A Work in Progress

Coffee Culture in the Ozarks

2012-01-28T13:20:00.006-06:00

John and I had the strangest experience in a Eureka Springs coffee house. As with most caffeine purveyors, there was a lengthy menu of offerings from the "Daily Brew" at the top of the chalkboard to the frothy, flavored frappe fixes.

"What's the 'daily brew?' " John asked.

"Coffee," replied the long-bearded guy behind the counter. I hesitate to call him a barista because, in my world, baristas are usually friendly, even jokey.

Honestly, I thought he was droll. Turns out he wasn't. I mean, isn't the "daily brew" something that changes? Daily? Columbian yesterday... Guatemalan today... Sumatran tomorrow?"

"Is it dark...? Or medium...?" John was trying to help out the guy.

"All our coffee is medium roast," kibitzed an impatient coworker. She clearly was anxious for us to get coffee and get out. She was really put out that John wanted cream because it meant crossing a portion of the just-mopped stone floor. You could just tell she couldn't wait for us to leave so she could finish swabbing the deck.

I wasn't ready for coffee just then, reserving that pleasure for later this afternoon.

"Better not wait too long," John said. "They close at 5."

Let's Stop Whispering About Dementia

2012-01-19T16:55:00.006-06:00

There’s a lot of buzz about Meryl Streep’s new movie The Iron Lady and her intimate portrayal of Lady Margaret Thatcher’s dementia. Although folks seem to agree Streep’s performance is spot on (she just won a Golden Globe), there’s a lot of debate about whether the film is appropriate. The former Prime Minister is still alive, after all, and dementia flatters no one. The film got me thinking about the cruel stigma of illnesses that affect the mind and whether, as one reviewer said, The Iron Lady is despicable and voyeuristic.

There is no dignity in dementia.

Remember when people used to whisper the news that someone had cancer?

“You know Aunt Millie?” they’d ask secretively, looking around to make sure no one was listening. “She has… (voice lowers, hand comes up to hide lips, the word is barely audible) cancer…”

As if it were Aunt Millie’s own, shameful fault she had cancer. As if somehow she were dumb enough or careless enough to catch it. Even now, cancers that affect certain body parts are treated this way—most notably those parts above the knees and below the waist. We cringe at the thought of getting colonoscopies, prostate exams and pap smears; at the same time, we make jokes about them, although usually not in “mixed company”. We are immature and embarrassed.

The same is true of conditions above the neck. Talk about stigmas! We treat emotional and psychological diseases of the brain in that same old-fashioned, self-conscious, furtive, whispery way. We don’t readily admit to others that we’re in the depths of depression or that our spouse has Alzheimer’s. We tell people we’re going to the dentist but it’s simply “an appointment” when we see the shrink.

I’m as guilty of it as anyone, peddling fast, wanting to protect my mother from the dementia stigma… hoping friends don’t know she doesn’t remember their visit last month, that she needs help managing finances and medications, that she repeats herself frequently, that it’s getting increasingly difficult to have a two-way conversation.

Our societal quest for youth and perfection make it especially challenging to embrace the aging process, even when one’s faculties are intact. “I don’t know why they call these the ‘golden years,’” my great Aunt Mary once said. “There’s nothing golden about them!”

Bette Davis is credited with saying, “Getting old is not for sissies,” and indeed it is not.

So here’s a thought: What if we all quit being sissies about dementia and just acknowledge it for what it is—an increasingly common and unprovoked, progressive illness for which there is not yet a cure? If it hasn’t already, chances are dementia will affect your family in some way. Already 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, and number is growing. (Just this week, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced an ambitious plan that calls for a treatment and prevention plan by 2025. For more info, go to www.alz.org)

In the meantime, let’s treat people who have dementia with dignity, kindness, patience and love. Let’s end the shame and apologies. Instead of being despicable, I’d like to think The Iron Lady illustrates the way a profoundly sad disease can rob someone—anyone, in fact—of his or her intellect and reality. And let’s stop whispering. Instead, let’s scream until we find a cure.

A Death and a Beating are Part of Life in a Haitian Neighborhood

2012-01-12T16:24:00.005-06:00

Anyone who’s been to Haiti will tell you they’ve seen some awful things. Even when we steel ourselves for encounters with extreme poverty, we can’t help being overwhelmed by trash piled on trash piled on in the streets… by a woman with no legs, begging, shaking her tin cup as you approach… by another, lying in the middle of a dirt road dead, or drunk, or halfway to one or the other. We return with a case of Barbancourt Rum, show pictures to our families, and tell stories to our friends in hopes of shining light into the darkness.

Some tales are so bleak, we don’t want to tell them. Besides, how do we give voice to unspeakable despair?

I saw—actually heard—two really horrible things when I was in Haiti last summer. Besides my traveling companions, I haven't said very much about these things. Until now, I have thought of them, shed tears over them, ached for them so many times, but I simply could not repeat them. Usually we groan about the roosters that rudely awaken us, cock-a-doodle-doing before dawn; But I'd rather hear a hundred roosters crow before I hear these sounds again.

It was a warm June morning, rainy season. I heard terrible yelping and whimpering coming from outside and rushed to the balcony, expecting to see that a dog had been hit by a car. What I saw was worse because it was not accidental. A man a house or two away was beating his dog with a heavy, knotted rope. Although the dog was not tethered and could have escaped, it did not. It simply cowered and cried and took its punishment, a victim of its master’s despair. I almost screamed at him to stop… but something stopped me. In an instant, I somehow knew that I shouldn’t mess with this man, that I was a visitor in this neighborhood, that it would be very bad to insert myself—not to mention my teammates and our hosts—into a situation I didn’t understand. So I shook and sobbed and prayed to understand how a man could be so wounded, or hungry, or desperate that his recourse was to abuse a defenseless dog who was probably starving, himself, and very likely had snatched a bite of breakfast from his master’s table.

On the same street, several days later in the early evening, I heard a wailing that was unmistakable. It was the sound of a woman giving voice to life’s most unfair and unfathomable grief: the death of a child. A friend was bringing the woman home from the hospital on the back of a motor scooter. There was now no doubt in the neighborhood that the fifth grade girl who had been rushed to the hospital just a few hours before had quickly succumbed to cholera. Her body would remain in the hospital morgue until the family could afford to bury her. There are no words to describe the despair in that mother’s voice. It was a grief that will forever haunt me.

By telling these stories, I have made them true. This is what happens in Haiti. These are things you don’t see on the news when they show people—a half million of them—still living in tents, and rubble that still hasn’t been removed two years after the earthquake. Those of us who’ve been to Haiti will tell you the Haitian people are extremely resilient, that they have hope and faith, that the children have beautiful smiles. We will tell you that when we leave there most of us can’t wait to go back and that we are never the same, even when it seems like things there don’t ever change.

Tough Yuletide Times Call for Artificial Tree

2011-12-22T09:33:00.006-06:00

‘Twas a week before Christmas, and we had just put up our second tree of the season. Not an elegant extra tree, hung with designer ornaments and placed in a room where children aren’t allowed. Nor was it a children’s tree decked with popcorn balls, construction paper garland and those painted dough ornaments from the second grade. This was a replacement tree.

Twenty-four hours earlier, I was musing on the glorious fragrance of pine and the nostalgic unwrapping of tissue from the decorations we’ve accumulated during 20 years of marriage. Several Old World Santas once belonged to my mother-in-law; we nestle them high upon the tree, away from little fingers. Over time, those same fingers have contributed some treasures of their own, like the precious, felt and fur Bishop Nicholas made one year in Sunday school. A couple of other St. Nicks were favors at a holiday dinner party celebrated with dear friends who’ve moved away. A beautiful bone china creche with a gold star on top was a gift from a friend long since gone to heaven. I always remember Ilene when I place it on a prominent branch. A couple of others went up with a prayer this year, for I know their givers may not be around next time we put up the tree.

There’s an accidental angel collection; until the tissue paper came off, I didn’t realize just how many we’ve accumulated. I’ve been more intentional in gathering blond boys with footballs and golf clubs, and redheaded girls with soccer balls and chestnut ponies.

All these heirlooms-in-the-making can’t just go on any old tree, can they? I have been known to drag my family through three counties in search of the perfect tree. Over the river and through the woods, indeed! This year, in an effort to simplify the process, we chose our Douglas fir from a stack outside the local home improvement store. It seemed more than adequate and fit nicely in its assigned corner of the family room. It smelled all piney, and I tried to ignore the needles that were silently piling up on the carpet.

I don t relish stringing the lights. It s a sticky, frustrating job, but someone’s gotta do it, and everyone else around here refuses. Lights up, the garlands of glass beads go next, and then it’s ornament time. As my daughter hangs her favorites on the balding branches, two things cross my mind: I can move those where I want them later, and this tree is going up in flames between now and Christmas Eve. Despite our valiant attempts to rehydrate, this patient wasn’t making it.
By the second night, one of the cats had attempted to water the tree herself, apparently confused by another hearty sprinkling of needles atop the quilted tree skirt.

Does the tree look like it’s leaning just a bit? my husband asked. Not five minutes later, it was TIM-BER, as I shrieked and my daughter vaulted out of the way. An old fragile Santa shattered, along with a few clear crystal bells. We righted the tree, but it was severely disheveled and growing balder by the minute. It was offending my aesthetic senses. Even more, common sense was telling me this tree had to go. After years of resistance, we decided as a family that it was time to get an artificial tree.

Just as we once said we would never move to the suburbs, we had often said we would never buy an ersatz Christmas tree. I had never liked the way they looked, and they lacked that foresty smell I crave this time of year. Like so many artificial things--fake fur and breast implants come to mind--I must admit the trees seem to have improved over the years. Since we bought ours practically at the last minute it was 50 percent off and, better yet, pre-lighted.

It’s a different Christmas tree, but our treasured ornaments and their fond associations have not changed. A little potpourri and some bayberry candles evoke the sacred scent of evergreen, and the tree actually looks pretty real when you squint at it from across the room. I can enjoy it safely, too, knowing that the only thing ablaze in the family room will be the sweet-smelling splits of oak crackling in the fireplace. You know, I would’ t be caught dead with gas logs.

This story first appeared in the Kansas City Star on December 24, 2003.

Protect a Predator and a College Football Program Instead of a Child? Shameful.

2011-11-10T10:17:00.017-06:00

All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing. –Edmund Burke

On the campus of a major university, in the locker room of a revered football coach, a colleague harmed vulnerable children in the worst way and, for a long time, got away with it. We are shocked. We are speechless…

Sadly, there are people out there who are sick in a way that compels them to prey on the young and vulnerable. Others are sick in a way that causes them to shirk their responsibilities, disregard the rules, and cover for the offenders. Secrets keep us sick.

Penn State’s Board of Trustees made a voluminous statement in its immediate dismissal of Joe Paterno and the school’s president. Educators, if I’m not mistaken, are mandated reporters. Legalities aside, adults have a moral obligation to speak up when children are sexually abused. Whether it’s your spouse, your coworker, your priest, your doctor or your coach, there should be zero tolerance for silence. We must speak for those who are too vulnerable to speak for themselves. It is outrageously wrong to give these crimes a nudge, nudge, wink, wink and to look the other way.

If ever there was a situation that demonstrates the out-of-proportionality of college sports, it is happening this week in State College, Pa. Penn State students are rioting over the firing of their beloved football coach. They should be outraged by the crimes (and sins) against children on their college campus. Instead they are supporting a man who, yes, has been synonymous with their school, but has now severely tarnished its reputation, credibility and status.

It is extremely troubling that these students have such misplaced priorities. What are we teaching our youth when a man who looked the other way while boys were being violated is revered? Instead, his behavior should be reviled.

Cheers to Thelma & Louise, Lucy & Ethel, Girlfriends, Sisters, Cousins Everywhere!

2011-11-03T21:37:00.014-05:00

Kristen and I jumped into the rental car at Maui’s Kahului Airport. Primed for adventure, sunshine and Mai Tais, we were Thelma and Louise. Okay, so Brad Pitt didn’t tag along and our Alamo rental may not have been a ’66 T-bird, but at least it wasn’t a minivan.

While the iconic characters, played by Susan Sarandon and Gina Davis, had some significant legal troubles, the closest my cousin and I came to breaking the law was meandering off the trail in the Iao Valley State Park in search of a promised but elusive waterfall. Who could blame us? This was an escape, after all, a brief respite from daily pressures of work and family and, for Kristen, the looming cold, snow and darkness promised by another Alaskan winter. We needed to bank some serious Vitamin D.

One way to stay a step ahead of the law is to not drink and drive. That means grilled fish and frothy blended piña coladas at the condo… or a walk on the beach to happy hour and dinner. The sunsets are spectacular and, later, the stars speckle the sky like a zillion diamonds… but not enough to light the way home, mind you. It would be an exaggeration to say we actually got “lost” on the beach; we knew where we were. We just couldn’t find the unlighted public access in the dark, even with the flashlight apps on Kristen’s iPhone and my Droid. We climbed steps and scaled dunes, passing an amorous couple on a blanket—as well as the path we were looking for--several embarrassing times before we found our way.

Thelma and Louise had morphed quickly into Lucy and Ethel. Maybe we should have used Ricardo or Mertz in Sarento’s a few nights later. Instead, we had a go at my husband’s ruse. He gives the hostess a phony moniker, often using “Kramer” as an homage to Jerry Seinfeld’s fictional, across-the-hall neighbor. But we couldn’t pull it off. When Kristen blurted out “Smith!”at the hostess stand, I started to giggle, telling the two humorless, well-coifed and stylish twenty-somethings managing the table traffic, “We’ve had too much sun.” Like Queen Victoria, they were not amused.

We had a few other Lucy and Ethel moments on Maui. For starters, our five-day gabfest caused us to miss a turn here and there… Our rental car—reminder: NOT a ’66 T-bird—apparently is common enough that we jumped into its twin, Americano and Latte in hand, outside a Starbucks… It probably wouldn’t have hurt to slap an “I brake for rainbows” sticker on our bumper... One of us is more comfortable killing giant cockroaches than the other...Outdoing the bugs were dozens of fist-sized, nocturnal toads sporadically sprinkled along the beach path (ewwww!)… And don’t even get me started on the lizards! We learned it hurts—a lot (very-bad-language a lot)—to wade through shallow water that covers pointy lava rocks… And how many times can someone drop an iPhone, anyway?

Thing is, neither of us is naturally clumsy or ditzy (even though I’m a blonde), especially Kristen. She is a successful entrepreneur, a Harvard grad and a gifted athlete. We come from hardscrabble New England stock. Our mothers—sisters--would never have found themselves in these ridiculous predicaments. It simply wasn’t an option for them. Their generation didn’t “go rogue” on their husbands and children, running off to Hawaii with the girls. To them, such an idea was crazy. Today we know we need these occasional escapes with other women-folk or we’ll go crazy. (And, note to husbands: Our constant banter did NOT disparage you in any way and we, in fact, are so very grateful for your blessings on these diversions of ours.)

In the movie, Thelma and Louise use their wits to stay one step ahead of the law. At one point, a cop says to his partner: “You know, the one thing I can’t figure out? Are these girls real smart or real, real lucky?”

Today, we women need to be smart enough to know when we’ve had enough. We need to take care of ourselves, to refuel and refresh. We need to model it for our daughters and maybe even for our mothers. Going to Hawaii is a fairytale. Sometimes, it’s more realistic to get a pedicure; have a glass of wine or a cup of tea with a girlfriend, a cousin or your sisters; or simply read a book and take a nap. As for Thelma and Louise, they were real smart and real, real lucky.

Kristen and I? We are, too.

We Raked Leaves When We Were Kids and Had the Blisters to Prove it

2011-10-21T10:09:00.009-05:00

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a couple of suburban kids raking leaves the other day. Were these kids being punished for bad report cards or an infraction of house rules? Here in the 'burbs, we just don't see that many kids doing yard work. We see a few dads, the occasional mom, and lawn services.

I recalled a friend who jokingly called it “Johnson County child abuse” when she had two of her five children sharing the same bedroom. Did this leaf-raking task fall into that category, as well?

What I really wanted to know was, How on earth did these parents inspire their progeny to rake?

