sunscreen in Roanoke.

Do:
Go sightseeing around the old town and port of Montreal. Soak up some of the culture. Practice reading the signs. They're in French but often have pictures accompanying them.
Don't:
Wonder why the security guard roars up from out of nowhere and pulls a little Dukes of Hazzard fishtail stop on his side of the fence if it takes you too long to figure out what the signs at the port say in French. (Hint: The signs say "STAY OUT. NO PICTURES. NO LOITERING. NO TOURISTS. YOU MUST HAVE ID BADGES AND HARD HATS. BIO HAZARD. TRESPASSERS SHOT ON SIGHT. " Those little pictures are fine and all but they don't give you a very clear picture of exactly how touchy Canadian officials are if you don't manage to decipher all of it quick enough and happen to stand with your bike looking at their port for too long - and there's not much point in today's tense atmosphere of trying to explain that if you don't have room in your tiny, little, bike pack for hair gel and panties then you are not likely to be toting around a bomb. Just smile and thank the nice Canadian official and move along. And don't even THINK about asking why there is a bio-hazard warning when the guide a mile away said they only shipped 'cereal' from this port.)

Don't:
Try to leave Montreal. Ever. Because as hard as it is to find your way into, Montreal is even harder to get out of, what with random policemen detouring you off the only bridge fit for sane cyclists and directing you over to the one miles and miles down the road that is even more miles up in the air so that you have to pedal for an hour uphill and then clamp down on your brakes to slow down to a mere 50 mph on the downside while trying not to get vertigo from seeing the St. Lawrence whooshing by thousands and thousands of feet below you.

Do:
Stay at Auberge Harris on the way back too, if you can. It's really that nice of a stop.
Don't:
Pick the hottest day on record in New England to ride 72.3 miles from Auberge Harris, out of Canada, down through upstate New York (yeah, that sounded weird to me too, sorry), and back to Burlington, Vermont. I know, I know - you're going to say (as did I), "but how am I supposed to know when I start out and it's 70 degrees that in one short week it could top 100 degrees?" I have no answer for you on that one.
However, to make up for it-
Do:
Stop here on the last leg. It is air conditioned; they'll watch your bikes for you; and they give out free samples at the end of the tour!

(Final Bits Of Advice, Post Bike Ride)
*I hope this advice will not apply to very many of you but...
Do:
Love your little sister and thank her profusely for letting you stay in her home while she is frantically busy trying to pack up her whole house so she can rent it to a family of six who are moving to Vermont from Oklahoma in 10 short days.
Don't:
Look too closely at your little sister - who works a more-than-full-time job with the county child/family services, and who has a one year old, and whose husband has been in France (i.e. not here helping pack the house) for the past two months - and definitely
DO NOT:
Notice that said little sister has not packed a THING.
Don't:
Kill her for breaking that promise about fixing the airconditioning in the Subaru you are taking off her hands and driving 20 hours back to the SOUTH in 100 degree heat.
Do:
(Especially if you have ignored that advice about not noticing that your sister has become a complete zombie and NOT PACKED or arranged for movers or anything) - Drop the Subaru off (after 20 hours of sweating and cursing) at home and turn around and fly immediately BACK TO VERMONT with your godmother to spend the weekend packing and cleaning like mad things.
Do:
Fly back home in time to hear about the first day of school and throw a big family party for Mayhem's 12th birthday.

(Completely Bonus Advice only for those who have wacky 12 year olds)
A bike is great - and Mayhem loves the new one we gave him. But this is the present that really brought down the house and will be remembered in family lore.

Peace.

Days, Weeks, Months - It's All Just Time, Right?

Turns out that it's hard for me to blog when I am not home long enough even to look at my computer. I remember seeing all the 'blog from your phone' banners and thinking 'who on earth would do that?' but now... I'm thinking 'why don't I get one of those phones??' Or...a laptop! But um, for now - my birthday tree is closed! I got this instead of anything to blog with.

Isn't she gorgeous? You'd think that the next thing that I'd tell you is that I've been too busy riding to blog - but you'd be wrong. Because (sadly) instead of biking, I've been driving. Everywhere. Or everywhere that goes through Knoxville. Seriously. In a span of four days I drove through Knoxville THREE times. And I live about four hours away from K-town. You wouldn't think it would be 'on the way' to that many places I want to go. (But you'd be wrong.) AND I'm going through Knoxville AGAIN tonight on my way to the Land of Ben and Jerry's. My ex gets the kids for two weeks so this car trip won't involve noxious games of Axe tag** or 14 year old 'vampires' saying things like 'pull my fang'. This car trip won't even involve grown up boys because Sweet Hubby doesn't have any more time off from work. This girls only car trip is actually a means of getting somewhere cool to bike! FINALLY! BIKING! VBGF and I are going drive up and help my nephew Thrasher celebrate his first birthday before my sister whisks him out of crazy, busy Central Vermont to go live in sleepy, podunk Paris, France for the next three years. After the birthday boy smears cake all over the place, VBGF and I are heading out on our bikes for a week. Yes. A week. We bought a general bike touring book (yesterday) that suggested we plan our route three to four months in advance. Plan? Route? Ahead of time? Yeah - my whole inability to distinguish between weeks, months and hours, days applies to more than just blogging. Sigh. Be that as it may - we are biking for a week. Up North. Normally I'm all about Dixie - but after a week of the heat index here being 105 with a humidity reading of 96% - I'm thinking that starting in Vermont and biking to CANADA sounds delightful.