In our house, the offspring have always mysteriously disappeared or miraculously wanted to do their homework when there are dishes to be done, snow to be shoveled, leaves to be raked. We’ve actually paid one of our son's friends to do yard work for us. We have never been good at getting our children to do chores. It’s one of our failings as parents.

When I was a kid—OMG, did I just actually say “When I was a kid…?” If that sounds like I’ve turned into my mother (or father), I assure you (and myself) that I have not. How can I be sure? Because they were able to get us to help around the house, pitch in, do our part. It was an expectation that wasn’t optional. I was motivated by two things: a desire to please and fear. We set the table and cleaned the kitchen, kept our rooms picked up and…

…We raked leaves.

We had a big yard with lots of deciduous trees and our dad was a perfectionist. Weekends in the fall were all-hands-on-deck. Dad was methodical and precise and expected us to be, as well. There was a right way (and several wrong ways) to hold a rake. I’m still not sure where he came upon this knowledge and methodology since he was a city kid, born and bred on the island of Manhattan. He required short, even, punchy strokes to long, lazy drags. Work gloves were a must, but we got blisters anyway.

We didn’t bag leaves back then; we burned them. At least, we burned them until my dad got on an environmental kick. When we lived at 106 Oak Terrace, we burned on even-numbered days of the month. At 665 Pine Court, we burned on odd-numbered days. After building many equal-sized piles, the leaves would go into a special metal basket and set afire, crackling and bright when the weather was sunny and dry; smokey and smoldering on grey, damp days. I loved the smell almost as much as the scent of a campfire.

Today, with mulching lawnmowers and disappearing kids, leaf raking may be a lost art. I guess that’s why I was shocked to see those kids raking leaves the other day in their front yard. Maybe they were doing it for fun… collecting them in huge piles, jumping in and sending the leaves airborne before floating back to the earth.

Missing Baby Brings Out Best & Worst

2011-10-07T10:51:00.012-05:00

We’ve got a missing baby in our city. Thanks to the Amber Alert system, folks know immediately these days when a child is snatched. Our local TV stations are on this pretty much 24/7, which is both a blessing and a curse. News crews are working their tails off to feed the curious and ravenous masses.

And a feeding frenzy it has become…

News of missing children brings out the best and the worst in people. On the upside, there is empathy, prayer and a willingness to lend a hand. Downside? Jumping to conclusions, finger pointing and criticizing the police and the parents. Somewhere in the middle is morbid curiosity and armchair theorizing.

Personally, I have spent some time in all three places. It is so easy to get drawn in to the drama—a mother’s tearful pleas, helicopter views of the search, a neighbor’s speculation and live blogs. Faceook and other interactive sites create a sense of community… disunity, too, as people’s opinions differ on who’s to blame. I’m guilty of throwing out a speculation or two myself. It’s all human nature, I suppose. And we don’t seem to learn our lesson. “Everyone” thought Casey Anthony was guilty of killing her daughter. Everyone, that is, except the jury.

I think so much of our news feels removed and out of our control. Even though they say “all politics is local,” I know I feel completely helpless, as well as removed, from what’s happening in Washington. I’m discouraged about the economy, but am powerless to fix it. And overseas? As dispirited as I feel about war in Afghanistan, genocide in the Sudan, famine in Somalia, tent cities in Haiti, the world seems to have “attention fatigue.” I think it’s due to the fact that we have no idea what we, individually, can do about any of it. Besides, most of us—and I include myself in this—don’t know enough about many of these world situations to participate in articulate discourse, let alone offer solutions.

Our local reporters—the folks we see on the air every morning and every night—bring baby snatchings into our living room and into our hearts. We’re drawn in and even asked to help.

What mom can’t look at little Lisa’s sobbing mother and not feel her heart breaking? No matter what really happened, or what truths are revealed, this is a woman who has been destroyed.

I admit I keep checking KMBC’s website for updates, flipping on the TV. The parents were even on ABC's Good Morning America today and I've seen stories in the Huffington Post and on CNN. I’ve allowed it to become a huge distraction. I don’t know what I expect to find out. I’m hoping and praying for the best, while semi-expecting the worst.

I don’t know what today will bring—when it comes to this missing child, or anything else for that matter. So I’m going to try to get on with my life, hug my loved ones, count my blessings, stop channeling my inner Nancy Grace and wait…

To Tell, or Not To Tell...

2011-10-04T11:54:00.009-05:00

So ex-con, kitchen and craft maven Martha Stewart’s daughter, Alexis, has written a revealing book about growing up with her mommy dearest. Stewart says the book is all in fun, one big joke. Maybe. I’m sure Alexis will laugh all the way to the bank.

Remember what Frank McCourt said at the beginning of Angela’s Ashes?

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

Authors have been telling tales about their upbringings since the dawn of the age. Readers love to get a glimpse inside the misery of others, especially if those others are celebs. But what about us regular folks? How much is okay to tell? I wrestle with this in my own writing because our stories are rarely only our stories. They almost always involve other people.

I don’t want to embarrass my parents or my children. Even more so, I don’t want to wound them. But telling my truths requires a certain amount of disclosure. Maybe it goes to motive. Many of us write because it’s cathartic and we absolute have to write to heal. Or because we earnestly believe our story could help someone else. Or because we want to get back at someone. Sometimes it’s all three. Augusten Burroughs comes to mind. He is brutally honest and wickedly funny and leaves it all out there about his mean, mad and neglectful parents.

Some people are disgusted by those of us who “air our dirty laundry,” while others say we’re brave. Two friends recently began blogging about some serious and personal issues—one parenting a transgendered child, the other revealing years of suffering in silence as a battered woman. I think they are very courageous women. I admire their candor and their strength.
One of the finest examples of a memoir that tells a lot of damning, albeit hilarious, stories about growing up with mental illness, addiction and neglect is Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle. Walls makes you wish it weren’t too late to call Child Protective Services but, at the same time, it is absolutely clear that she loved her parents in spite of the havoc they wreaked. Christina Crawford? Not so much.

I wrestle with how much to say about alcoholism, depression, narcissism, dementia and whatever else molds our character in my writing. Sometimes the truth hurts. That is not my aim. I want love to filter through. Maybe writing is like parenting. It requires discipline and you have to be tough. But in the end, you want your kids (and the parents you write about) to know how much you love them.

Celebrity Addiction as a Spectator Sport

2011-07-25T16:11:00.012-05:00

Addiction has become a spectator sport. I’m not a big fan of that.

Our culture’s fascination, make that obsession, with celebrity and notoriety has, perhaps, become an addiction as well, and we want more, more, more.

More gossip, more dirt, more photos. As our tech capabilities expand, so do our appetites. Our society’s collective and compulsive hunger requires cannibalistic feeding on the bloody mess our so-called idols and stars have made of their lives.

We want this so badly that we turn murder supects into overnight celebrities, devoting hours and days and months of coverage to them--especially if they are young, attractive, white women who are charged with killing their children. We want this so badly that we lap up derogatory and a disrespectful monikers like "Octomom."

For some of us, in fact for many of us, journalism was once a noble profession. Right now (thank you so very much News Corp), journalists are in the news, breaking laws in order to break a story. Lurking, snooping, following and general sneakiness have become the order of the day. We put celebrities on pedestals and somehow expect them to stay there as, paradoxically, we wait like vultures for the day of their demise.

Mel is drunk and bigoted. Lindsay is in and out of rehab and jail. She may or may not be a klepto. Charlie is likely an addict, more than likely since he denies it.

Even though these folks and so many others are attractive and talented, should their foibles really be a source of amusement for us? Should we be ready to pounce on every little scandalous morsel? Do we need to get a life and let them live theirs?

If you believe in the disease theory of addiction and I, for one, do, then you recognize that addicts are sick. Even knowing this I have, more than once, allowed myself to be entertained by the times they’ve made public spectacles of themselves. Why did Lindsay wear that short little white dress to court? Did Elin really chase Tiger with a golf club? Will someone please give Nicole Richie a sandwich?

Shame on me. I can’t say I’ve been thoroughly entertained by what I’ve seen on TMZ or in US Weekly, but I admit I’ve been sucked in.

Regarding Amy: How many times in the last 48 hours has someone said, “It was only a matter of time.” And still, we can’t believe it. She clearly was on an extremely self-destructive path. Talented, beautiful, brilliant and SICK. Who really knows why? It defies explanation. That is why addiction is known as a “cunning, baffling and powerful disease.” It is progressive in nature and catches us off guard. It doesn't care if you are smart or wealthy or famous. It is a thief, stealing wives from husbands, fathers from children, professionals from careers, robbing its victims of every last shred of dignity.

Maybe we expected Amy to die. Someday. Not Saturday. The illness had her in its grips and she needed more and more and more to feed the beast. We wanted more of her as well. More of that voice, more of those songs, more performances, more Amy. She couldn’t give us any more, because the disease had taken it all. Her addiction to drugs and our addiction to celebrity finally swallowed her alive.

She didn’t live in peace. She didn’t die in peace. Can we let Amy rest in peace?

What Boob Came Up With Nursing Doll?

2011-07-19T15:19:00.020-05:00

Adjust your bra straps, parents. “Breast Milk Baby” is on the way. This 21st-century answer to Betsy Wetsy makes its US debut later this month at a toy industry trade show in Las Vegas.

BMB is a baby doll that simulates breastfeeding when its pretend mommy—i.e. our daughters and granddaughters, nieces and little sisters—clutches it to her chest. According to ABC News, “The doll, which comes with a special halter top with two flowers positioned where nipples would be, makes suckling sounds when its mouth is brought close to sensors embedded in the flowers.”

Seriously? Flowers where nipples would be? That getup sounds suspiciously stripper-like. No wonder they’re debuting in Vegas. What’s next, junior memberships in the La Leche League?

BMB is made in Spain. Did someone forget to do the market research here in the USA? Don’t they know that Americans are still freaked out when a woman breastfeeds in public? Yep, we’ve got plenty of porn and strip clubs and Hooters, but God forbid a woman feed her baby on the subway.

Even though I am a “breast is best” proponent from way back, I believe breastfeeding is a matter of personal choice. Some women do, some don’t. That’s their business. I nursed my son for 10 months, my daughter for 16, and I still have dreams about breastfeeding and driving at the same time. (There actually was a news story a couple of years ago about a woman who got pulled over by the police for this, but I swear I never did it in real life.)

Kids have great imaginations and lots of their play is in imitation of grown up behavior. They’ll pick up the TV remote and call it a cell phone… or turn a big cardboard box into a rocket ship… or shoot you with a banana gun… or play doctor… It’s just what they do. Toy makers take their cues, often with sexist results, from children’s desire to imitate grownups,—kitchen sets and Easy-Bake Ovens for girls, construction tools and Tonka trucks for boys.

I’m sure lots of girls over the years, and even some boys, have pretended to nurse their baby dolls—and bottle feed them, for that matter--because it mimics what Moms do. I see nothing wrong with that, but we don’t need a specialty doll to push it, either. Check out the manufacturer's website and you'll see that there are also accessories to go with the doll, including a cradle, a breastfeeding pillow and a toy breast pump. A toy breast pump?! Why not throw in breast pads, a nursing bra and some lanolin for sore nipples while they're at it? To the company's credit, they do make both boy and girl BMBs, as well as light and dark skinned babies.

“Even pediatricians, child development specialists and toy experts can't agree on whether the doll would be healthy for young girls,” reports ABC News.

One could argue that because breastfeeding is healthy and oh-so-natural, there is nothing wrong with children emulating this form of maternal nourishment. I see two major issues here. First, breasts are not toys. Granted, there are adult situations where they may be considered toys, but that’s clearly not what we’re talking about here. Second, we, as a society are doing everything in our might to turn our children into little adults. They are not just miniature versions of us, despite wearing mature, skimpy clothes, listening to sexualized music and playing violent video games.

I want to be clear: I don’t think BMB is about sexualizing girls, per se, because breastfeeding is not sexual. It is nourishment and nurture. But this doll does raise questions about gender roles. Of course it does, you say, men cannot breastfeed. Not yet, anyway, but you know some mad scientist somewhere is working on it.

Girls need to know there’s a lot of life to be lived between being someone’s daughter and becoming someone’s mother (if that’s what they choose), and that it has a whole lot more to do with what’s in their heads and the size of their hearts than in the functionality or size of their breasts.

Parsing the Lessons of a Perfectionist Dad

2011-06-19T15:13:00.013-05:00

It was not always an easy ride for my dad and me. My mom used to say that one of her greatest accomplishments was getting me out of high school without my father killing me. I didn’t commit any felonies or cause bodily harm, but I’d sneak out with the car before I had my license, ditch gym class to stare at boys in the library, and generally not live into my potential as a scholar. On my last day of high school, I was busted with a group of friends for drinking beer in the ravine.

My dad came to fatherhood somewhat late in the game. Papal dispensation in hand, he was 36 when he married my mother after sixteen years as a Marist brother. More than nine years younger, my mom was introduced to my dad at a Knights of Columbus St. Patrick’s Day dance in Washington, DC. Dad married a nice Irish-Catholic girl and wound up the spouse of an Episcopal priest.

Dad rarely spoke of his own father, save a handful of references to a notorious temper. I know far more (although still not enough) about him through my own genealogical research than I ever learned from my dad. I wish I’d had the interest and the maturity to query him when I had the chance.

My grandfather Charles McAleer was born in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in 1887. He climbed out the bedroom window of the family farm in 1905 and eloped to New York City with an older neighbor girl. His Mum did not approve of their relationship. Charles’ wife died in 1910, leaving him with one, possibly two, young children. He took his daughter, Rose, back to Ireland to be raised there by his mother and sisters, returned to New York, and soon married my grandmother. Together they had four more children; my father was the youngest. I’d never even seen a family snapshot of my grandfather until recently when I found some old photos in a box in the basement of my mom’s condo. He died before my parents ever met. If my mom knew more about Charles at one time, she no longer remembers.

Fathers are so formative that to not know one is to feel like a piece is missing from a jigsaw puzzle. You can still see the big picture, but there’s that one important detail missing. Because of that, it’s an opportunity begging for one’s imagination to run wild. Was my grandfather a mean drunk? Was he abusive to his children? What anger went unresolved between my father and his? Was my grandfather proud that all three of his sons graduated from college? Or did he feel inferior because he didn’t? Maybe he was a sad, bitter man who had lost the love of his life too early and made his best effort at starting over…

Just as I am not a perfect mother, I didn’t have a perfect father. He was a perfectionist with a big personality. He was smarter than most people and didn’t mind flaunting it. My dad was a teacher—high school English--and then an editor of high school text books, so I was frequently subjected to both his literal and figurative red pencil. (Speaking of pencils, he did not like the way I held mine and, along about the third or fourth grade, insisted I correct the position of my fingers on my No. 2s.) He was an exacting grammarian who would quiz me not only on English but Latin and French. There was no winning an argument with my dad. He could reduce me to frustrated tears by both maddening logic and mockery. I’d retreat to my room, licking my wounds until my mom urged me to make peace. “You know you’re going to have to make the first move,” she’d say. As infuriating as this was, it helped me formulate my own parental code: When I am aware that I have wronged or hurt my children, I admit it and apologize. It’s important for them to know that parents are human and make mistakes. That none of us, no matter how much we wish it were so, is perfect.

There were times when I felt cherished by my dad. I remember him taking me to lunch for my birthday and playing that early video game “Pong” while we waited for a table. When my brothers and I were little, Dad made up “Baseball Pete” stories and sang to us at bedtime. He taught us to play poker on camping trips. At least once a year, he’d pull us out of school for a field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. He took us to hear the Chicago Symphony every summer at Ravinia. He instilled in me a love of literature, art and music.

One of the greatest transitions for my dad came as he moved from being a very religious man to a deeply spiritual one. He remained a Roman Catholic until the day he died, but his journey was greatly influenced by Native American and Twelve Step spirituality. In the last years of his life, he became very interested in healing prayer. That would become the thing that ultimately healed my relationship with my dad as we read and discussed books by Francis MacNutt and attended a healing prayer group together. He would ask me to pray for him and with him with great regularity in the final year of his life. I felt loved and respected. I was with him ten years ago when he left his earthly body and was finally set free of ailments that had plagued him for years.

Above all else, my dad still remains, in spirit, a great teacher. One of the things I learned from him (from both of my parents) is that it’s never too late to change course—whether it’s a mid-life career change, learning a new skill or embarking on an enlightened spiritual path—as long as we’re on this earth there’s still time to change for the better. In a world where it’s often easier to take the path of least resistance… to remain stuck in bad habits… to be content with mediocrity… to be resigned to injustice, war and poverty… my dad taught me that complacency is not an option. Carpe diem, he would say. Thanks to him, I know what that means. Seize the day!

If All The World Were Apple Pie...

2011-05-26T12:25:00.014-05:00

Aside from barbecue and beer, what would your favorite from-the-kitchen treat be for Father’s Day?

My husband would say apple pie, I responded to my food writer friend’s Facebook query.

Apple pie is my go-to dessert for John, although I confess I don’t make it very often. Life gets in the way. We get busy, I get lazy. Plus, who wants the temptation of that second slice before bed or (horrors!) a piece for breakfast in the morning? And, honestly, coring, peeling and slicing all those apples is kind of a pain, not to mention the floury clean-up afterward. So pie baking, for the most part, has been relegated to special occasions—Thanksgiving (pumpkin), Valentine’s Day (I can make a cherry pie, Billy Boy!) and Father’s Day (apple, natch). I sometimes gift my brother-in-law with Lemon Meringue for his birthday, and my friend Jeanie and I are mad for Key Lime. But John loves apple, so once in a while he is deemed deserving—because he’s been working too hard or traveling too much or has been putting up with me—and I surprise him with one. Last Sunday was one of those days.

My mom hung up her apron a couple of years ago, but she once was a championship pie maker, winning the blue ribbon for her apple pie at our hometown’s homespun July 4th baking contest. She had a knack for that Crisco crust. My dad liked my mom’s apple pie warm with a slice of cheddar cheese, something that produced eye rolls every time from the teenage me.

John’s mom baked yummy apple pies, too. She cooked her filling on the stovetop, often freezing batches for later use, and made an oil crust. Pillsbury has a somewhat acceptable crust and I’ve been known to use it (guiltily) in a pinch, but it feels like cheating, like I’m somehow not living into my heritage. I’ve experimented with a lot of crust variations and have three that I really like, including a Cuisinart crust made with unsalted butter. Silver Palate’s Apple of Her Eye Pie mixes shredded cheddar into the crust. Dad would have liked that. My friend Molly recently introduced me to a crust made with oil and 7-up and rolled between two sheets of wax paper. It tastes fantastic; I’m still experimenting to get the right thickness, and it’s the hands-down winner for ease of clean-up.

Speaking of ease, if you’re making it all from scratch, there is nothing “easy as pie” about a pie. I looked up this falsehood and learned that, coined in 19th-century America, “easy as pie” is actually not about the baking of the pie, it's about the eating. And it goes down even easier with ice cream, which the TLC cable channel ranks the Number One U.S. dessert choice. Chocolate cake is second. Apple pie, third.

My Auntie Mary, a legendary pie maker, was of an era when people still sat down for a big family dinner, including a roast, potatoes and pie, after church on Sunday. (Obviously, those were the days before youth soccer.) Born in 1895 to Irish immigrants, Auntie Mary wed the son of Italian immigrants around 1925 and lived her whole life in Newburyport. I wonder how many pies she baked for Tony over the years. Which was his favorite? Did Mary ever get aggravated with her younger sister, my grandmother who, oddly, couldn’t stand the "stench" of fresh apples being eaten or prepared for pie (she’d have to leave the room), yet had no trouble lifting forkfuls of the warm, gooey, flaky-crusted, “easy” cinnamon result?

Growing up a thousand miles away, childhood memories of my great aunt focus on the kitchen of her cozy little Cape, where a treacherously steep, narrow staircase ascended to the home’s tiny second floor. I picture her wearing a crisp, white apron, perhaps a false remembrance I’ve conjured as I imagine her rolling out a flurry of pie crusts in a hazy cloud of flour.

Last Sunday, moved by an inexplicable wave of nostalgia, I used one of Auntie Mary’s old pie pans. Over the years, I’ve accumulated quite a few basic, clear glass pie plates. So has my sister-in-law. If I bring a pie to their house, Teresa—no slouch in the pie baking department herself--hands me an identical pie plate from her cupboard. No waiting for washing and returning. I’ve acquired several pie pans from the kitchens of both my mom and my late mother-in-law, including one that matches my Royal Worcester Evesham china. But my favorite is a gorgeous, earthy stoneware pie plate from another sister-in-law, Erica. Created by a Wisconsin potter, David Caradori, the piece is oven proof but I’ve deemed it too nice to use so I show it off atop my dining room breakfront.

Auntie Mary’s pan is speckled, grey, vintage enamel—a graniteware piece that I plucked from my mom’s kitchen when she downsized a while back. Collectors Weekly says most graniteware, also called agateware or enamelware, was made from the 1870s until the end of World War II. A pair of St. Louis brothers brought the process home from Germany. After aluminum pie pans hit the market, the once-desirable graniteware lost its proverbial luster. Today, however, pie pans, dippers, coffee pots and tea kettles are all considered collectibles. There is even a National Graniteware Society which holds a two-day convention each summer.

Anyone can see this old, dented pan has been well used. I wish I could coax a history from its dappled dings. Curiosity about my forebears has come too late; no one is left to tell me the family secrets, let alone the secret to a perfect pie crust. Surely this pan has stories to tell, like the time Auntie Mary was asked to bring a pie to some event and was confounded because she had never made just a single, lonely pie; she knew only how to measure flour and lard for a half-dozen or more at a time.

What’s this piece worth? I wondered. A quick surf to eBay showed prices ranging from seven to thirty dollars. But this old pie tin carries a legacy and you can’t put monetary value on that. I hope I can do it justice, living into my birthright and, hopefully, passing on the pan—as well as the secret to that elusive, perfect crust--to my daughter or, maybe, even my son.

* * *

But I when I undress me
Each night upon my knees
Will ask the Lord to bless me
With apple pie and cheese.
--Eugene Field

More Than One Word About Plastic.

2011-03-31T19:07:00.010-05:00

People ask writers all the time, Where do your ideas come from? Or, Why did you write about that? From a short piece for a blog or a newsletter to the Great American Novel, the ideas usually come from everyday occurrences that somehow strike us as funny, odd, profound or just plain interesting.

Random ideas come to me when I’m supposed to be writing about something else (Squirrel!). I get stumped or stuck or bored or distracted. I start looking around… order a refill on my coffee… critique the art on the walls… notice a little framed postcard talking about recycled materials. The latter is why I’m about to tell you three things about The Roasterie, a coffeehouse here in Leawood (there’s another in Kansas City’s Brookside neighborhood).

Before I start lauding The Roasterie, I want to make it clear that I am not a basher of the great big coffee chain based in Seattle. I love their places—on every corner in some cities—so this is nothing against them. It’s just that, as Jon Kabat-zinn says Wherever you go, there you are, and today I happen to be at The Roasterie.

One. The Roasterie has chairs made of recycled plastic bottles. Officially, it’s the 111 Navy Chair and it’s made by Emeco, which has a partnership with Coca-Cola. Maybe I’m sitting on 111 of those Diet Sprite bottles that found their way to Coke’s recycling plant in South Carolina. If you’re into the technical aspects of this, you can find out more by clicking here.

Two. The Roasterie has a power strip that runs the entire perimeter of the seating area of the café—creating a sort of wainscoting effect, a veritable chair rail for the aforementioned 111 Navies. If you’re the type who hangs out in cafés with your laptop, you know the value of having a place to plug in. Here there’s a plug about every 12 inches.

Three. The Roasterie is locally owned. Need I say more?

Obviously, I am not finishing the Great American Novel or my fascinating life story today, but I’m enjoying a local hangout and not bugging my partner about when he’ll be ready to leave.

p.s. The staff at The Roasterie are uber-friendly. They don’t seem to mind if you use their electricity and they make pretty designs with the milk in your latte.

Best Friends Weather the Storm

2011-02-02T16:02:00.004-06:00

February 1 – It’s snowing like crazy outside, just like it was at about the same time nine years ago. Somehow, in the midst of all the snow and ice, my brother and his wife got to the hospital for the birth of their firstborn, Addison Rose. She was one of many gifts delivered that year by the storm.

I had no idea when the first flakes fell that I’d soon have my best friends under my roof. Mona, Jeanie and I are “heart” friends who weather storms together. We’ve shared the gale force winds brought by children, the squalls of marriage, the losses of parents and jobs. We’ve prayed together, played together and stayed together regardless of geography. We love each other's kids, husbands and dogs. We stick together through thick and thin--literally and figuratively.

That winter blizzard provided a joyful and rare occurrence to gather since the three of us—Mona, Jeanie and I—no longer lived in the same town. The Amtrak, bringing Mona in from western Kansas, was running late. Of course Jeanie and I knew both the name of her doctor and the time of the appointment, so nosily (Gladys Kravitz, anyone?), we phoned to report that Mona would be late.

All over town, folks lost power including Mona’s hotel and my mom’s condo. Next was the home of Jeanie and her husband Phil. Jeanie doesn’t mind roughing it, but she hates being cold. By the evening of February 2, we were having a spontaneous house party with folks camped out in front of the fireplace, on the family room sofa, in the kids’ rooms… Once the streets were plowed, Jeanie and Phil’s daughter Erin came over and she and Mona made Tortilla Soup and we had an impromptu ninth birthday party for my Hannah.

There’s a certain camaraderie that comes with braving the storm. Humans v. Mother Nature can be a real bonding experience and the storm of 2002 was no exception. It was a sweet, simple time with nothing fancy about it, yet it’s my richest storm memory ever.

Lions and tigers and New Year's!

2010-12-30T23:07:00.004-06:00

I get why teenagers want to go out on New Year's Eve, I really do. It's because they want to make us crazy. The reason I know this is because I was 17 once. There were few things worse than being home on New Year's Eve. It was worse than missing Prom, worse than not going to Florida for Spring Break, worse than flunking your driver's test.

Dear old Dad always called New Year's Eve "amateur night"--a night fraught with beginning binge drinkers making asses of themselves, generally wreaking havoc, and possibly jeopardizing life and limb. Going out on this auspicious occasion was seriously frowned upon. (The same was true for the purchase and use of roman candles, smoke bombs and bottle rockets on the Fourth of July.) Participating in year-end revelry was even more strenuously discouraged if it involved driving. Ask to borrow Dad's car on December 31st? Fuhgedaboudit!

I have no memory of my parents ever going to a fancy, grown-up New Year's Eve bash. They usually stayed home and stuck to regular bedtimes. I don't think Mom's welcomed in the new year since 1960. If Dad stayed up it was because he was watching a movie, a West Coast football game, or was engrossed in a detective novel.

The recommended New Year's celebration--before we kids reached the age of rebellion--was G-rated fun with family friends. We went ice skating, drank hot chocolate, ate chili and played wholesome games like charades. Once, there was even a taffy pull. No kidding. Noise making was improvised by banging various kitchen implements on pots and pans and toasting was done with sparkling cider.

One year when I was home for winter break from college, Dad revoked driving privileges because of a major snowstorm. A friend who lived a couple of miles from our house was having a New Year's Eve party and there was NO WAY I was going to miss it. With no car at my disposal, I was forced to be resourceful. I packed my outfit for the party, along with some overnight things, into a hanging bag and strapped it to a Flexible Flyer with a bungee cord. Dressed like Nanook of the North, I trudged down Green Bay Road, pulling my sled in the face of stinging snow until I reached my friend's home.

It seems very odd, as I reflect on it this New Year's, that my parents had no qualms about me walking miles in the snow all by myself! But I know now that there's very little rational about the way parents feel about New Year's Eve.

As the parent of a teenager on this final day of 2010, here's what New Year's Eve looks like to me...

Picture a really busy multi-lane highway. (In my mind it's California's PCH.) Even though the cars are bumper-to-bumper, they are still moving about 80 miles an hour so crossing is extremely tricky and dangerous if not down right impossible. It's a much more serious version of that Seinfeld episode where George pushes an arcade game (Frogger?) across a New York City street, trying to dodge moving traffic. Only, instead of the silly video game music playing like a calliope in the background, I hear the theme from Jaws. Da dum. Da dum. Dadumdadumdadum.

I wouldn't let my dog off the leash here, let alone try to cross it myself. Let's say I do try to cross and find myself on the median. Cars are whizzing by, causing a wind tunnel, and the honking horns are cacophonous. If I somehow make it across to the far side of the highway, there is a rocky beach leading to turbulent, shark-infested waters. If I turn back, there is a dense, overgrown forest with creatures unknown. Lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) aren't even the half of what lurks within. I'm thinking more along the line of "those of whom we do not speak" from M. Night Shyamalan's The Village... huge, daunting, hairy creatures with ferocious snaggleteeth.

I guess I'm kind of like Dad in that I sincerely wish my teenage daughter didn't want to go out on New Year's Eve. But maybe I'm a little like her too, because I understand her desire to be with friends and celebrate the milestone of one year past and another ahead. It's a bit of a right of passage for both parents and kids... another piece of letting go... of trusting... of sending them into the world... with a blessing... saying a prayer and hoping we've taught them well... holding vigil till they come home. And if they let us, we'll tuck them into bed--figuratively if not literally because they are almost adults, after all--for the first of many times in 2011.

Potty Mouth, Euro Style: Òu est la toilette?

2010-07-06T09:35:00.009-05:00

When you’re traveling with a group of 39 teens, the most asked question—after “Where’s an ATM?”—is “Where’s the bathroom?”

The query is especially urgent with teenage girls on Saturday night in crowd-crazed spots like Piccadilly Circus. Kids are not amused when the response is, “I don’t know; I’ve never been here either.”

Apparently there’s now an app for that. Yes, your iPhone can find restrooms all around the world. (By the way, that was how George Costanza made his post-Seinfeld fortune according to an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO.) Trouble is, not everyone, has an iPhone.

It’s generally easier in London, because we (supposedly) share a common language. Fortunately, restrooms everywhere are marked by those international Man/Woman figures, so even if you don’t speak the local tongue you can usually locate a WC, loo, el baño, aseo, toilette or whatever you want to call it, although it may take some sleuthing.

(Worth noting: European toilettes have a different flush mechanism. Occasionally a pull chain, usually a button or valve to push. Some are on the wall, others on the commode. Be flexible!)

Kudos to the City of Westminster (London) for its assistance in locating the loo. “Just text the word TOILET to 80097 and you will be texted back with the location and opening hours of your nearest public toilet.” Westminster’s website says:

Out all day shopping in the West End? Children desperate for the toilet? We've all been caught short out and about. But in Westminster you don't have to be any more.
Every year 10,000 gallons of urine is at risk of ending up in the city's streets and alleyways through irresponsible and anti-social behaviour.

Elsewhere, near Putney Bridge in London, I saw a father encouraging his young boy to urinate in the street, aiming right at the tire on a car. And we were cautioned not to place our bags down in urine on sidewalks in Spain.

Nearly everyone remembers being told, as a child, to use the restroom before leaving the house for a ride in the car. Even if we swore we did not have to “go,” our mothers would insist we “go anyway.” The wisdom of this becomes clearer the older we get.

My dear, departed mother-in-law was a first-rate world traveler. Never daunted by culture shock, foreign languages or inclement weather, Barbara and her Louis Vuittons trekked to great places on and off the beaten paths of Europe, Asia and the north of Africa. She didn’t bat an eye at riding atop a camel in the desert, an elephant in Nepal, or an unfamiliar horse in Ireland, as long as she could lay her head down in five-star accommodations at night. On a trip with her to Paris when I was in my mid-twenties, I first heard Barbara say, “Always go to the bathroom when you have a chance,” a quote credited to England’s King Charles V. I don’t know the circumstances that led to Charles V’s proclamation, but it’s advice worth taking, especially when traveling abroad.

On that long ago trip to Paris, I remember visiting a public toilet that was literally a hole in a floor, I believe such a setup was called a pissoir. Today, the public WCs in Paris are fairly modern and, while some still require a coin to enter, most are free of charge. Our lovely tour guide Isabelle, however, cautioned that the door will pop open if one sits in the public toilette for longer than 15 minutes.

Last month in Paris, I used a somewhat hidden public restroom that was under renovation on the Ile de la Cité. After creeping down a flight of stairs, I was led to the correct door by a faintly penciled mark of “F” on the wall, which I took to mean it was for Femmes (Women). Still a bit unsure, I was relieved to find I wasn’t the only one in there.