On to another aspect of biking: I don't know if anyone followed the linky poo to see my gorgeous new bike - or if anyone who did noticed that tour bikes don't normally boast of being"super light for top-notch handling, effortless climbing and unparalleled efficiency". Tour bikes boast of comfort and stability. Guess what? For fifteen years I had a touring bike. For the last two years, it's what I've used to train and it's the bike I rode in my first triathlon. NOW I have a road bike that's capable of entry level racing, and what's the first thing I do with it? I go for a week long bike tour. (Natch.) I've tried to talk myself into taking my tour bike instead but there is NO WAY I can even think about that. Touring bikes are rigged so you can carry stuff with you. Lots of stuff. Fancy, new, entry level racing bikes are rigged so you can go fast - with nothing (certainly not anything so un-aerodynamic as paniers) holding you back! So...
I have one teeny, tiny little bag (think cell phone holder) hanging from my handle bars and one just-barely-bigger bag on a rack behind my seat - to hold my stuff for a WEEK. I'm the kind of girl whose overstuffed weekend carry-on bag sometimes cannot be forced into the overhead bin on the plane - and I'm cramming my stuff for a WEEK into a bag that could almost fit into my minivan's glove compartment. C-R-A-Z-Y! But fun. And exciting. And just the teensiest bit anxiety provoking.

News flash - I won't be blogging from the road. One of the many, many things I will not be taking with me is a laptop (not that I have one). But I also won't be taking my camera. Heck - I'm limiting myself to two pairs of PANTIES so you know space is at a premium! But I'm going to look awfully cute in this! I didn't even know they made those. But now I have one. So think of me - biking through Yankeeland - for a WEEK - with practically nothing but my best friend and my bike. Oh - and read this book because it's wonderful and I hope the stuff that happens to the guy in the book doesn't happen to us!!
Peace.
**For the record - Axe is almost surely lethal in confined spaces so if you have sons approaching middle school age, take my advice and BAN the game of Axe tag BEFORE you have to experience it. And also ftr - I do NOT EVER want to meet the girl who is drawn to the scent (or any of the nine or twelve scents) of Axe. I also do NOT EVER want to meet a grown man who wears this obnoxious spray that, in my little corner of the universe, is ubiquitous in middle schools. I'm happy to report that, in my experience, the girls seem to avoid Axe like the plague (which is the only reason I and other mothers I know continue to buy it for our sons.)

Re-Entry

The Earth has a face - and I fell off of it I suppose.
Actually I hit a wall. The blog wall. I didn't even know there was a wall in Blogland until I smacked into it - forehead first. But there it was. The divider between what's really happening in my life and what I think (thought?) was allowable to blog about. I run into a similar wall all the freakin' time in real life. I come up against the divider between who I really am, what I really think and feel and what is considered 'acceptable' and 'polite' in my rinky dink, red town in a red state. It's one of the reasons I left the shop to my mother. I'm not made for the fakey nice, nice that retail is. Not that I want to be in everyone's face with my private life.

I don't want to be obnoxious. I do want to be clear and honest.
I haven't figured out how to walk that line just yet.
I'm working on it. In real life and in Blogland.
So...
I'm back. And dealing with horrid things (like rancid Tapioca) and wonderful things (like a love life that is out of this world fantastic and a new piercing and a new tatoo and kids that make life worth living.) I've got medium level things perking along too (like figuring out how to make myself go to the VA's Sexual Assault Victim's counseling program right after getting a letter from the VA that my private information (along with 12 million other veterans') has been compromised.) I don't have any quilting to show for this year which surprises and somewhat saddens me. But I have purged and purged (and will purge some more) in the house and that gave me the clearance to begin a cobblestone/river rock mosaic in my courtyard. Mosaic being my other artistic passion and outlet. Oh - and my lovely internets - I've lost 12 pounds since last we spoke!
Shift and flux. Highlights and soft focus. Maybe tomorrow we'll zoom back in for the upclose and highly analytical. Until then...
Peace.

School's Out For The Summer

I cannot believe how fast the school year has gone! I cannot believe that I have exactly one day to get my house, my car, my kids, my dog ready for a twenty hour drive to the Berkshire Mountains for a day and a half of my cousin's wedding festivities and then for another twenty hour drive home so that Sweet Hubby can leave for New Zealand (again!) the next day. Don't you wish you were me? See y'all next week!
Peace.

Another One To Add To Career Day

This weekend VGBF and I went to Charlotte, NC to see the Dead Sea Scrolls - live! - I mean, in person - parts of the real scrolls - written nearly two thousand years ago. It was AMAZING! The science behind finding, preserving, and deciphering the scrolls was interesting and well presented. Did you know molecular archaeologists even existed? I didn't. They are the ones who pieced hundreds of scrolls together from thousands and thousands of fragments by matching DNA in the parchment fragments (because parchment is made from animal skins and they can tell which pieces belonged to the same animal!) And the scrolls themselves? Were tiny! And hard to read (never mind the fact that I can't read Paleo-Hebrew or Aramaic anyway - the letters, had they been in any of the few alphabets I DO know would have been difficult to see.) The scrolls were in lighted boxes with large hanging information panels beside them. There were biblical texts and sectarian texts describing the community rules. There were biblical commentaries and 'lost' books like the book of Enoch that until they found these scrolls in Qumran were only available in relatively recent Ethiopian translations. It was FASCINATING. My favorite was a fragment of Isaiah in which the end days are being described. "They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain." I could go on a little rant about how 'Christians with a capital C' seem to like to ignore the Bible when it tells them to be peaceful - but I won't. Not this morning. I had such a lovely time at the exhibit and learned so much that I think I'll walk away with that instead of a sour attitude. And also? I think I'm going to try to talk one of my kids into becoming a molecular archaeologist! How cool would that be!
Peace.

Bruce?

Havoc was wound UP tonight. He has asthma and has to use an albuterol inhaler several times a day right now - which we know makes him edgy and makes his heart race. Even so, tonight was a bit odd. He launched into the middle of a long involved story with NO reference points. I tried to ask clarifying questions but that didn't help the situation at all. Part of the conversation went like this:

H: Because I like the dark, at recess today I would hit my stomach and yell, "Bruce!"
Me: Bruce?
H: (Ignoring the question.) And Timothy's team was called, guess what, Mama?
Me: Bruce?
H: (Ignoring the question.) And I like apes too.
Me: That's the name of his team?
H: (Answering the question?) No! But I like sharks the best.
Me: Which team were you on?
H: (Ignoring the question.) And it would get light again and I'd get sad but a cloud would pass over and I hit my stomach again and yelled, "Bruce!"
Me: WHO is Bruce?!
H: (Ignoring the question!) And then we played dodgeball with a tennis ball because it's going to rain tomorrow.

Aaahhhh yes - this incoherent ramble was JUST what I needed to solidify my feelings on the whole 'gifted' label. Gack! What was my child talking about?? I began to get worried he was speaking in tongues (which, don't laugh, happens to other people's kids around here at vacation bible school in the summer - scary!) Is it possible for asthma medicine to 'go bad'? How should I word the note to warn his teacher, do you think? Or should I keep him out of school if he's still like this in the morning? How would I word THAT excuse note? "Please excuse Havoc for missing school on Friday May 19, 2006. He was speaking in tongues." You'd think that with Havoc being the youngest of five, he'd be hard pressed to lead me into some new parenting territory. Perhaps he saw that as a challenge?? Whatever the reason, this bizarre stream of consciousness story telling jag had just better be over by daylight. Also? I am sooo calling the school to make sure he wasn't sniffing magic markers or glue yesterday.
Peace.
Peace.

Dog Bones

Mayhem and I went to the grocery store the other day and one of the things on our list was a package of dog bones. <--That is bones FOR the dog. See right away we get to the part I never thought much about. I've already said how before I had a dog I didn't know they actually, in real life buried bones (and they do!) Now I have to admit that I didn't ever once think about where dogs got the bones that they liked to bury. I knew where rawhide shaped like bones came from (=Petco - although now that I think about it more - I don't know about the 'raw' or what kind of 'hide'!) If I had thought about where the 'real' bones come from, I would have assumed that dogs got them from 'doggie bags' of restaurant food brought to them by loving owners. And I would have been wrong! Dogs who get their bones that way are apparently dead dogs! I had overheard enough to know that dogs could choke on chicken bones - but what about all that other stuff? I mean, why do they call them 'doggie bags' if you're not supposed to feed them to your dog?! The one (and only) time I lovingly shared my left over and very special, imported, ultra yummy Calhoun's ribs with Wasabi - Sweet Hubby FREAKED OUT and lectured me. Cooked bones can splinter and perforate doggie innards. I cried and wouldn't let my dog out of my sight for days! (I'm happy to report that while I'm pretty sure the spicy barbecue sauce caused him a wee bit of digestive distress- there was no evidence of any actual intestinal injury. Pfew.) So - where do dog bones come from? "The butcher," SH said. Of course. That makes sense.

That brings us right back to Mayhem and I looking at every single package in the store that looked like it could possibly contain raw bones suitable for the pup. No joy. Lots of raw meat, lots of steaks with a little bit of bone, but no packages with mostly bone and priced accordingly. So we stood in line for a million years while the three little old ladies in front of us by turns flirted with and harangued the young, Nascar-hat-wearing, sincere-yet-not-so-bright butcher. Really, he's probably more like the butcher's apprentice because he seemed more than a little baffled by his job. "You want me to cut that up?" he kept asking them one after the other AFTER they'd already handed him their packets and spent ten minutes detailing exactly which piece of meat they wanted cut which way. (Mayhem and I learned a LOT about how meat used to be cut and packaged back when these ladies were first young housewives.) I figured when it was finally our turn, we would be the easy customers. All we needed was to have him point us towards the dog bones. And I was right. The kindly butcher's apprentice looked much relieved when I explained that we couldn't find the bones for dogs. He said, "Oh, we just got some in. I'll go look in the back."