The hotel bathrooms on this recent trip were really nice with big, deep bathtubs—perfect for long, hot soaks after a day of sightseeing. Of course they also had bidets. Perhaps that’s the tradeoff for not providing washcloths. Most of the kids had never seen a bidet, and they certainly didn’t have the remotest idea how to use one. I actually overheard some of the boys saying they had a “duvet” in their bathroom.

Museum restrooms in Europe are pretty good and much cleaner than other public toilets. In fact, I waited at least ten minutes at the Louvre while an attendant slowly mopped the floor as the line of patient women grew. On the other hand, a custodian was practically mauled in the Frankfurt Airport as he tried to enter a tiny WC near the Lufthansa gates. An odd thing in that airport—tiny, two-toilet restrooms with one little sink. Do the fräuleins just hold it, or what? You could tell the American women from their grimaces, heaving sighs and eye rolling over the lack of facilities. Even the glass-enclosed smoking booths were bigger.

The nicest public restroom we visited was as at the Gare l'Austerlitz in Paris. It cost half a Euro and was worth every cent—clean, modern, pretty sinks and (drum roll, please) toilet paper. Yes, toilet paper is in short supply throughout Europe. A couple of my travel companions decided there’s a fortune to be made in supplying European tourist towns with toilet tissue (and ice cubes, but that’s another story). Happily, I had plenty of little travel packs of Kleenex in my purse and was happy to share them with the girls on the trip.

In Madrid, Barcelona and points in between, there seemed to be the most serious lack of TP. I asked our tour director, a Spaniard, about this. “Um, Dan? No offense to your country, but why are the public restrooms so bad here?”

Dan assured me that even Spanish women have complained about this and that he believes it is because the concept of using public restrooms is a relatively new one in Spain. In other words, traditionally, people have just used the baño at home and not while out and about. If you’re in a restaurant or a bar in Spain and you find you have to “go,” my advice is this: Pick up a bunch of paper napkins on the way in.

Thanks to a French train workers’ strike, we traveled from Paris to Madrid on five buses (not the kind with toilets) and a train (in Spain) over the course of 22 hours. We were asked to limit our fluid intake the afternoon before we left in order to avoid too many “comfort” stops. Naturally this made us thirsty and all-the-more in need of restrooms.

That lovely restroom at the Austerlitz station was but a distant memory when we stopped before daybreak just over the Spain border. The girls’ eyes grew wide as they saw two footholds astride a hole in the floor and a concrete trough for washing up. After sleeping on a bus all night, what’s one more indignity? This made the seatless toilets throughout Europe seem not so bad. Besides squatting is good exercise for the quads, right? And Mom always said you shouldn’t sit down on a public toilet seat, anyway.

A Mose by Any Other Name...

2010-06-03T18:53:00.004-05:00

It’s finally happened. The proverbial “better mousetrap” is here and his name is Mose.

Mose is a great big furry bundle of a cat who may or may not be a Maine Coon. My mom says he is, but we don’t have any papers to prove it. We are Mose’s fourth home since being adopted from the pound as a kitten nearly four years ago. Mose is also on his fourth name—fifth, if you count the month or so we called him simply “Big Kitty.”

Earlier this year, we took him in because my mom could no longer care for him. She had “inherited” the feline from a neighbor, whose mother had given him to her. The neighbor’s mom had named the cat Thumper. We think he was named after the bunny in Bambi, although it takes just one day with this cat walking on hardwood floors to know there could be another reason. Due to his considerable girth, you can hear him thump-thump-thumping from room to room. My mom does not care for cartoon cutesy, but she does go for all things Irish. After having Thumper for more than a year, Mom started calling him Liam. It seemed reasonable to her since the cat she already had was named Seamus. Seamus' littermate had been Bridey. A previous pair adopted as Mickey and Gypsy were redubbed Bridget and Kate. You get the idea.

I got Thumper-Liam’s records from the vet and discovered that his animal shelter name had been Duffy which, besides being kind of Irish, was also the name of my very first cat as a young girl. By then, however, we’d begun to call the Big Kitty Mose. You could say it’s short for the Old Testament’s Moses, but really he’s named after the simpleton Mose Schrute, cousin of—and co-owner of the beet farm with—Dwight Schrute of NBC’s The Office.

To our knowledge Mose had always been an indoor cat. He looks like the kind of cat that would be kept indoors, brushed and pampered, fed his dinner in a Waterford dessert glass like the Fancy Feast kitty in the cat food ads. You can almost see a bubble over his head mimicking the old shampoo commercials, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”

After about a month in our home, Mose started trying to sneak out, mostly into the garage. Soon, however, he became obsessed with getting out the “pet proof” screen door onto the deck and thus the backyard. (This “pet proof” door has been repaired at least three times.) One day I heard a forlorn mew and found Mose half out the door, his body stuck, his front legs in the air above the deck and hind legs in the air above the kitchen floor. We took the door in for another repair, bought Mose a collar and tag and decided to let him do what comes naturally. For the first couple of weeks he stayed in the backyard, and then began to venture just behind the fence to hang out under the boughs of a huge evergreen. We soon began to see him slinking through the grass in the yards on either side of us. Mose was spreading his wings and, as all children do, venturing farther and farther from home. His instincts were beginning to take over.

About two weeks ago, Mose started to hunt—or least that’s when we became aware of his hunting. I remember our old Duffy, a prolific mouser, once dropping a huge Blue Jay on the Oriental rug in our dining room. I realized early on that our pets honor us by bringing us their prey. So it was that night, a few weeks back, as the dog went out for the last time and we began to turn out lights and lock doors, that Mose first deposited a small field mouse at the back door.

Our other cat, DaisyBelle, is about 17 and has slowed down considerably so it’s been a while since we’ve had one of these little presents greet us at the back door. There have been chipmunks, baby bunnies, baby birds. Usually, with DaisyBelle, the carcasses were headless. Not so with Mose; he seems to shake them to death which leaves them pretty much intact. To date, Mose has delivered seven of these trophies to the kitchen door, each one laid belly-up with its pointy grey snout showing the tips of its sharp little cuspids. Eek, a mouse.

I don’t like rodents. We never had gerbils or guinea pigs or hamsters as pets. I barely got through the Skinner box phase of college psych with my lunch intact. I really don’t even care for Mickey Mouse. Still, as a mom, I feel a little sad for the mouse mommies and wonder just how many mouse families have been affected by Mose’s newfound blood lust. Bottom line, though, the things give me the creeps. John isn’t always home when the gifts arrive so I have to suck it up and remove them myself—another good re-use for plastic grocery sacks.

I wonder how many more mice will lose their lives to mighty Mose. The summer is young and the world is his oyster, or at least his mouse-filled field of dreams.

I Support Scouts by Ordering Cookies

2010-04-16T12:12:00.008-05:00

One of the ways we have failed our children is not getting them into scouting. They never asked and we never offered. While other kids were joining Daisy Scouts and Cub Scouts, our kids were playing soccer and channeling Michael Jordan in the driveway. John’s brother Nick, in his fifties, is still extremely involved in scouting even though his three Eagle Scouts have moved on. Nick still rocks that Scout uniform like a teen and does a fine spiel on Lord Baden-Powell, the revered founder of the Boy Scouts. Clearly John lacks the scouting gene in his family, as do I.

I was a Girl Scout drop out. I lasted until 7th or 8th Grade. That’s when I got kicked out for telling dirty jokes. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did get called out by the leader of the Cadets when she overheard me telling a dirty joke to another girl during a meeting in the basement of the local Methodist church. She may even have phoned my parents to tattle on me. So, basically, I slinked away from scouting in shame, unable to look that woman in the eye. I wonder, what was that joke and would it even be considered risqué today?

My husband also left the Scouts in shame. He stabbed a kid. Now, if you know John today, this is really hard to imagine, although brother Nick might disagree. John must have been really carried away that day, maybe just happy to be out of the house or something. His mom would definitely not have approved of running through the house with sharp objects. To be fair, no mother would. As John tells it, they were cleaning camping gear and mess kits in the basement of his local Methodist church (Wesley brothers now rolling in their graves). He and this other kid, whom he describes as a gentle soul, were horsing around and John began chasing his fellow Scout with a butcher knife. The other kid slammed on the brakes. The laws of physics prevailed, the body in motion remained in motion, and John plunged the knife into the kid’s back right between the shoulder blades. He says there wasn’t much blood.

My scouting career began with Brownies. I loved every meeting, beginning with “Clink clank, clink clank, our Brownie gold is in the bank,” and ending with the song “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.” (They liked their fine metals, those Brownies.) We did arts and crafts projects. My favorite was embroidering tea towels that we donated to residents of an area nursing home. I still remember mine was yellow, gingham checked and I loved learning the fancy chain stitches and knots that resulted in perky flowers on the fabric. The very best thing about Brownies was Christmas caroling. We wore red felt capes and got to add a white felt angel for participating.

At least one of my brothers was a Boy Scout. I think they both were Cub Scouts. What I remember most about it is the Pinewood Derby. My brothers always made their own cars with no help from Dad, and you could tell. Other kids had these sleek, polished designs that looked like models for next year’s auto show. Needless to say, the boys didn’t bring home any trophies from this event. My brother Sean stayed in scouting long enough to go on one of those long summer trips to Wyoming. Maybe he just got sick of it after that.

Under my Dad’s tutelage we were all pretty good campers, anyway, so maybe we didn’t need scouting. Considering my Dad was born and raised in Harlem, and that he had a notoriously bad back, it’s a little odd that he took to camping. We began with an old army surplus tent and eventually graduated to a Starcraft trailer—the kind where the tent pops up out of the camper bottom. We pulled that thing all over the place with a Sears canoe strapped to the top of the car. My Dad imparted camper wisdom to us--“A good scout always leaves the campsite cleaner than he found it”—and always had several rubber bands around his wrist in case he needed them. Be prepared, etc. For what, I do not know.

No matter how rugged we got with our camping—we cooked over open flame, wore bug netting, and hiked for miles—there was one thing my parents would not sacrifice to the wilderness experience and that was coffee. They did not care for the cowboy coffee fixed in a tin pot over the fire. The solution: Send Mims to the ladies bath house to plug in electric percolator brought from home. Yes, each morning, I was dispatched to the nearest source of electricity.

It seemed like it took forever for that blasted pot to stop burping coffee up into the glass knob at the top. I would lean against the cool tile wall, arms crossed, scowling in embarrassment until the coffee was done. Oddly, rather than thinking we were ridiculous, people were actually impressed! Still, for me it was mortifying, more humiliating than being kicked out of the Girl Scouts. I should have taken Lord Baden-Powell’s advice: “A scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances.” Come to think of it, that’s advice I could use every day.

Starcraft camper photo taken somewhere in New Mexico (left to right) Mom, Grammy, Thom, Sean and Mims

Earthquake reporters may be shocked, but Haiti's poverty and hunger are nothing new

2010-01-18T11:54:00.014-06:00

A couple of days after the earthquake, a news crew hurried down the street in Port au Prince. The photographer hustled to keep up as the reporter gestured wildly during the live “on-scener” for CNN. As the reporter emotionally described the trash piling up in the streets, women trying to bathe modestly in public, and other deplorable conditions, I thought, "This is his first time in Haiti!"

Sadly, and unbeknownst to those who are seeing the Haitian slums for the very first time, these conditions are absolutely not exclusive to post-earthquake Haiti. In many neighborhoods, the streets are always filled with trash. It is quite common to see folks bathing in culverts on the side of the road and in rivers on the edge of town, to see children in t-shirts and no pants begging for food or money.

In much of Port au Prince, tiny houses are built into the hills, one on top of another with cinder blocks and corrugated tin roofs. They have window openings but no windows, dirt floors where people sleep, no plumbing or electricity. Where there is electricity, it is unreliable, often going off and on at inconvenient times.

Even before the earthquake, many of these homes were crumbling. In the morning you will see a parade of people gathered at a neighborhood well to draw water used for cooking and washing up. The dusty, gray landscape is brightened by colorful laundry hanging on lines connecting one neighbor to another. You can look down from the house above and see a woman sweeping her dirt patio; across the street children are playing on the roof.

One of the blessings to come from this epic tragedy is that the world—the U.S. in particular—now sees the desperation of this poorest country in our hemisphere, a mere 600 miles off the coast of Florida. The extraordinary need in Haiti pre-dates this earthquake. For those of us who’ve been there, there is some understanding of the logistical difficulties of relief efforts. Toussaint Louverture International Airport does not compare in any way with airports in the United States. Roads in Haiti are notoriously bad and bridges are often flooded out from the last hurricane. Police are ineffective and the government is always in a shambles. In Port au Prince, disorder is always the order of the day.

Extreme poverty and neglect by the rest of the world are part of this Caribbean nation’s legacy, along with rampant disease, filthy drinking water and corruption.

Another part of Haiti’s legacy, however, is the indomitable spirit of her people. The centuries of economic, social and political oppression miraculously have not pummeled the hope and faith right out of these beautiful people. Haiti’s children still beam at you with their beautiful Pepsodent smiles, and even among the desperate ruins there is joy.

Another TV report days after the quake showed men, women and children, hands clasped together, dancing in the midst of the rubble that remains of Port au Prince. Reminiscent of the whos down in Whoville after the Grinch "stole" Christmas, these resilient, faithful souls were singing songs of praise, thanking God that they are alive, and revealing to the world one of the prevailing truths of living in Haiti: Even the heartbroken can be hopeful.

New Strain of "Swine Flu" Making Me Sick

2009-09-11T13:35:00.006-05:00

Check out my video here.

There’s a new strain of swine flu out there… and it’s making me sick. It’s caused by congressmen who act like pigs and others who hog the airwaves coughing up lies and breathing toxic misinformation all over us. The viral nature of this illness is extremely dangerous because these toxins travel fast. They even attack the brains of very intelligent people, causing them to lose control of their senses—especially their common sense and, at times, even their dignity.

This flu causes diarrhea of the mouth and other gastro-intestinal problems such as nausea and a dull ache in the pit of your stomach. At times, it may speed up your pulse, making your heart race and pound. Don’t worry, you’re probably not having a heart attack. These are classic symptoms of the anxiety that accompanies this new strain of swine flu. Another classic symptom is throbbing headache; this WILL be made worse and may cause frequent fits of snorting if you accidentally tune in to Rush Limbaugh, watch Fox News or reside in either Wasilla, Alaska or South Carolina’s 2nd congressional district. Limbaugh, by the way, reportedly has grown cloven hooves and a curly tail.

The remedy for the new swine flu throbbing headache? Take two aspirin and call your Congressional representatives and demand they wipe their runny little snouts and get back to the trough on health care reform. Be warned, they’re hard to catch because sometimes these congressional pigs are greased… and health reform is not necessarily as interesting as what’s waiting in the pork barrel.

If you become hoarse from debating the health reform issue, then you suck--you suck a lozenge and get back to work! By the way, if you promise your congressman you’ll become a real pain in the neck, this may help ensure coverage for chiropractic and massage. Writer’s cramp is another minor symptom of the new swine flu, caused by penning copious letters to the editor, frequent blogging and repeatedly emailing House and Senate members. Also, your home will begin to look a pig sty.

Take note. The following statement is not a reference in any way to the party that is represented by a donkey. .. But you need to know that together these symptoms of the new swine flu—sloppiness, diarrhea, heart palpitations, persistent headache, sore throat-- are a real pain in the ass.

Status Update: I Love Facebook

2009-07-14T13:06:00.009-05:00

My Beloved calls me an exhibitionist. Darling Daughter thinks I’m a creeper. To College Boy I am invisible. (Of course I am; he has 1,063 “friends.”) On Facebook, I can be all of those things--or none of them.

Like the old supermarket tabloid says, “Enquiring minds want to know.” Facebook opens up that age-old, class reunion question, “Whatever happened to…?” and connects us to past lives that were gathering dust in old photo albums and yearbooks up in the attic. Sure, there may be a good reason you didn’t stay in touch with HIM (or HER). Broken heart. Embarrassing mortification. Indifference. Mostly, though, it’s just that we grew up, got on with our lives, met tons of other people, and became immersed in our careers, families, whatever. It’s not humanly possible to keep in touch with every single person we meet. At some point I accepted that folks come into our lives for a period of time—sometimes for an obvious reason, sometimes not—and then we go our separate directions. Occasionally that’s by agreement but, more often than not, it’s just the rhythm of life. We get busy. We move away. We forget birthdays. We have babies. We lose phone numbers. We lose ourselves.