Imagine if you will, the look on my face, when he trotted back out, grinning proudly, with an ENORMOUS (and I mean four and a half foot long) raw bone of woolly mammoth in his hands. <--Ok, maybe it wasn't an actual woolly mammoth bone - but I wouldn't bet against it. This sucker was HUGE and the kindly butcher's apprentice stood there looking like Bam Bam. Mayhem's eyes goggled. The butcher's apprentice held this thing out at us - mind you with no wrapping - just offering it to us. Um...? Did he expect me to pluck it from his hand and plunk it into my cart?! Mayhem got the all over giggles. The butcher's apprentice looked at Mayhem and looked at me and then looked at the bone. "Uh...You want me to cut that up?" I thought Mayhem was going to pee his pants he was laughing so hard. "Yes please," I said. "My dog is a terrier. I think that might be a bit much for him as is." "Ok, be back in a second." A short while later he returned with a shrink wrapped, styrofoam package containing exactly one teeny, tiny little round bone. The three of us bent over to look at the package and then stared back up at each other. "Um, is that all there is? Could I, perhaps, buy several pieces of that giant bone you just cut up?" "Oh. Yeah. Sure. That would be ok." After just a few more such exchanges, Mayhem and I managed to be able to cross dog bones off the list. Mayhem giggled off and on for about an hour over the whole thing and Wasabi was certainly appreciative enough of his treat to justify any hassle - but I keep wondering to myself "Is it this way for all new dog owners?"
Peace.

Nature, Red Of Tooth And Claw

A friend sent me this story today. Only his version had pictures. Ewwwwww.
On an intellectual level though, I'm not sure that the link I gave you isn't worse! In the version I see when I follow that link, instead of pictures there is a big ad that says "San Diego Zoo's WILD Animal Park - Are you game?" I, for one, think it's a TERRIBLE slogan to link with a story in which one zoo inhabitant eats another zoo inhabitant unexpectedly and messily in front of visitors!!
I asked my friend why oh why he insisted on sending me scary bear stories (of which this is only one of several) and I told him I wasn't sure I could eat lunch now.
His reply?
Don't skip lunch, just don't order 'monkey kabobs'.
I might not forgive him for putting the phrase 'monkey kabobs' into my brain. I. can't. get. it. out. (Ear worms, they're not just for breakfast anymore.) Monkey kabobs may never officially make the Orgel list, but realistically? It is waaaay more memorable than the word 'dearth'. Maybe we could start a write-in campaign?

Reading Labels And Label Reading

Yesterday Havoc was officially labeled with the 'disability' of being gifted. Isn't that just a bit off? I understand the reasons for the legalese. I still think it's a strange way of doing things. And the process by which this label was obtained has been nothing short of Byzantine. I am extremely ambivalent about it - about the process and about the label itself. Havoc is brilliant. He has the academic benefit of being the youngest of five. (After all, how many pre-schoolers do you know who know their multiplication tables? But with two, third-grade siblings doing a half an hour of math drill in the carpool every single solitary morning for a year, what can you expect??) In addition to that though, he has always been an atypical thinker. He is fascinated by patterns and maps and relationships. He connects and reconnects facts over and over again. He looks at things from very interesting perspectives. He also reads like a fiend. We're a book oriented family, no doubt about it - but he takes the cake. He is in the first grade and is reading The Thief Lord - a wonderful book my fifth graders read at the beginning of the year! It is awfully difficult to find books that are interesting enough for Havoc from a language standpoint - but which are thematically appropriate. Not that I am complaining! There are waaaay worse challenges to have.

I had him tested for the magnet school two years ago - and he qualified and got put into the lottery to determine places on the waiting list. I am sure that it had NOTHING to do with the fact that I was the only parent unable to be present for the drawing, but he was 'randomly selected' to be 39th on the waiting list of 39. I was told he'll probably make it to the top of the list by 7th grade. Ok. It turns out that I'm not as upset about that as you'd think I would be. I took a good look and listen at the parent meeting I was able to attend. The other parents there? Like tennis moms or cheerleader moms - but of the dork persuasion. Seriously. Overbearing, with voiced, out-of-control high expectations for academic achievement and gobs of free floating anxiety. I didn't meet any of the kids, but the parents freaked. me. out.

I tried to get the 'regular' elementary school to let Havoc skip up a grade. He only misses the cutoff to be in the next class up by a couple of weeks anyway with his November birthday - but no go. Apparently, that's not fashionable in educational circles these days. They cited things like maturity and peer relations. (Ahem, remember the part about his siblings all being 4+ years older than he is? I KNOW how he relates to older kids. Just fine! Besides he wouldn't be THAT much younger than his classmates anyway!!) The educators also were worried that it could impact his self-esteem negatively if he was unable to keep up academically. Did they even LOOK at his achievement test scores? (*The answer to that question is 'No' but more about that below.) They had scheduled us for one hour of testing but couldn't stop the test until he missed a certain number in a row. After TWO AND A HALF HOURS Havoc complained a little about how long it was taking and the tester explained how it worked - and voila! He missed the right number in a row and got to be done and have some candy. He was six. He got the highest percentile their test could measure and was in the middle of sections for fourth and fifth grade work. That was last summer! Right after Kindergarten. He was moving to a new school - I thought it would be perfect. He could just start in second grade and all the kids would accept him as a natural second grader. School's answer: No can do. I kept asking questions. I kept answering the objections they brought up. It came down to the principal saying that it was her decision and hers alone. She did admit that she had in the past allowed children to 'skip' but her answer in my child's case was "No." I'm sure it has NOTHING to do with power, influence, country club membership (or my lack thereof). No, I couldn't possibly get that impression from her shellacked face, coiffed hair, expensive yet ugly tailored clothes, or her patronizing tone and lecture about how I may not know very much about private schools, but here at ____ Elementary the environment was very competitive and although my child had performed well in another (and lesser) environment her experience led her to believe that he would not be able to maintain it at her institution. (Can you tell I wanted to spit?) After much reading about the qualifications it takes to become a nationally recognized "Blue Ribbon School", I am now also sure that the principal's refusal to even consider changing my child's placement has NOTHING to do with the benefits the schools receive when they have kids score well above their grade level. Grrr.

Other options? The 'gifted' program. When I was a kid, the 'gifted' kids were obnoxious. And smelled funny. I realize that is not a very intellectual or rational reason to resist this label for my child - but there it is. I found out waaaay later in life my test scores had qualified me for the 'gifted' program at my school but my parents hated that label and wanted me to be routinely challenged in the general curriculum, not pulled out and treated differently. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, now does it? They chose to pull me out of public school and send me first to a 'non-graded', Catholic school and later to a secular, college prep, all girls' school. I don't have comparable options so we're trying the 'gifted' thing. Oh, I go back and forth about this!

In addition to the detailed paperwork, we had to meet (multiple times!) with a commitee whose purpose was to consider whether my child met the criteria for futher evaluation to determine if he was an appropriate candidate to be tested in order to find out if he is in fact, "gifted". At this committee meeting of seven (teachers/administrators/psychologists), it was explained that if the four intermediate steps were successfully navigated, that my child would undergo several testing regimes including IQ testing, achievement testing, creativity assessments and the like. I asked if there was an issue with the testing that had already been done. The committee chairwoman looked at me blankly. "Already done? What tests?" I said, "The IQ testing, achievement testing, creativity assessments, etc that were done last July." She flipped through her folder. SHE HAD NO RECORD OF IT!! The principal sat there blank faced, studiously NOT LOOKING AT ME! Havoc's first-grade teacher (whom I adore and who is pushing to get him the resources that he needs) said timidly with nervous glances at the principal that she believed she might perhaps have a copy in her files if she could just run get them. The principal glared at me but deigned to allow the copies to be brought forth. I wanted to SCREAM! This mean, petty, power tripping woman had WASTED all of these teachers' time calling a meeting for a screening to determine whether my son was qualified to even take take a test he had ACED a year ago?!! She had the NERVE later in the meeting to pointedly explain that one of the main things the committee would be looking for was whether my son was truly 'gifted' or whether he was "simply a superior academic achiever". If found to be 'merely academic' then he would not be eligible for the gifted label or program she assured me. It is only my deep and abiding faith that snarky, insufferable people come to bad ends that kept me from flipping her off.

She was not present at yesterday's meeting - which I correctly interpreted as a likely indicator that Havoc would get to be in the program next year. In spite of the horrible principal, I like this school. I like the teachers I've come to know (and I detect the tension between them and the administration even if they are too professional to say anything negative -which makes me like them even more!) I have been reassured by many parents who have shared my concern about labels that especially in elementary school these days, the labels are not as big of a deal as they were in 'our day'. One parent who volunteers in the classroom a lot says the kids often mash the two main program names ('resource' and 'search') together and say they're going to 'research' and no one bothers much. I think the Search teacher is amazing. She has told me that she believes Havoc belongs in her program. If for no other reason, she said, than to have some quieter time than the large classroom setting offers to be around the other 8 or 9 kids his age who think and read the way he does. She promised that they really don't smell funny.

Peace.

Room In Progress

Sweet Hubby showing the Ninja Princessa how to paint trim.

Now the Princessa is painting solo. She is very thorough. I think her father would like it if she'd speed up just a tiny bit.

She has 8 or so of these lovelies dangling from her ceiling. Her room is going to be like living in the middle of a May day all year long.





I love her brightness and optimism. I'll be a little sad, yet not too surprised when she wants a new paint color in about three years. Who will give me odds that she'll want 'Death Black'?
Peace.