We lose sight of the fact that just as we are not the same person we were in high school, or college, or in our first job, or even ten years ago (or even a year ago, if we are determined to learn and grow), neither are the folks from our past. We cannot know what’s happened over the years—the joys, the disappointments, the calls to faith, the failures, the awards, the illnesses, the healings, the resentments, the forgiveness—the myriad experiences that define a life.

When we connect via Facebook, we may learn some of that or none of that. We meet people where they are today in ways we were not capable of before. We get a glimpse of their lives through pictures of their kids or a list of the books they’re reading. We find we are totally surprised at their career paths, or that there is complete symmetry in where they’ve found themselves.

Sure, we see the person they want us to see and vice versa. We can self-edit to present whatever we want. With most of the folks I converse with regularly on Facebook, I sense an authenticity that I dare say most of us may not have had back in junior high. For how can we be authentic when we have no clue who we really are?
Our Facebook—and by “our” I mean the Facebook of grownups (not those on my friend list who are the same age as Darling Daughter and College Boy), fills a middle life need (a need I didn’t even know I had) to reconnect. It’s not so much revisiting the past, because in my experience it has been anything but that. It is an openness to the present—we honor the fact that at some point our lives were touched by one another and we acknowledge each other as the person—the “friend”—that we are today.

Yes, I try not to post unflattering pictures of myself. There are times when I have edited my thoughts because I do not want to offend a friend, whether it’s a friend I haven’t seen for twenty years or one I talk to every day. Mostly though, I am comfortable putting myself out there warts and all. We don’t all agree. We are of different political parties and different faiths. We have divergent tastes in music and contentious rivalries in sports. We have opposing views on things like homosexuality, abortion, Sarah Palin, American Idol and the Kansas Jayhawks. But we are able to set differences aside and come together to share our parenting ups and downs, to pray for someone who is ill, to discuss the great book we’ve both read, to learn of jobs lost or jobs found, to celebrate the birth of a child, to share our love of dogs, cats and horses.

Thanks to Facebook, I have found a “sister” in Alaska, a soul mate in Ohio, a Novaria in France and, this morning, one of my favorite people ever surfaced from Ireland. (I also know that I will never beat my sisters-in-law in the Facebook game Bejeweled.) Every day there is something new to learn about someone and about myself. Exhbitionist? Maybe, just a little. Creeper? Only when I'm checking up on my kids. Invisible? Not for long because it's time to update my status!

Jon & Kate... Too Late?

2009-05-26T11:19:00.007-05:00

Jon and Kate’s proverbial 15 minutes of fame have stretched farther than a belly full of sextuplets and the only way to stop this labor of un-love is for them to get out of this show now and get out quick. Emergency C-section: Cut and run, Jon and Kate! Run as fast as you can to Dr. Phil and fix your marriage.

Both Gosselins were pregnant with resentment in last night’s season premiere. Kate was pretty much in her self-righteous character, telling us how mad she is and taking every opportunity to point out that she did not get any help from Jon, who had “taken the weekend off,” putting together the birthday party. Jon, by contrast, seemed dejected and depressed, and looked like he wanted to melt into the “love” seat—a new piece of furniture that’s, mockingly, a little bit wider and a lot less cozy than the one used for interviews in previous seasons.

Check out the reruns on TLC. Besides the irony of the new seating arrangements, Kate has transformed from one tired, sweats-clad Mama, who admittedly has no sense of style, to a full-fledged celebrity complete with a French manicure, fake tan and a signature hairdo. She actually said last night when the tears began to flow that she didn’t want to mess up her makeup!

Kate appears to be thriving on the road, meeting her peeps and signing copies of her book. Jon, on the other hand, now knows what millions of women have known forever: Despite the astronomical and unconditional love you have for your kids, it’s not always easy or fun to be the one at home wiping bottoms, filling sippy cups with apple juice, and driving the carpool with cramps and a migraine. He feels stuck. He says the choice was made for him.

Kate does not appear to have any compassion for his plight and says, “Yes, I travel here there and everywhere because that's my job."

Well, Kate, so is raising eight children. If it weren’t for them, you wouldn’t have the TV show or the book deal or, dare I say, that huge house you and Jon bought last year. Please don’t misunderstand, I do not have a problem with working mothers. Not at all. I do have a problem with Kate’s my-way-or-the-highway attitude and her apparent lack of appreciation for Jon’s domestic role. It is reminiscent of a time, not too long ago in our culture, where men went to work and expected to come home to a perfectly serene and clean home where the children were seen and not heard and dinner was on the table, served by a wife who had taken time to “pull herself together” before meeting hubby at the train. It wasn’t right then, and it’s not right now even if it is Kate wearing the pants. If you’re not familiar with this lifestyle, watch an episode of Mad Men or ask your mother.

The proverbial elephant in the living room here is whether Jon or Kate or both have cheated. It’s none of our business; it’s between Jon and Kate. Sure, they have put their lives out there on the flat screen for all to see but, up to now, they have been careful to keep it about the kids, as evidenced by the fact that their bedroom is off limits. Jon is right, some things need to remain between them. This issue is a big one but it is private.

One other glaring omission in these recent public conversations is any evidence of the couple’s faith. How often in the past have they talked about how “blessed” they have been? How many churches have they visited giving inspirational talks? Note that the book-signing in last night’s show appeared to take place in a Christian bookstore. And it was just eight months ago that the couple renewed their marriage vows in front of God and everyone. Is their relationship that fragile? Built on a house of sand brought back to Pennsylvania from last summer’s Hawaiian vacation? I sincerely hope not.

Despite how well you think you know someone, you never really know what goes on in another couple’s marriage. Ever been surprised when a couple you know splits up? Or if you find out someone’s had an affair? It’s just not that uncommon for families to show one image at the kids’ ballgames and piano recitals, while quite another lurks behind the welcome mat, designer wreath and brass door knocker. Despite the fact that viewers may feel like we really know Jon and Kate Gosselin, we don’t. We see only snippets of their real lives in an artificial context, once a week. From potty training to dental visits to soup making to Kate’s little “love pats,” viewers feel like we know more about Jon and Kate than we know about our own neighbors. And maybe we do, but it’s not the whole story.

Jon is clearly overwhelmed by the onslaught of media attention, while Kate seems to be lapping it up like that peanut butter frosting on the kids’ birthday cake. Jon reiterated last night that they originally began the series as a way to document their children’s lives. What are these kids going to see when they look back at these shows? An angry mother, a dad who’s skulking around in the background of their fifth birthday bash, and paparazzi hiding in the trees snapping party pics of every scowl.

Who knew that a humble, little cable show would grow from a goldfish bowl into the Shedd Aquarium, complete with the circling sharks? If Jon and Kate don’t pull the plug on this show, their marriage will almost certainly go down the drain and it’s going to happen with our noses pressed against the glass.

*TLC Photo

Talk to the Hoof: Super Spots and Nots

2009-02-02T10:52:00.011-06:00

Monday morning quarterbacking is not just about the game. The ad gurus and pundits are all atwitter about Super Bowl advertising. Judging by the creative output during last night’s game, you’d never know our economy was in the tank.

This morning on MSNBC Donny Deutsch said he liked the talking babies ad for E*Trade. He gave E*Trade props for acknowledging tough economic times, which most other advertisers did not. I did not, like Donny, think the ad was cute. Maybe I’m just cranky but talking, singing or dancing babies have just never been cute or funny to me. Not even a little in Look Who’s Talking (okay, maybe a little in Ally McBeal). Usually they are just plain annoying, although the fact that people are talking about it makes the ad successful whether I like it or not.

I’d much rather see a talking animal, or an animal doing something unusual—like a Clydesdale fetching a huge tree branch after watching a Dalmatian fetch a stick… or, better yet, a Clydesdale escaping to rescue Daisy the Dancing Horse from circus life.

Best ad: The aforementioned Clydesdale spot. Athletic. Romantic. Heroic. Just makes me go “awwwww.” Thank you Budweiser.

Best NBC promo: The Conan O’Brien spot featuring other NBC stars, especially the Tina Fey moment: “If your Conan lasts more than three hours, call your doctor…”

Best car ad: Audi. Great chase scene featuring a Benz, BMW and completely amusing dis of the Lexus.

Runner up car ad: cars.com featuring fictional prodigy “David Abernathy” who, although brilliant in every way, still gets stressed about buying a car—just like the rest of us.

Best soft drink ad: Coke Zero “Heist” for use of the Peter and the Wolf theme (Prokofiev?) and all those cute insects stealing a bottle of Coke from an unsuspecting napping guy.

Very close runner up: I loved the Pepsi “Forever Young” anthem with Bob Dylan and Will.i.am. Very nostalgic. (Deutsch's nod for overall best ad.)

Tackiest ad: Godaddy.com "enhancement hearings" featuring Danica Patrick. The ad was a bust. (In case you missed the ad, that was a pun.)

Tacky runner up: I liked the Doritos crystal ball ad until they hit someone in the crotch. Juvenile. These two tackies like will appeal to the same audience.

Dumb and dumber: The very repetitive spot from careerbuilder.com. They punched a Koala! And Pepsuber—taking a stupid SNL skit and making it even worse. Who knew it was possible?

Biggest “huh?": Monsters vs. Aliens trailer. I just didn’t get it after all the hype. Maybe my 3-D glasses didn’t work properly--or, maybe my husband’s right and we do need a newer, bigger, HD TV—but I wasn’t blown away by this ad, and I wanted to be!

Other notable spots include GE’s Scarecrow--because I live in Kansas?; Teleflora talking flowers—because I could feel her mortification; Firestone—because Mr. Potato Head still makes me giggle; and Pedigree’s Crazy Pets ad--because, you know, I’ve got this thing for animals and who can resist an old woman chasing an ostrich or someone trying to put a leash on a rhinoceros? Good message too: adopt a pet from your local shelter.

You can see all the ads at http://www.hulu.com/

Close Encounters of the Palin Kind

2008-10-03T09:34:00.011-05:00

Sarah Palin is one of the most polarizing characters in modern history. (Just ask the polar bears.) Folks seem to either love her or loathe her. Honestly, I have tried to avoid discussing her with conservative friends because I realized about 24 hours into her candidacy that Palin—someone I admit I had scarcely heard of just days before—somehow had the power to injure valued friendships.

In three very brief encounters in the last few weeks, three female friends who aren’t voting for Obama responded in three different ways when the subject of Palin arose. The first is a college educated, NRA supporting wife and mother who lives in a rural area outside Kansas City. “I love her attitude,” my friend said of Palin. The second, a suburban working mom working on her second Master’s degree, angered quickly and attacked Obama when a third friend snickered over the Katie Couric interview. The third friend has a Master’s, two grown children, a recently retired husband, and is the kind of “do gooder” you’d think would be a Democrat. She, too, immediately attacked Obama as a “liar,” and subsequently admitted she will just keep her head in the sand during the remainder of the campaign.

I live in Johnson County, Kansas. I know it’s likely I have many other friends who either think Palin is the next great thing, or will vote for McCain Palin anyway because that is the Republican ticket and they vote Republican. Period. Democrats here are usually surprised to meet other like-minded folks. Just yesterday, I met a mom who was just thrilled to know she “wasn’t the only one.”

Nightmare on Main Street
I took my daughter and her friend—sophomores in high school—to a Palin Protest rally at Kansas City’s JC Nichols Fountain, a landmark on the Country Club Plaza, an upscale dining and shopping area. We saw firsthand that there are women out there who are really angry about Palin. Not all, but most of the angst centers around reproductive rights and Planned Parenthood was on hand with signs and petitions.

My daughter and her friend carried a straightforward sign that said “We cannot allow Sarah Palin to take away our right to choose!!” One woman handed out coat hangers to everyone in the crowd as a somber and symbolic reminder of the pre-Roe v. Wade system of abortion. A woman dressed as the grim reaper carried a sign that said: “Coat hanger Palin; Every woman’s nightmare.” Someone with a bullhorn and another with a sign implored drivers-by at this busy intersection to “Free Levi”—the father of Bristol Palin’s unborn child. (It’ll be interesting to see if Levi and Bristol really do marry if the McCain Palin bid fails, but that’s another story.)

A couple of really bizarre things happened at this rally. About half-way through, four young men (20-ish, I’d guess) came marching across the park. First, we just saw they were carrying McCain Palin signs (“borrowed from someone’s yard, perhaps?). As they got closer, we could see two of them were dressed like devils—red capes and horns. They were demonizing McCain Palin, not supporting them! That was creative and fun and provided some much needed comic relief, because by now, there were some “challengers” on the scene.

Hard to say if this was one family or not, but a couple of adults and a slew of kids approached. The presumptive patriarch said to one of his young girls, “These people think we should’ve aborted you.” First of all: Not true. Secondly, what a charming, loving thing to say to your daughter. This guy (I will not call him a gentleman) claimed, “You people just want free sex and free love and a return to the hippie days.” Huh?

I quickly realized after I, and others, tried to explain that’s not what “choice” is about that there was no arguing with this one. He was creepy and told us we were “the bottom of the gene pool.” In the meantime, a woman with him (wife?) was staggering around drinking beer out of a water bottle. The 18-year-old son tried to get into it with my daughter and her friend over guns and abortion and actually suggested that if women carried guns they wouldn’t be raped. I told you it was bizarre!

In the meantime, one of the young girls with these folks saw the McCain Palin signs our little demons were carrying and mistakenly ran up to hug them—making a deal with the devil? Eventually, this motley group left us alone and clambered into a white stretch limo. You can’t make up this stuff.

The right to choose is not the only issue these women—and not a small number of men—are rallying around. They are angry that anyone thinks they’d vote for Palin just because of her gender. They are angry about shooting wolves from airplanes. They are angry about her lack of foreign policy experience. They are angry about Palin’s reported belief that dinosaurs and humans co-existed as recently as 4,000 years ago. They are angry because they don’t think she’s very smart (“Stupidity is a threat to national security”). They are angry about her lack of support for the environment (one protestor was dressed as Mother Nature). Many are just plain angry and brandished mean-spirited angry signs to prove it, calling her an “animal killing baby making machine” and warning “don’t let this snake bite you in the ass.”

The most straightforward sign and probably the one that sums up the general consensus: “Palin does not speak for me.” Darn right. I don’t have to get back to ya on that one.

I'm on a Bridge to Somewhere... And I Don't Like Where it's Going

2008-09-11T07:58:00.010-05:00

I probably couldn't get through this election if it weren't for Salon. When I find myself speechless, incredulous and just plain angry, someone at Salon writes something that I wish I'd had the clarity to write myself.

Reading Rebecca Traister's Zombie Feminists of the RNC (9/11/2008) my heart began to race. Funny how adrenaline and all that physiological stuff works. My heart might be racing if I had a girl crush on Sarah Palin... but this morning it's racing simply because I wish she would just be crushed. Figuratively, of course. I don't want to shoot her from a helicopter, I just want to see her called out for the wolf in sheep's clothing that she is.

Every time I think I've moved from horror and denial to acceptance that Sarah Palin is really in this race, and that I need to "let Palin be Palin," I read or hear something else that makes my blood boil. Making victims pay for their own rape kits?! That sounds like something that would happen in places that the U.S. loves to occupy and force to do things "our way." (Kind of like the book banning query she posed to the Wasilla librarian.)

The fact that Donny Deutsch (The Donald II) would say what he said about wanting Palin next to him in bed shows how ridiculously superficial this race has become. How sexist and disrespectful can you be?

A huge part of Palin's appeal is that, as my father might have said, she's easy on the eyes. I accept that. It is more American than mom and apple pie to hold women to the beauty queen standard. Unfair? Of course. Unreasonable? Not by model slim, smooth complectioned, silky haired, bleachy smiled American standards. Sure, pundits joked about John Edwards' hair, but you don't generally hear female commentators talk about taking a Barack Obama to bed. At least I haven't heard it.

News flash: Voting for Palin or Hillary Clinton because they are women is just as bad as not voting for them because they are women.