Watching Paint Dry

It's been a sweet, quiet Mother's Day. I have my kids home - but they are content to putter and play. We are redoing the Princessa's room. It has gone surprisingly smoothly. Yesterday was all churn and moving furniture and garbage bags and wrenching decisions about what treasures to keep and which ones to let go to new homes. Today? Quiet. In fact, the loudest thing about today is the paint color she has chosen: Awakening Green. She said she wanted 'Lime Green' - and this is sort of limey. It's the kind of lime that probably grew near Chernobyl - manic and glowing - but she LOVES it. (And really? I can't say a word because I sent the Princessa to Lowe's with her color-blind father and her two best friends to pick out paint! I'm ever so glad we limited the paint to one color because the 'coordinating' color paint chips they brought home had names like "Cheery Aqua" and "Orange Delight". YIKES!!)
We're in between coats right now and we're fixing to rip up the carpet. We already ripped the carpet out of her closet and that was surprisingly easy. I hate to jinx a home-improvement project right in the middle of it - but I think it's going to be done on time! Her carpet will be installed tomorrow and the bed her grandmother is giving her is ready for pick up at our convenience. Her other grandmother and aunts are taking her shopping for bedding/curtains on Wednesday. I think all should be in place for her Friday night sleepover. Considering the months and months my studio took - this is feeling easy peasy to me. Maybe next time I do my studio I'll choose 'lime' green too.
Peace.

Weather Permitting

I'm off to dig up irises with a long-lost, soon-to-be friend. We're going out to the retreat center where I used to live in a board and batten cabin with my first husband and three young sons. When the house is small (770 sq ft) and the land is big (77 acres) - you tend to spend lots of time outside. I loved being a 'country mouse'. The boys and I would go for 'rambles'. We would walk through the woods down to the river. We'd hike around at the bottom of the bluffs. We'd scour the fields for wild flowers and we'd play hide and seek in the orchard. It was all very Walden and Tintern Abbey. We had almost no money for toys and no room to put them in the house even if we could have afforded them. My guys had mud instead of play-doh and sticks and rocks instead of action figures. They used to talk to flowers. To this day, peonies are the flower I most associate with motherhood: they bloom around Mother's Day, smell divine, and I can remember Mayhem telling me (at age 4) that he liked to talk to them the best because they listened and bobbed their heads to show they understood. (They also end up heavy and drooped on the ground which is how I felt so very much of the time with three baby boys!) Mary Oliver understood: lush/fecund life, mysterious/dark death, peonies. If you don't have the book American Primitive, you need it.
Today - we live in a suburban neighborhood 45 minutes away from that rural outpost. And even my youngest baby is older than the oldest was then. My boys are in school and know other kids. They have action figures and video games. But you know what? All three of them love going back and have taught their new siblings to love it, too. This morning they all want to go with me and my almost-new friend to dig in the dirt. They're out of school in only two weeks - so I've promised to take them soon. But I may have to bring them back a peony blossom (ants and all) just for old times' sake.
Peace.

Reunion Churn

I graduated 41st in a class of 82 girls. "How mediocre can you get?" I used to wonder way back when. Pretty soon after graduation, I realized that number, especially taken out of the crazy context of my brainiac class, said very little about me as a person. Until my twentieth high school reunion this past week, I hadn't even thought about that statistic for about 19 years. Reunion churned up a lot of stuff for me - and a surprising amount of it was in the form of statistics - old and new. Here are a few:

Of my class of 82 girls, 22 of them qualified as National Merit Semi-Finalists. (I was one of them. That's an unprecedented - even for my school - (more than) quarter of the class!)

I went to an all girl's school where 30% of the student body was diagnosed bulimic/anorexic. I was not part of that 30%. My stat fell in the bulimic, yet un-reported category. The school staff tried to address the eating disorder problem, bless their hearts. Sadly, their well intentioned assemblies only served to make us aware of purging methods we hadn't figured out on our own and alerted us to which 'warning signs' we needed to hide. Seventeen years of recovery later and I still don't know what more they could have done with a population seemingly handpicked to be at risk: teenage girls (age and gender), upper middle to upper class (socio-economics), caucasian and Southern (ethnic and cultural), competitive school/families with (sometimes unreasonably) high expectations (environment), in the 80's (the skinny jean, skeletal, super model era). When I think about it that way, I am grateful that at least half of our class was healthy!

Fifteen of us now have at least 3 children (with only 3 sets of twins and only one set of those in a 3+ kid family) - and that's with updates on only 60 classmates. I don't know how that compares to the general population - but it strikes me that I was in a very fertile class.

One hundred percent of my class went to college (eventually). More than half my graduating class has multiple college degrees. (I'm the only girl who didn't go immediately after high school and it took me 13 years to finally get ONE degree.)

Surprisingly, our class falls well below norms in terms of gay girls with only two of my classmates being out and only one other (that I know of) still somewhat closeted. Perhaps statistics from the quarter that didn't report back would bring us closer to national averages. I'm sad to think that perhaps some of my classmates felt unwelcome at reunion.

1/82 of us are pierced in places other than ears. (Guess which one of us that is?) ****UPDATE: TWO of us are pierced. And at least three of us have tatoos. We are a little further ranged as a class than I first gave us credit for being. Woo hoo.****

Ninety percent of us have traveled/studied overseas at one point in the past 20 years. Five of my classmates still live in other countries.

Two of my class were in the military. (Both of us were Navy - different times, different places - but GoNav!)

Although I don't know exact numbers, I know enough to say that our class is right in line with the national averages for rape, abortion, divorce, and remarriage.


All these numbers float around in my head. Why do we even keep track? What other numbers are there and how do we track things that aren't sound-biteable? Then it was grades and college acceptances. Now it's degrees and babies. In between it was elation and work and sometimes trauma - but it's all reduced to statistics except between you and your closest friends: the ones who were with you the whole way through and don't need the 1,000-word synopsis.

This weekend I experienced an expected amount of chafing. I found myself - with girls I hadn't seen in 20 years - back in the same high school constellations because we hadn't charted anything in between. It was great to discover that it was possible (even at this late date) to change those fixed positions. I came out of reunion weekend with plans for this week with two different women I'd not spoken to in any meaningful way since May of 1986. One was a close friend when we were sophomores and the other was in almost all of my classes and yet we never once had a one-on-one conversation until Friday. She and I are going to go dig up irises tomorrow.

I was unpleasantly surprised to find myself thrown back into old patterns with old, still-close friends with whom I already had charted new paths. Specifically, I was amazed at how much it hurt for four friends to all name each other and exclude me in post-college, life-in-DC-together anecdotes. I lived in the same building with three of my friends and the fourth lived two metro stops away. They all named each other and each one of them forgot I was even there. One of the four is my good friend and also my first cousin. She and another one of the four were close enough to me (in my heart) to have been invited into the delivery room with me in DC when I gave birth to my first child. Being excluded by them, even in the most casual way possible, hurt my feelings in a way I had completely forgotten existed. Being left out, being included, feeling out of place or like an alien, wanting to know and be known, issuing/receiving pre-emptive/retaliatory rejections - ahhhh the good old days!

I was guarded in high school. Even in a small school with all girls - I think it's the only way most of us survive the high school turbulence. I don't think I had a (larger than normal) chip on my shoulder in high school - but I certainly had my conscious rebellions and intentional filtering devices. When I dyed my hair purple, it wasn't even against the rules at my school. It hadn't occured to the administration that one of their girls would consider (much less actually do) such a thing. The uniform code was immediately amended (although I had amnesty.) I loved my purple hair. It kept away people who were easily freaked out and it was fun. My real friends knew I was more than the color of my hair and they also knew I looked at things from a different angle. Going to reunion, I thought I had my shields up again. And I did. Except it didn't occur to me to have them guarding me from the friends I've stayed close to all these years. Don't get me wrong. It's not a death wound to our friendship. It's more like a really nasty (sharp and unexpected) papercut that bleeds all over everything for about two days and then disappears. And you, my lovely blogniks are like my bandaid. I don't know why, but blogging helps. (Well, blogging and the three Long Island Teas, half a pack of cigarettes, kissing on my love, and dancing until 3 am at the Lipstick Lounge after the reunion stuff was done - all of that helped. Yeah, yeah. I know. Mature, healthy, centered that wasn't. And yet...I had fun, blew off steam, got re-anchored and re-perspectified, and most importantly remembered why I don't drink and smoke like that anymore. Blech!)

There you have it, reunion in a nutshell: statistics, churn, new friends from old acquaintances, papercuts from old friends, and blognik bandaids. I'm glad I went. I'm glad we don't have another one for a while.
Peace.

He Lies Like A Rug

This is my offering for today: more doggy blogging. I'll have more tomorrow on the churn that was reunion. Today Havoc and the Princessa are both home from school (for asthma and a foot injury) so we'll likely be at the doc's all the live long day.
Peace.

Heavy Medal

Here's the picture I wanted to post: VBGF and I with our medals! Did I tell you how heavy those suckers are? It was ridiculously reassuring to feel that weight around my neck. I want a whole collection of them!

Little Known Fact

St. Ann pretty much double-dog dared me to post this tidbit of trivia -

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellmann's mayonnaise was
manufactured in England.

In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment
scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the
next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York.

This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever
delivered to Mexico.

But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York.

The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise, and were
eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss.

Their anguish was so great, that they declared a National Day of
Mourning, which they still observe to this day.

The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is
known, of course, as

Sinko de Mayo.

WHAT!!!! You expected something educational?
Peace.

Paschal Wasabi

Fusion Cuisine By Havoc

If Havoc ever offers to make you a sandwich, you might think twice before saying yes.
I found out too late to do anything about it (other than be completely grossed out) - but today, when the kids got the chance to make their own sandwiches, Havoc made his a provolone cheese, strawberry jelly, and mayonaise sandwich on oat bread.
You were warned.

Prom Night

Did I mention that my reunion - my freaking 20th high school reunion - is this weekend? This is a picture of me and the boy I was sure I would someday marry. We dated for three high school years (which are like dog years.) We were certifiably the old married couple of our crowd. I couldn't get the scanner to work so the better picture I have is languishing here on my desk. Otherwise you'd see what an incredible dress I was wearing. It was a Victor Costa, knee length, cocktail dress that my mother refused to buy for me on the grounds that a) it was too 'mature' for me and b) it cost $250. Evil (and pissed off) child of parents who were mid-divorce that I was, I got my father to buy it for me. My mother was furious. "What's your damage?" I remember asking her. (<--What a pill I was! Did you catch the part where I was pissed off that my parents were divorcing?) I'm lucky I got to go to prom. I'm lucky I had a head in this picture! I was actually already enlisted in the Navy and leaving in a few short weeks, so I suppose my mom figured ripping my head off might be a breach of contract or something. I can't imagine any other reason for appearing unscathed in this picture. Be that as it may, I had a FANTASTIC time at prom. Twenty. Years. Ago. I can't get over that part. And now, will someone please explain to me why my children (who are too close to their own prom nights for my comfort) are "creeped out" at this picture of me? Anyone? They just hee and haw and make shivery, shuddery motions. I guess being a pill runs in the family.