I feel like I'm in an altered universe where people have forgotten that tokenism not feminism. Now that The Woman in the spotlight is a conservative, there are double standards at play. I feel quite sure that if the Democrats had chosen a female vice presidential candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter and an infant (let alone one with "special needs"), the so-called "Christian" Right would be up in arms. They'd be saying she should stay home with her baby and should somehow have managed to keep her daughter's legs crossed. You can bet that if a 17-year-old Chelsea Clinton had turned up pregnant, there'd have been hell to pay.

As a mom of two teenagers, I would never have shoved either one of them into the international spotlight as poster children for a pet cause. As a matter of fact, if I had a pregnant teenager and an infant at home, that's where I'd be--at home. Sarah, they need you more than we do.

As Mom used to say: Pretty is as pretty does.

Is nothing sacred? Or, is everything?

2008-07-12T13:40:00.003-05:00

In her memoir, “The Bishop’s Daughter,” Honor Moore doesn’t merely leave a door ajar, giving readers a glimpse into the coat closet in the front hall. Instead she flings wide open the door to her parents’ bedroom, and her own. She invites us into rooms filled not only with family heirlooms, but with dirty laundry, as well.

Moore has posthumously taken her father, Paul Moore, the longtime Episcopal Bishop of New York, out of the closet. Although much of this memoir/exposé is not actually a salacious tell-all, the threads of a secret life and romantic, if not sexual, angst are woven throughout. Moore chronicles her father’s remarkable ministry over many years to disenfranchised, poor minorities of Jersey City, Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., and New York. Her mother stepped into her husband’s ministry as a willing helpmeet, but eventually was just worn down trying to be the über-clergy wife and mother to nine children. (Just conceiving nine children with a husband who had a secret sex life with men during the course of their marriage is remarkable in itself!)

Paul Moore mostly refused to speak in any detail to his daughter about his secret sex life, but he theologized that sexual feelings and religious fervor come from the same source. Honor Moore says her father did not consider his affairs with men to be adulterous—they were something else altogether, something he found a way to justify on one level, while carrying secret shame on another. If he’d been born of another generation, would his life have gone differently?

Paul Moore died in May 2003, the month before Gene Robinson, an openly gay Episcopal priest, was elected Bishop of New Hampshire. Robinson was born nearly 30 years after Paul Moore, still not enough time for his gayness to be considered ho hum. Like a Yellowstone geyser, Bishop Robinson’s election broke the already-simmering surface of the Episcopal common ground. The turbulence has not subsided and the issue of gays in the clergy is in the forefront as 800 Bishops from the worldwide Anglican Communion are gathered this month for the Lambeth Conference, which takes place every ten years at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop Robinson was not invited.

The oldest of nine, with parents who were occupied outside the home and preoccupied inside, it is clear that the author craved nurture, security and love. Like the shoemaker’s child who had to go barefoot, this child of a pastor was a little lost lamb. Despite her successes academically and professionally, Honor Moore is always seeking something. Often, that “something” masquerades as a search for answers or experimental sex or feminist activism, but what she is seeking is love. Unconditional, parental, cuddly love. Many times throughout this book, the little girl in Honor seems to be pleading, “Pay attention to me!”

Honor steadfastly pursues therapy in an attempt to understand her family dynamics, her relationship choices and her own sexual preferences. Her coming of age in the sixties, and her search for herself, demand that Honor unearth the family secrets. It presents a modern-day generational tension: In the world in which her parents’ grew up, people simply did not discuss these things—not in public and, in most cases, not even in private. For Honor, however, raising one’s own consciousness and that of others was a way of life. Although assured by her late mother’s friends that Mrs. Moore definitely “knew” about her husband’s proclivity for men, the most Honor’s mother ever said to her was, “I’m having a problem with my marriage.” Perhaps Honor should have left it at that. Her mother was doing her a favor by not going into detail. There are just some things you don’t want to know about your parents and, at times, I found myself inwardly screaming “TMI!”

It is well-known in recovery circles and family systems theory that “secrets keep us sick.” So for her own mental health and self-knowledge, I understand Honor’s search for the “why” of her parents’ inability to love her the way she needed to be loved. She needed to uncover the secrets in order to discover herself. But at what cost?

A question that won’t go away is, “Did she really need to tell the world?” Memoir writers certainly wrestle with truth and honesty and self-disclosure. But how far is too far when you are disclosing on someone else’s behalf? And does the knowledge we now have of Bishop Moore take away from his decades-long advocacy on behalf of minorities, the homeless and the hungry?
If Paul Moore’s passions—both sexually and religiously—came from the same spiritual force, does it mean that nothing is sacred? Or that everything is?

Travel Advisory: Leave Fake Ammo Fashion Accessories at Home

2008-06-27T12:06:00.012-05:00

By Mary M. Novaria

Remember when George Herbert Walker Bush was President? While running for re-election in 1992, the senior Bush reportedly was awestruck by the barcode scanner at the supermarket. His son is even more out of touch with the experience of the average American. Just once, he should see what it’s like to fly commercial (coach, of course) and go through the dignity-stealing rigmarole that is post-9/11 airport security.

My 15-year-old and I hit the security line at Chicago's Midway Airport last Sunday morning and the TSA screener stops the conveyor belt, picks up his two-way and calls for a supervisor. The line grinds to a halt. The grey plastic bucket with my shoes, cell phone, purse, sweatshirt and jewelry has come through unscathed. My daughter’s is undergoing the intense scrutiny, via x-ray video, of three representatives of the Transportation Security Administration—the latest incarnation of the officious rent-a-cop. Darling Daughter removed her belt before strolling through the metal detector. In hindsight, I wonder now if the belt would have set off the alarm. If not, she’d still have it.

The supervisor (Why didn’t I get her name? My dad told me always to get a name!) took the belt and told us we had a choice: Either we could return upstairs to check it with our luggage or we could sacrifice it to her then and there.

Have you ever departed from a busy airport in a major city on a Sunday morning? Have you ever waited in line for so long that when you finally reach the counter the airline agent informs you that you are tardy checking in and slaps a fluorescent yellow “LATE” tag on your bag? (That means if the bag doesn’t make it, it’s your problem, not theirs.) And, I swear to God, this particular morning, the self check-in terminal sounds a blaring alarm so everyone around knows we are LATE checking in. No matter that we’ve arrived well before the recommended hour ahead of time. Nowadays, when it comes to airline travel, the customer is always wrong.

Is there any way in hell you are going to return to that line to check a belt? Not unless it’s encrusted with diamonds and rubies. Besides, I’m quite sure that our bags were already in the belly of the plane by then so, really, what good would it have done? As it was, after my encounter with the Homeland Security Queen, we barely had time to board our plane.

I have seen them take a tube of toothpaste from an old woman. I have seen them insist that a young mother traveling alone with an infant and two toddlers remove every single baby bottle from her diaper bag. I have seen them send someone out to the newsstand to ask for a Ziploc bag for his toiletries. I have been patted down (or felt up, depending on how you choose to look at it) at least twice due to the underwire in my bra. I am sick and tired of taking off my shoes and disassembling my outfits in the airport.

Okay, by now, you’re probably wondering: Why did they take Darling Daughter’s belt? According to the Queen Bee of security, it was because the belt appeared to contain “replicas of incendiary devices.” That means it had a row of plastic, molded, FAKE half-bullets—sheared flat lengthwise to lay flush against the belt—between a skull-and-crossbones design. Your basic teen garb these days.

“They’re plastic and fake and it’s a child’s belt!” I shriek to the Queen Bee.
“What do they look like?” asks her defensive, bureaucratic self.
“Well, I guess they look like bullets,” I respond. “But they’re not!”
“Well that’s not allowed. Replicas are not allowed,” she insists.
“And I should know this how?” I ask.
“It’s on TSA dot gov,” she snaps.

Okay, so a few days home now, I have cooled off a bit until I get on http://www.tsa.gov/. The website is dizzying and self-congratulatory. After many clicks and keyword searches I can’t find anything that looks like a justifiable reason for the confiscation of Darling Daughter’s belt. I do find (after how many searches and clicks?), on a copious list, that “Realistic Replicas of Explosives” and “Realistic Replicas of Incendiaries” are not allowed in carry on OR checked bags.

The operative word here is REALISTIC. How REALISTIC are plastic, fake, half-bullets on a teenager’s belt? And what threat could they possibly pose when she didn’t have a plastic, fake, half-gun to go with them?

Forget realistic replicas…here are just a few of the REAL items that are okay to carry on—things a bad guy or gal really could use to do harm: insect repellent or nail polish remover (wouldn’t that at least temporarily blind or disable someone?), a book of matches and a common cigarette lighter (although since you can’t smoke on the plane, why do you need them?), metal pointed scissors with blades less than four inches long, corkscrews, knitting needles, and screwdrivers less than seven inches long—the stuff murder mysteries are made of... Colonel Mustard in the lavatory with the Phillip’s head (after disabling the smoke detector, of course).

Has the world completely lost its mind? My daughter cannot wear her belt, but this week the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns. Does a child’s belt pose more of a threat than a handgun in our nation’s capital? A city that is consistently one of our country’s most violent?

Truthfully, I think the Queen Bee pulled an abuse-of-power. Ridiculous. Just this week, news reports said folks have left behind more than a million dollars in loose change at airport security checkpoints in the last three years, so I have to wonder: Did she take the belt home for her own kid to wear?

Would Jesus say, "WTF?"

2008-05-20T23:10:00.006-05:00

Well, I guess it’s time to resurrect the old WWJD bracelets.

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, news comes that a Roman Catholic parish in Minnesota has banned a 13-year-old autistic boy and his family from attending Mass. Reportedly the church fears the boy is a physical danger to others in the pew.

There’s probably a lot of back story that we’ll never know, but on the surface this looks like a blatant, patently un-Christian move on the part of the church’s “pastor.” Yea, I use the term loosely, as a true pastor looks after his (and in other denominations, her) sheep, making sure they are not expelled from the flock.

Literally for Christ’s sake, how many times in the New Testament do people bring afflicted friends and family members to Jesus for healing? Palsy, demons, leprosy… Jesus was often the one person who was not appalled or disgusted by the sick. And when queried by the Pharisees for dining with objectionable members of society, Jesus quipped: “It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick.” (Matthew 9:12)

Sad to say, I have seen a church subtly drive out a boy with Down syndrome by disapproving of some of his behaviors to the point where his mother eventually took him elsewhere. This young man was spiritually alive and demonstrative in his faith. His charismatic expression made people uncomfortable.

Some exclusionary tactics in the church have played out on a very public stage. In my own Episcopal denomination, congregations around the country have torn themselves apart over homosexuality. Some still question the legitimacy of women at the altar. Here in Kansas, the Roman Catholic archbishop recently asked our governor to refrain from taking communion because she is pro-choice. A parish in Arizona reportedly refused communion to a disabled child because he could not properly swallow the host. It’s reminiscent of the line from Hannah and Her Sisters, when the character Frederick (played by Max von Sidow) disgustedly says, “If Jesus came back and saw what was going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up!”

Some inhospitable tactics are not so obvious unless you are looking for them. I know a congregation that insists it is warm, welcoming and friendly. The revolving door of visitors and short-timers belies that. Plenty of people who are EGRs (Extra Grace Required) have been run off over the years, while the same “old guard” remains. Such congregations become insular, isolated, stifled and shrinking in their dysfunction. They say they want to grow, but they can’t because they are stunted by their denial.

A few years ago, in that particular parish, there were two very faithful, terminally ill members—one a very affable guy who had cute kids and was fun to be around; the other a theologically brilliant woman, a tad needy, a little less attractive, but dying none-the-less. She was probably in even greater need, because she had no family to care for her. She was truly alone. Guess who the people rallied around? Who got more rides? Who got more meals? Who made people feel warm and fuzzy about their charity?

I recently visited a mission church in Tallahassee. Sitting in front of me was a woman who was clearly mentally ill. Even worse, she was riddled with head lice. It was shocking, sobering and very sad. Admittedly, I did not want to get too close. A few people actually moved away from her during worship. Afterward, a couple of the staff discussed what they could do to help her. This woman was exactly where she was supposed to be—in church, where people are supposed to love you and accept you and help you through your darkest times, even if you’re not pretty or funny or popular or young or healthy or rich.

The work of the church universal is to extend the healing and compassionate hand of Jesus to all of God’s children, regardless of how repulsive or scary or dirty or sick they are. The true Christian work of that Minnesota parish with the autistic boy should be to embrace and support that family, not to get a restraining order against them. If it means a bunch of parishioners leave, so what?

Wouldn’t it be something if the “pastor” of that church found himself in the news for sticking with those folks instead of sticking it to them.

2008-04-09T11:10:00.008-05:00

Doing Our Best to Keep Austin Weird—Part 2

“When in Rome… er, Austin”

My Beloved used to say I was “bohemian.” I think it was because I wore clogs and was somewhat of a free spirit. Austin is definitely a throw back to my quasi hippie chick days. Who’d have thought that in the middle of Bush country, in the state that gave us Big Oil, Big Hair and J.R. Ewing, there would be such an enclave of funky weirdness? Seeing the Longhorn cheerleaders (think Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, only younger) at UT sporting events, you’d never guess they share a campus with today’s version of the Beat Generation.

Darling Daughter and I met Samantha as we strolled down The Drag (Guadalupe Street) on Friday morning. Samantha seemed to have all of her stuff with her, including her black lab, Cracker, who was snoozing in the sun on the steps of a church. Samantha rose as we passed and asked if she could read us a poem she’d written. It was really a song, she explained, but she was too shy to actually sing it for us. We listened intently to the heartbreak in every line and gave her a couple of dollars. As DD and I moved on, we noted that Samantha had some dice woven into her blond dreadlocks.

Farther down the street, some students were marketing Lyndon LaRouche to passers by. Who knew LaRouche was still alive, let alone running for President? Again. While we’re on the campaign trail… I have never seen so many Ron Paul posters in one place, as I did in Austin. Also, I was pleasantly surprised to see so many Obama and Hillary bumper stickers… There were still a couple of Suburbans on the street with “W: The President” stickers… It is still Texas, after all.

Walking through the UT campus, a young man stopped us and asked, “Would you like to fight AIDS today?” Who could say, "No"? He led us to a table, where several coeds explained an international HIV/AIDS project they were involved in (Face AIDS), and that for five dollars I could have a beaded pin, hand made by a member of an HIV/AIDS support group in Zambia. Remember in Jerry Maguire, when Renee Zellweger says to Tom Cruise, “You had me at ‘hello’?” Well, these kids mentioned that Face AIDS is associated with an organization founded by one of my heroes, Paul Farmer, who has worked tirelessly in Haiti and other Third World countries to eradicate disease. They had me at “Partners in Health” and I walked away with a pin hand beaded by Veronic.

The LBJ Presidential Library conjured up all kinds of 60s nostalgia. Poor Lyndon’s legacy of civil rights and education took an unfortunate back seat to the mess of Vietnam. It was good to be reminded of the positive things that happened in that era. The main weird thing about the Library is a robotic LBJ, dressed like a rancher, spouting cowboy wisdom and humor from behind a makeshift fence. They say Johnson kept every piece of correspondence while he was President and that it’s all in the eight or so floors of archives in the Library. I wonder if one of those boxes holds the crayoned Christmas card I sent the Johnsons back in the middle sixties…

After the Library, we headed out to Lake Travis. There’s an area there called Hippie Hollow and we wanted to check it out. As we pulled into the parking area a park ranger assessed the three of us in our rental car and said, “This isn’t what you want. This is a nudist park.” Well, we’d heard it was a nude beach, and we wanted to see for ourselves! Besides, how could he tell we weren’t nudists?

The original thrust of the Keep Austin Weird campaign is to support local businesses. And we did. No Applebee’s or Gap or Best Buy on this trip. There are lots of great vintage stores and we popped into several along The Drag. Sonny’s is great if you’re looking for reefer themed T-shirts… (we weren’t). “Sonny” was burning incense, which brought back olfactory memories of the Lake Forest record shop (Chambers) that I frequented in high school. At Cream, there was a Willie Nelson concert Tee from the eighties going for 64 dollars! DD found T-shirts there and at Blue Velvet, where she also nabbed an eighties rainbow belt and I got a Mexican peasant dress. DD and Dad also enjoyed Antone’s Records, where they chatted with local musician Eve Monsees while they browsed vintage LPs. All these neat shops sprinkled along the drag with their artsy, painted signs and whimsical windows… and smack in the middle is a huge Church of Scientology building. That’s weird in any setting.

Saturday, we rented bikes and trekked all around the lake. The folks at the Bicycle Sport Shop were incredibly helpful—just two blocks from the lake, it’s another local merchant to support if you’re committed to keeping Austin weird. There were, conservatively, about a million people out in the parks that day—the day before Easter. Families, couples, dogs… walkers, runners, bikers… swimmers, waders, boaters… The UT women’s crew was hosting its Invitational Regata.
Lot’s of good food in Austin. Kerbey Lane is the ideal spot for breakfast junkies. There are several locations and they’re open 24/7. Definitely a step up from a true greasy spoon, but without sacrificing character or short order specialties. When in Austin, try the migas, a savory scramble of eggs, peppers, onions, cheese and tortilla chips, served with salsa or queso. The previously mentioned Broken Spoke (see Part 1) is famous for its chicken fried steak… there are terrific shrimp tacos at The Oasis on Lake Travis, which is definitely worth going to just for the view, not to mention the margaritas. Now, being from Kansas City, which stakes its claim as somewhat of a BBQ mecca, I’m going out on a limb here… but the baby back ribs at Ruby’s were among the best ever!

When in Rome… or elsewhere, it’s fun to try the local brew. In KC, that has to be Boulevard. Preferably Wheat. In Boston, it’s Sam Adams. In Colorado, Fat Tire, etc. In Texas, you’re considered a turncoat if you don’t drink Lone Star. And I did until I went to Ruby’s and they were out. They recommended the Shiner Bock, brewed up the road in Shiner, Texas. Well, call me a traitor. The Shiner Bock gets my vote for best Texas beer. I suspect I’m not alone. Even if I am, I’m just doing my part to keep Austin weird.

2008-03-29T10:54:00.011-05:00

Doing Our Best to Keep Austin Weird—Part 1
Four Nights, Nine Bands

Fun destinations have slogans: The City That Never Sleeps. Virginia is for Lovers. (At least it used to be.) What Happens in Vegas…

…Keep Austin Weird. For a few days over Spring Break we did our best to do just that. Darling Daughter loves all things weird. My Beloved has been itching to get to the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library, which is a little weird for the progeny of Goldwater Republicans. We all needed a change of scenery. It’s not that we’ve been buried under four feet of snow in sub-zero temperatures, but winter here is just so erratic—weeks of bleak, cold days, a teasingly warm day or two, an ice storm, a flood warning, bitter, biting wind. Overcast. Brown. Gray. We’d just seen (for the second time) the film Glory Road, where a coach tempts basketball recruits with the promise of more than 300 days a year of Texas sunshine. As a self-diagnosed victim of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), that was good enough for me. And the weather did not disappoint. Sunny, mid-70s, t-shirt weather.

Besides being “weird,” Austin is also billed as The Live Music Capital of the World. Despite having missed the famous SXSW music festival by several days, we had plenty of music to sample.

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to be any kind of authority on music. When I hear something, I either like it, or I don’t.

We don’t follow Country and don’t know anything about it, but on Night 1 we had to check out the Broken Spoke, which appears to be an authentic Texas dance hall. A local band hammed it up in the Spoke’s dining room and folks left their chicken fried steak to dance. The legendary Dale Watson kicked off his show at nine. The band wore black (a nod to Johnny Cash?). Out on the floor, the fellas wore western shirts, Wranglers and cowboy hats. What a blast to see so many two-stepping locals in their Tony Lamas twirling around the dance floor on a Wednesday night. We felt like we were on the set of Tender Mercies. And cool, country crooner Dale Watson? I can see why he’s often compared to Waylon and Willie and the boys…

It was on from there—what some might call from the sublime to the ridiculous, or vice versa. For me, it was all sublime. Does that make me weird?

We knew we had to visit Antone’s, Austin’s self-proclaimed home of the blues, the place that spawned the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan. We went on Night 2—where a San Francisco indie band called Halou opened for alternative rocker Bob Mould. (What? No blues?!) It was a surprisingly easy transition from the toe-tapping, gentle country strains of the previous evening to Mould’s aggressive, edgy and ear-splitting set. Instead of gliding cowboys, there were actually grown men in front of the stage jumping up and down like tweens at a Hannah Montana concert.

Night 3 found us in the SoCo (South Congress) neighborhood at the Continental Club, where the bouncer appeared to have spent many hours at the tattoo parlor next door, or perhaps he was getting ready to launch the Austin version of Miami Ink. The Blues Specialists play there for Happy Hour on Fridays. The Continental is a lively, crowded dive (it would be smoky if that were allowed), where people squeeze onto a tiny dance floor with beers in their hands while some shoot pool in the back room--the perfect way to kick off a weekend in Austin.

Darling Daughter and my Beloved continued on later to Emo’s for two different bands. DD clearly liked the music better than her dad, who described what he heard as “alternative with a hint of punk,” and admitted to standing cross-armed and decidedly not toe-tapping during the second act. Dad did appreciate the cheap soft drinks, however, and was surprised (disappointed?) to see only one dyed, spiky faux-hawk. I love this bit on Emo’s website: “And don't let the doormen scare you--some of them are really nice guys (it says so in the women's bathroom).”

Night 4 brought us back to Antone’s for the “Guitar Women”—a night of blues and folksy bluesy rock. Happily it wasn’t just a chick crowd as tons of men also seemed to appreciate these ultra-talented women. (A bunch of locals applauded an aged, dapper man who shuffled in just before the show began. Was that Pinetop Perkins?) Blues chanteuse Lou Ann Barton kicked off ladies night. I really liked her but DD didn’t (generation gap?). Barton’s most amusing lyric: “You can have my husband, but please don’t mess with my man…” She yielded the floor to the amazing Sue Foley (a redheaded guitar player like DD) and a group of extraordinary women who’ve been touring together, including bass player/songwriter Sarah Brown, Cindy Cashdollar on steel guitar and drummer Lisa Pankratz. A few other women joined in after we called it a night. We were out of steam, but these gals were not! As Jim Caligiuri wrote on his Austin Chronicle music blog:

“It's noteworthy that in a genre overflowing with testosterone, none was present on stage Saturday. Yet, in Foley and friends’ capable hands, the blues was alive and thrilling, the equal to anything the boys could have laid down.”

We paid a range of cover charges at the clubs we went to: Nothing for Happy Hour at the Continental Club, only 5 bucks at the Spoke. $18 for Bob Mould, $15 for the Guitar Women, and $8 at Emo’s. We certainly got more than our money’s worth.

All the clubs let our 15-year-old in with us. She’s still trying to get the huge indelible X’s off her hands. Marked with a Sharpie (black, green, purple), the X’s alerted bartenders that she is under age. The adults got wristbands or hand stamps; at the Continental Club we were rubber stamped with “Fuck Cancer.” That’s kind of weird… but then again, it’s Austin.

Coming soon: Doing Our Best to Keep Austin Weird—Part 2 “When in Rome… er, Austin”

'Tis the Season...

2007-12-29T13:53:00.000-06:00

The newspaper is filled with summaries of the year's events--newsmakers, notables, notorious crimes. We're entering an election year, so naturally there are lots of pious political predictions. In our community there is great interest in a couple of bowl games, so there are plenty of pigskin prognostications, too.

Most of these features bore me. I don't need to be reminded of serial murders, the misdeeds of area politicians, or the fact that my alma mater is in a non-BCS bowl.

Most of these things are an intrusion on my holiday serenity. I want to keep the Christmas season through Epiphany, hanging on to the birth of Christ and His promise of peace. I also want to ignore all party invitations for the night of December 31st and I loathe the idea of New Years resolutions, but that's another story. For now, my Christmas naughty and nice list. Ho Ho Ho and Merry Merry!

Naughty

Radio stations that start playing Christmas music* on Halloween, then stop on Christmas night *notably "Deck the Halls" by Mannhein Steamroller and Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby"

Tacky, strobing Christmas displays

Cutesy holiday letters supposedly penned by preschoolers

Fruitcake

Cats who pee under the Christmas Tree

Too many nights in a row of family obligations

People who cut in line (likely the same people who steal the parking place you've been patiently waiting for with your signal on while the current parker loads up her packages)

Cheesy, made-for-TV Christmas movies with sappy moral platitudes starring soap opera actors

Scrooges & Grinches

Overwrought children

General ingratitude

Nice

Having the kids home

John playing Christmas carols on the piano

Handwritten greetings from old friends

Candles in the windows of colonial homes

Fragrant, balsam wreaths from L.L. Bean

A real fire in the fireplace

Champagne

Cats playing with Christmas ribbon

Thymes' Frasier Fir candle

Candy Canes & Gingerbread men

Staying up late to watch It's a Wonderful Life (again!), then sleeping in on Christmas morning

Christmas blessings from Mimsy Claus!

"I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year." --Charles Dickens

"If you dare, wear short shorts"

2007-06-28T14:50:00.000-05:00

Flipping through People StyleWatch while waiting for my daughter at the orthodontist last week sent me reeling into a psychedelic teenage flashback. Some of the stuff Nicole, Lindsay and their gal pals are wearing is right out of my ‘70s dresser drawers. Like a vintage tune, these "must have" summer trends sparked memories that haven’t come out of the closet for years.

We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun…

Mocking me from the pages of StyleWatch were starlets in fashions eerily similar to some I’m embarrassed to admit I owned--and actually wore: Britney’s sister in an orange version of the lime green, plaid, smock top I made in Home Ec, and Nicole (again) in a romper reminiscent of the blue terry number I once sported in a July 4th Fashion Show.

What the fashion rags are calling "short shorts," we called "hot pants." (And the girls we called Martha and Laura and Mary are now called Ashley and Fergie and Paris.) Badfads.com says, "Hot pants were the rage in the early 1970s having found great popularity years earlier among European prostitutes." I imagine our mothers did not know of this connection.

Of course I had to have hot pants and wore a skimpy white pair on a Spring Break trip to New Orleans. I was about 13, but felt much older and oh so sophisticated strolling down Bourbon Street in the dark.

"Surely," I thought with confidence, "No one realizes I am with my parents and two younger brothers. They think I'm at least 18 and in college." I kept a safe distance from the fam while hawkers tried (unsuccessfully) to lure my dad into the girly shows. It wasn’t long, however, before I was sobbing and clinging to my mom after watching some guy crumple to the ground after getting the crap beat out of him on the corner. To this day, I wonder if he was dead.

One of the Olsen twins and some other girls in StyleWatch were wearing very short blue jean cutoffs. My friends and I wore those—pocket linings longer than the fringe—long before they were available in stores. We made our own cutoff jean skirts, too. They went nicely with the peasant blouses—also hot this year, apparently. We must have been really crafty because we actually made some of those blouses from pillowcases, and we tied bandanas together for halter-tops.

The shorts and the halters were absolutely forbidden at school. We couldn’t even wear culottes—yesteryear’s version of the skort. When several of us boldly donned them to 8th Grade graduation practice, we were sent home for our defiance, accused by the principal of "prancing around in shorts." But school was out and plenty of summers followed.

Beach baby, beach baby there on the sand, from July to the end of September…

We wore our cutoffs and peasant blouses or T-shirts over our swimsuits and rode 10-speed bikes to the beach. It was at least a decade before "jellies" and flip flops were still called thongs; we wore the latter or those wooden Dr. Scholl sandals that killed your instep if they slid too far forward. We hung out with a guy we called "Boathouse," a young lifeguard whose job it was to monitor the comings and goings of Sunfish onto Lake Michigan. We spent our days "catching rays," drinking Tab and sneaking Virginia Slims or Mrs. W's Parliaments—a recipe for three-way cancer. We had sun streaked hair and everyone was tan--except me. I would burn and freckle and was always trying to "get a quick tan with QT."

Never mind those self-tanners had not been perfected and usually left you streaky and orange. I believed with all my heart that hot pants and frayed cutoffs looked much better on tan legs.
I wish I could say I no longer wish for a summer glow. I do. Fortunately, tanning products have evolved (somewhat). Today most of the streaks are hidden beneath my Bermuda shorts and capris.

P.S. Like that QT spot? Check out this '80s Nair ad: "Who wears short shorts?"

P.P.S. If you grew up in the '70s and want to take a trip into the real life of one teenage girl, check out Miss American Pie, by Margaret Sartor. A great summer read!

Holy Thursday With Anne Lamott

2007-04-07T11:27:00.000-05:00

This year I ditched liturgy and tradition for Anne Lamott. No foot washing. No stripping of the altar. No Stations of the Cross. Like a friend said, "There will be other Maundy Thursdays..."

Instead, I went to see Annie... to hear her read from her latest, Grace (Eventually), to answer questions ("How's Sam?"), and to bask in her honest, self-deprecating, spirituality.

Few people have the self-awareness of Anne Lamott. Most who do have developed it through the painful, gut-wrenching, process of recovery... of getting lost and finding a way back. Few are able to share their shortcomings, jealousies and sins with another human being even in the sanctity of a confessional or confidentiality of a Fifth Step.

Anne Lamott puts it all out there. She confesses ugly thoughts, and words that have escaped and can't be taken back. She confides that she has betrayed a friend and slapped her teenage son. She was drunk. She got sober. She struggles with her body image and long ago made peace with her hair through dreadlocks--a seemingly unusual choice for a white chick. She says she is a bad Christian, but I disagree. She is a human one. Her truths and her honesty are sacred. She is a celebration of life, its challenges, failures and victories.

When I first read Traveling Mercies, I felt like I had found a soul mate. She gets it... She gets ME! I'd love to sit down and have a cup of coffee with her, I remember thinking. We would have so much to talk about. We would become best friends. (Nevermind that I have the two best in the world already!) She would read my writing and counsel me on how to make it better, shitty first drafts and all. She was speaking to me and me alone!

Yet, I learned the other night that it is not just me and me alone. I am not terminally unique, after all. There were hundreds of us--mostly, but not all, women--gathered in the Community Christian Church sanctuary on Maundy Thursday. Spending that evening in her presence--along with legions of a others who presumably feel the same way about her--was a holy experience. It was joyful, not dolorous. No organ playing "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" No candlelight. And as far as I know everyone kept their shoes on.

There was Annie looking comfortable in baggie blue jeans (her body looked just great to me!), a white T-shirt and a peach cardigan that matched some cloth in her dreads. She said she had a lingering Northern California cold, that her voice didn't usually sound like this. No matter the nasaly tone, Anne Lamott has a voice that speaks to me. Her work and that night are a holy part of my journey... the road that leads to Easter. And that is sacred enough for me.

Mean People Suck.

2007-02-13T12:24:00.000-06:00

Mean People Suck. It’s one of my favorite bumper stickers. Maybe it’s become a cliché, but that’s probably because it’s true. Mean People DO Suck.

What do Mean People have in common? What DON’T they have in common?

Not gender. Not age. Not race. Not relgion. Some of the Meanest People I know claim to be people of faith. Several have been ordained. Mean men and mean women come in all colors and sizes and shapes. Mean women often are especially clever at launching stinging barbs through beaming, lip-glossed smiles.

Some of the Meanest People I know are also people, forgive me, of means. They have money and they attempt to manipulate people by holding carrots on a stick in front of jackasses (like me) who put up with their antics. They dangle bonuses in front of employees, donations before charities, and expensive gifts like cars and ponies before their progeny. Don’t forget: Carrots are held to the stick by strings.

What else do Mean People have in common? They are bullies. They are rude. They crave attention and demand allegiance. They pitch fits when they don’t get their own way. They insist they are right and everyone else is wrong. They ask the same question and re-state their opinions, over and over in an effort to get the answer or agreement they so desperately want to hear.

What is the matter with these Mean People? Who hurt them? Who made them feel so small that they must puff themselves up, raise their voices, TYPE IN ALL CAPS, and put others down in order to feel better about themselves? Who or what robbed them of compassion? Of empathy?

In a recent New York Times essay, Richard A. Friedman, MD, a psychiatrist, said that despite what many of us believe meanness is not necessarily a symptom of an underlying mental disorder. “…if some people turn out happy and good despite a lifetime of withering hardships, why can’t some people be mean or bad for no discernible reason?”