Peace.

Poster Child For Diversity

When Havoc was four, his father got remarried. Havoc LOVED getting to wear a tuxedo that day. He said to me, "When I grow up, I'm going to wear a suit all the time - even on days I'm not getting married." (Sidenote: now, as a special treat, right when he is about to outgrow them, I let him wear his suit/penny loafers whenever he wants. I'm sure the neighbors think it's odd to see him tearing around the yard or climbing a tree in a suit and tie, but what the hey, scaring the neighbors is nothing new.)

I got remarried the next year, on a beach in Mexico and, of course, we talked about weddings again. We had many funny conversations (including one where he asked me why we weren't going to play games and hide everyone's shoes during the ceremony like at dad's wedding - uh...???) but my favorite was this one:

Havoc: When I grow up, I'm going to marry Dora the Explorer.
Me: Why? (Wondering if I should point out that Dora is, er, a person of the cartoon persuasion.)
H: Mom, she is so cool! She speaks Spanish! And she does all kinds of stuff like having adventures - and have you seen her?! She's pretty.
Me: Oh, so you like Latina girls?
H: Huh?
Me: Hispanic girls. Girls who look like Dora. You know, girls who look like the girls in Mexico.
H: Yes, and I'm going to have a black son. So he can have his hair in braids. Not girl braids. BOY braids.
Me: Hmmmm. Are going to adopt this baby boy?
H: No. Her tummy will get big and we will have a black son.
Me: Well, if you marry a girl who looks like Dora and you have a baby together, then that baby will look sort of like you and sort of like her. Not black.
H: (rolling his eyes at me) Mom, by the time I'm old enough to get married, they'll know how to let peach persons like me have black children.

I am hopeful that the world, indeed, will know how to let peach persons like him have black children by the time he's old enough to marry. What a lovely vision, don't you think? I LOVE the way my child looks at the world. Havoc is not your average bear. And I bring this up, because I've found the perfect wife for him! She's not a cartoon character; she's a real, live girl. She's ethnically Chinese, not Hispanic - but oh, she's brilliant and quirky! I love her. I know he would love her. Her name is Nora (which rhymes with Dora - see it's a match made in heaven!) If only arranged marriages were still in vogue! I would so be negotiating with mimi smartypants right now!
Peace.

Career Day

Guess who was a guest speaker at the elementary school's Career Day today?
You got it! Me.
I spoke to four different third grade classes (for twenty minutes each - yikes!) about what it's like to open your own business and then the kids got to ask questions. They were great. You could tell the teachers had gone over some sample questions before hand and that they were limited to one question apiece. In the first class, I could see two boys debating their questions almost like they were fighting. Turns out they were daring each other to ask me about my lip ring but neither one wanted to waste their question or get in trouble. They were thrilled when I brought it up myself - but then argued about who won the dare.
Several of the girls drew pictures of hearts and butterflies and slipped them to me as they were filing out of the room. Turns out that I already knew several of the kids and have taught them how to knit - which made them minor celebrities in the class. It was all a lot of fun.

During one of the breaks, I noticed that there was a list where the kids had apparently had to write down what they wanted to be/do when they grew up. There were many, many vets on that list, several nurses, soliders, mechanics, and of course performers (country music star, rock star, movie star). Not one person had written down "Knit Shop Owner" but several kids said as they were leaving that they wanted to be just like me. I'd like to think that means I've inspired a couple of them to open their own businesses when they grow up. However, it's possible that they meant when they grow up they want to wear lip rings and flip flops and get chocolate bars as thank you presents from the teachers. I suppose we'll have to wait twenty years to find out!
Peace.

Marketing Strategies I Don't Understand

Chicken Poop $3.99.
That's what the sign says.
My boys swore that they saw the sign last week, too, with their grandmother - only Havoc insisted it said, "Chicken Poop Lip Balm."
Sweet Hubby chalked it up to a disgruntled employee. And then.... I went to Walgreen's today for Epsom salts and this was sitting on the check out counter. Apparently, I am the last woman on the planet (besides my mom) to find out about this hot new trend. I think I must not be the normal consumer, because somehow putting the words 'butt' or 'poop' in a product's name does not compel me to purchase it. I fail to see the 'genius' in potty marketing. My children, on the other hand, have helped make this man the millionaire I'm sure he is. Sigh. I would ask "What is this world coming to?" but I'm afraid the answer is clearly, "Poop." One year (when I was ten?) the hottest ingredient in cosmetics was baby oil. Everything had baby oil. Later it was aloe vera. I missed the transition from plant to poo - but I'm convinced that jojoba had something to do with it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't jojoba swedish for 'bat guano?'

What will they think of next? Wait! Don't answer that. I don't think I want to know.
Peace.