Indeed, they can be mean or bad for no discernible reason. I would probably armchair-diagnose most of the meanies I know as narcissists. (Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or pathological narcissism, has been acknowledged in the DSM since 1980.)

One somewhat amusing trait of Mean People is that, although they often accuse others of being rude, they are among the most discourteous, belligerent people I know. Many of them pride themselves in the public put down—criticizing and shaming others in front of colleagues, family or even strangers. These bullies want everyone for miles around to know who has the power, who holds the purse strings, who is King (or Queen) of the Hill.

They fancy themselves arbiters of good taste, high fashion, political truth and all manner of protocol; they are the last word on a plethora of topics, yet they have zero interest in the opinions of others and no regard for others’ feelings. They insist on homage from the masses, but don’t dribble it out themselves. These are the folks who expect doors to be held for them, yet they’ll drop said door in your face while you stumble with an armload of groceries and a toddler in tow.

It does no good to shout “Thanks a lot!” to Mean People who leave you standing in the cold and rain. They either don’t hear you or don’t care. And they usually don’t change. Ever. To challenge them or confront them is fruitless. Open, honest communication isn’t possible because they are constitutionally incapable of trying to see things from another’s point of view. To dare to try can result in getting fired, or disinherited, or disenfranchised through the infamous and icy silent treatment. Most frequently it results in mild to severe concussion for those of us who continue to jump through hoops trying to please, while banging our heads repeatedly against that particular brick wall.

Through the double vision, staggering loss of self-esteem, and throbbing headache, I see an asterisk at the end of the bumper sticker sentiment:
Mean People Suck*

*…the life out of me.

Paper or Plastic With That Senior Discount?

2006-02-10T15:55:00.000-06:00

“Do you use the senior discount?” asks the checkout woman at the department store.
“No,” I say, weakly smiling back at the cashier who appears to be older than my mother.

Do I look old enough to avail myself of the senior discount!? I shriek inwardly. I wonder if the young blonde mother in line behind me has heard the woman’s query. I glance back at her in hopes of an empathic glance, but she busily reaches into the stroller to adjust her baby’s blanket. Although I am many years away from the privilege, I now feel old enough for the senior discount. Humiliation ages a person quickly. I hobble out of the store vowing to never again leave the house without makeup. I recall an old piece of advice: “Edward always said, ‘you should never ask anyone a direct question.’ ”

Edward has been deceased for many years, so I never had the chance to hear this directly from the source. His widow, Bunny, occasionally imparts this wisdom to others. She says one should never, for example, ask another person what they do for a living. The direct nature of such a query, according to Bunny, could cause the person discomfort because they may have to reveal a lesser station in life or a paltry income.

Asking questions of an uncomfortable nature, however, happens to be Bunny’s forté. And that old saw about politics and religion? Forget it. Bunny has. They could probably use her at Gitmo. Her methods of interrogation are designed not necessarily to garner the truth, but to fluster you into telling her what she wants to hear. In other words, that you agree with her views on absolutely everything including Gucci shoes, Gethsemane and the Gaza Strip.

By the way, Bunny was hugely offended when a movie theater employee asked her if she wanted the senior citizens’ discount.

I don’t think she peppers everyone with personal inquiries; she reserves most of her direct (nosy and inappropriate) lines of questioning for family members. When it comes to bridge games and tea parties, Bunny purports to be a paragon of the social graces. Once in a while, though, even the haughty are humbled.

Waiting for a connection at JFK, we see a woman toting a beautiful, elaborately carved, lacquered box.
“Oh, do you have some wonderful objet d’art in there?” asks Bunny, imagining a Ming vase or Fabergé egg.
“No,” the woman says. “It’s my mother.”

And so the phoenix plummets to the ashes.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Brokeback Mountain…

2006-01-26T16:30:00.000-06:00

I was home for three straight days with two sick kids. One was diagnostically sick. The other had the sort of mystifying malaise that might prompt me to take a mental health day—but just one. It should be noted that even the truly sick one wasn’t sick enough to restrain himself from tormenting the other. And on the third morning of trying, unsuccessfully, to coax (threaten, shame, coerce, bribe, blackmail) my almost-thirteen-year-old daughter to middle school did me in. The poster child for power struggle.

I became ill with bad parent syndrome. Symptoms include serious doubt, second-guessing and self-loathing about everything the child has eaten, said, watched, listened to, done and thought about doing in the last week, plus regrets about allowing the adolescent to make her own choices instead of locking her up in her turret.

Thus I spent this third day hostage more to my own self-inflicted angst than anything else. Was there enough Zoloft (or ice cream) in the world to rid me of my downward, despondent spiral?

Those who don’t know me well may believe I am an extrovert—a veritable people person. They don’t know about the dark side. The introvert who craves her time alone… who, even though she adores her kiddoes and loves the laziness of the long winter break, has been known to do the happy dance when school finally resumes after New Year’s.

My kids were sick. What kind of a mother was I to resent that? What’s worse? Those feelings of resentment… or the guilt and shame of having those feelings? I needed to escape. And when my beloved came home from the office, I did.

I’ve wanted to see Brokeback Mountain since it was released. My husband did not. So at four o’clock on the third day of sickness, I left the patients and went to the theater. Popcorn. Diet Coke. Alone at last… except for the two other people in the theater. It was luxurious.

I think I was trying to escape my parental brooding, and myself rather than get away from my kids. I was already halfway heartsick going in, disgusted with my selfish self. This movie hurts so damn much. Brokeback took me from halfway to all the way heartbroken. It may not have been the “joy choice” I needed to really recharge and come home all cheery and “present” for my family. (I needed a hot bubble bath and a martini before I could face any of them.)

Brokeback is staggeringly brilliant and beautiful. It is not, however, what my parents used to call a “Friday night movie”—a light, mindless genre that serves as a release from the rigors of the rat race. Brokeback is a Sunday afternoon movie—a rainy, foggy, hide-under-the-covers Sunday afternoon movie. It may be the most painful film I have ever seen. In the hours since, I’ve had to keep reminding myself that it is a story… that I am the audience. Brokeback is up there on the screen. And yet, it’s not that simple. Somehow I am there, or at lease a part of me is there, on the mountain, breathless with the loneliness and pain of a stark longing to reconnect one half to another and somehow become whole again. God, I wish I knew how to quit it…

Heavenly Peace

2005-12-12T14:42:00.000-06:00

Something strange has happened to me. Something very strange indeed. Save one or two last minute items, my Christmas shopping is finished--and I know what those last things are; I am just waiting for payday. Most of this shopping, in fact, was finished before Thanksgiving. I know there are people out there who always operate this way, but I have never been one of them. Historically, I procrastinate in every way. Not just at Christmastime, but for every project ever. That's the journalist in me... working well under the pressure of a looming deadline.

If I get Christmas cards out at all, it is usually after Christmas so that they are really Epiphany cards. Not this year. My cards are ready for mailing: stamped, addressed and bearing the required suburban family photo and holiday letter. Oh! And did I tell you? Those gifts I purchased are wrapped!

Trust me. I am not patting myself on the back. I am actually a bit concerned about what has gotten into me. It is a foreign concept for me to be ahead of the game. I fear I have been programmed by some force greater than myself.

I recently extricated myself from a situation/obligation/ albatross/community that has sucked the life out of me for years. Perhaps this is merely sanity. Is this the freedom and peace that comes when we take care of ourselves? When we draw a boundary? When we become mad as hell and decide we're not going to take it anymore? That in place of sheer hell is actually a slice of heaven?

Okay, I won't analyze it too much. Instead of trying to figure it all out, I will bake and have some friends in for a cup of Christmas cheer. I will enjoy it and be grateful. Thank you, Jesus! And Happy Birthday to you.

"Max" 1980 - 2005

2005-11-12T16:17:00.000-06:00

R.I.P. little meatball...

Senor Postman, Por Favor

2005-10-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

Aye yi yi. My beloved and I mail ten postcards in Mexico. Seventeen days ago. They are lost somewhere between Puerto Vallarta and Kansas. I have a feeling they're not in Kansas, Toto. It takes a lot to send postcards on vacation. It means breaking out of a sun-induced, sandy stupor to trot out to the bodega... choosing the perfect scene for each recipient... correctly counting out pesos... then actually writing something. I write the same message on several cards... the ocean AND the mountains: best of both worlds!

That done, the search for stamps begins. The senora in the bodega is out of stamps for days running. She suggests the hotel lobby. They don't have stamps, but direct us to the bodega.

We decide to walk to a nearby bustling neighborhood in search of breakfast and stamps. A shopkeeper directs us to the cambio (money exchange), where a kindly senora sells us a dozen stamps (not the recently-released racially controversial variety) destined for the USA--about 140 pesos worth. Although there is a little red post box across the street, she suggests we post our mail from our hotel, because the box pickup is pretty good these days, but not always reliable.* We take her advice. Of course she doesn''t know where we are staying and that we have become paranoid of the lobby personnel.

We are shunned because we refuse their "invitation" to a breakfast/time-share presentation at the new resort they're building down the beach. They even bring in Patty the closer before we are even allowed access to our quarters. We are hostages in the lobby, getting the torturous, high pressure "invitation." Very hospitable, but that's another story.

We do ask the concierge where to drop our mail. There is no mailbox here, she is happy to tell us. Give it to the bellboy and he will take care of it. I don't ask what "take care of it means" but, now, 17 days later, I think I'm starting to get the picture. And it's not the kind you see on a postcard.

*Regarding the Mexican Postal Service ("Servicio Postal Mexicano") there is an open debate about its effectiveness. (Source: www.solutionsabroad.com)

The Last Act of a High School Play...

2005-10-04T09:02:00.000-05:00

...that's what my dad would have said about this day. Many plot twists. Little direction. No script.

Darling daughter had two teeth extracted with IV sedation--her first experience with mind-altering drugs. Trying to bring her out of it, I ask, "Who is the president of the United States?"

"Idiot," she replies. Well, she's not so wasted she doesn't know what's what. But she is awfully wide-eyed and giggly, like someone has slipped her a pot brownie. I think she likes her buzz just a little too much.

When I get to Osco the prescriptions for antibiotics and pain meds aren't ready. I find this out after waiting in line for 15 minutes. They give me a number and say they'll call me when the Rxs are filled.

"Number 40." Finally. I step to the window and am told that, yes, even though I have a number I have to go to the back of the line. Again. I fume because I've been cooling my heels in Osco for a half hour while my stoned, post-op tweener waits in the car. I contemplate taking her Tylenol 3 myself.

I return to the car to find her on the cell phone with the electrician who was supposed to show up at 8:30. It is now noon. He shows up around 2 and is still here at 6. He was already here Saturday afternoon. I think I would never be able to endure a remodeling or room addition because I am going crazy with just one person tromping in and out the doors and up and down the stairs. He's turned off the breaker to the air conditioner and I am hot flashing all over the place.

The electrician looks and sounds like Bill Cosby. Except he's blind in one eye and has a hearing aid. He postures and gestures and talks like the Cos. He's funny, but not really in the "ha ha" way. I am trying to figure out how to tell him to just go home when he announces he has to go and will return tomorrow. He has lost a screw on the floor of the garage and asks me to find it by morning.

Darling daughter can only consume "non-particulate" liquids. On a good day it is difficult to adequately nourish her. When she was little she would only eat things that were orange and/or white: mac & cheese, french fries, grilled cheese, fish sticks, chicken nuggets. Not much has changed. She has had a couple of room temperature milk shakes and a few spoonsful of jello. She grudgingly swallowed her first dose of penicillin, claiming it tastes like wood and metal and dirty carpet. She is less than thrilled with the chicken bouillon I give her for supper. When my 18-month-old nephew stops by, he pours what remains of the broth into a candle on the coffee table. At least someone is enjoying the bouillon.

At some point my mom calls with the news that it is time to euthanize Bridey, her cancer-ridden calico. Can I go along for moral support? For once, I say "no," and feel guilty until I learn my brother will go.

My husband calls from a picnic dinner in the Arizona desert. I am unreasonably annoyed that he is away--it is business afterall. When he says he is standing next to one of those giant Saguaro cacti, I imagine him stepping too close and getting poked by its needles.

My 16-year-old comes home from his job sacking groceries feeling achy and feverish. He is not well enough to go to school in the morning. I phone the attendance lady who gleefully informs me that I had mistakenly reported my 7th grader's oral surgery absence yesterday to the high school, rather than to the middle school.

I am embarrassed. Like I've forgotten my lines or walked onto the stage naked. Now the attendance lady knows: My life is the last act of a high school play.

Boys and Their Toys; The Girl With the Curl

2005-09-23T20:41:00.000-05:00

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead
When she was good
She was very, very good
And when she was bad, she was horrid*

This is a little ditty my sainted mother used to recite to me. Although I don’t think I’ve thrown it in my own daughter’s face, it applies to her as well. As a matter of fact, it’s still a pretty accurate description of my own temperament, the horrid part emerging when Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. (I am, however, rarely lonely. In fact I love my solitude.)

So it is with my darling daughter, on the brink of becoming a teenager. So hungry. She got braces on Monday and can hardly chew. So angry. With her 16-year-old-brother. All the time. Lonely? I don’t think so judging from the amount of time she spends IM,ing and the recent increase in her telephone time. Tired. Not at night when she can’t sleep. Definitely in the morning, when she can’t get up in time to make the school bus. So sweet/So cranky. So easygoing/So stubborn. So fun/So not. Did I mention she’s a redhead? Of Irish and Italian extraction? God, I love her. So much it hurts.

Wednesday, my 16-year-old announces he will not be taking his car up to our corner garage for an oil change. Instead, he is going to do it himself. Never mind that he’s never done it before. In fact, no known ancestor has done it before. What has possessed him? I stayed inside, bracing myself for the crash that would indicate the Bimmer had fallen off the blocks. It took about three hours, two neighbors, a can of $45 motor oil and a $15 filter, but the job was done.
“Honey,” I said. “That’s three times what it costs up at the corner when you’ve got a coupon.”
“Mom. They use (respectable name brand oil). I can’t put that in my car.” And here I thought motor oil was motor oil. God, I love him. So much it hurts.

Still, maybe I ought to put Click and Clack on speed dial.

*The journalist in me always wants to give attribution to quotes. When I Googled** this childhood verse, I was surprised to find its author is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

**When is the spellchecker going to realize that "Googled" has become a verb?

Soccer Mom...

2005-09-19T20:25:00.000-05:00

...is not really what I am. I have a daughter who plays soccer and a son who used to play until his Premier Soccer experience ruined his appreciation for the game. I do not own, nor have I ever owned, a minivan. I think you're supposed to at least have that to be an official soccer mom. I do not have the kit (uniform) cleaned, fluffed and folded the same night it is spattered with mud and red Gatorade. We frequently throw the conflict jersey in the washer perilously close to game time and hope that it dries on the way to the pitch (field). Often we cannot locate a matching pair of socks. We keep losing water containers and usually have to stop at the corner gas station to buy water on our way to the game... That's when I usually realize my gas light is on. Soccer moms (I think) are better at planning ahead. I do well to remember when it's my turn to drive to practice. Does it start at 4:30 or 5:00?

Late afternoon is my worst time of day. That's when the exhaustion and fibrofog set in. I bribe myself into gear with the promise of a skinny latte at My Java. There I can slouch in a cool leather chair and try to think up what we're going to have for dinner and read O magazine while feeling guilty about not using the time to work out at the gym.

I do not own, nor have I ever owned, a crockpot. If I did, it would require some planning and organization, which would not be a bad thing. A lot of times we have to fly from soccer practice to basketball practice, or miss soccer altogether for a basketball game. Even if I had started a stew or something in the crockpot we wouldn't be there to eat it. The older one might be. But also he might be at his job sacking at the grocery store, or washing his car, or playing golf, or eating at Chipotle with his friends.

Today was a soccer and basketball day with the orthodontist thrown in as an extra little side trip. God smiled on me and soccer was cancelled due to thunder and lightening. They played 4 games over the weekend, so they probably needed a soccer break anyway. I know I did. Even I had mud on my legs when we got home from the tournament yesterday. And my ankles have been itching from bug bites all day. I skipped tonight's basketball game, turned the AC way down and took a hot bath.