All I Can Say

#100: The age of warnings

G was given an assignment in school to write a warning label for a product that could be harmful if used incorrectly. Here is what he came up with:

Warning:  Cheesey Gummy Bits are not for grown ups. These are bad for their adams apple. Rare side effects include: adams apple to pop making the grown up die.

And then on the back of this activity sheet were the following questions:

1. You are at a picnic. There are many flies buzzing around.
Can the flies leave germs on your food?   yes   no
Can you get HIV if a fly lands on your food?   yes   no

2. Tito has strep throat.
Can Tito's sister Carmen get strep throat from him?   yes   no
Can Tito's sister Carmen get the chicken pox from him?   yes   no

3. Whoops! Mrs. Primrose was at a party and drank out of a stranger's glass by mistake.
Can Mrs. Primrose get a cold from the stranger?   yes   no
Can Mrs. Primrose get HIV if the stranger has HIV?   yes   no

4. Bruce has a sore throat.
Can he spread his germs to others if he coughs?   yes   no
Can he spread HIV to others if he coughs?   yes   no

5. Cool Dude just loves grapes.
Should Cool Dude wash the grapes before eating them?   yes   no
Should Cool Dude be worried about getting HIV from the grapes?   yes   no

I didn't know that G had been taught about HIV in school. Other than that it can't be spread by flies or by sharing food, I wonder how much he really knows about it. For what it's worth, he got all the answers correct.

Third grade sure has changed from when I was in it.

 

#99: Ninety-nine things

I was going to save this for my 100th post, but I just couldn’t see myself coming up with 100 things. Let’s have a go at 99, shall we?

1.     I was born in Canada, but now I am a U.S. citizen.
2.     My children have the sweetest, roundest faces.
3.     I do not like talking on the telephone.
4.     In about a year from now I hope to test for my black belt.
5.     I can never hold onto a tube of lipstick much longer than a week before losing it.
6.     I hate that I can’t really style my own hair.
7.     I suspect I am too lazy to learn how to do it.
8.     Since becoming a parent, I have developed a fear of heights.
9.     My husband knows me completely and still he loves me.
10.   I am an INFJ, whatever that means.
11.   I really, really hate country music.
12.   I love movies but hardly ever see them.
13.   I absolutely cannot drink Chardonnay.
14.   I have a good sense of color.
15.   I painted every room in my house myself, and some rooms I have painted twice.
16.   I am terrible with directions.
17.   I never balance my checkbook.
18.   Sometimes I think I have never really grown up.
19.   Sometimes I think I am far too serious.
20.   I don’t mind doing the cooking, or the cleaning up, but I do mind doing both.
21.   We do not expect our children to do nearly enough around our house.
22.   I can’t resist buying cute clothes for my daughter.
23.   I have to be in the right body-mindset to buy clothes for myself, but I’m never opposed to looking.
24.   I didn’t wear my retainer regularly as a teenager, and now my smile is starting to remind me of Eleanor Roosevelt. I'm considering getting braces all over again, but I’m in line after my kids.
25.   I am not an especially good driver, although I am not an unsafe driver.
26.   I don’t like playing games.
27.   I could do without Halloween.
28.   Unless I’m working out, I only wear socks between the months of November and March.
29.   I have a weakness for apple crisp.
30.   I think turkey is overrated; it's dry and flavorless.
31.   I hate calling babysitters.
32.   I love having babysitters.
33.   Lately I don’t seem able to hold onto my old friends.
34.   I know that I should breathe deeply but I don’t do that — unless I have insomnia.
35.   There are so many things I know I should do that I just don’t.
36.   I am terrible at dieting.
37.   I love wine and drink it every day.
38.   Music produces deep emotions in me.
39.   I can clean and fillet a fish.
40.   I hate moths, even though I know they are harmless.
41.   I move very quickly and value completing a task over taking my time to do it carefully.
42.   More and more I notice how I short-change myself this way.
43.   I love change.
44.   I adjust pretty easily to change.
45.   I can still hold and carry my almost nine year old — and he still lets me.
46.   When I have some minor ache, I never think of taking pain relievers.
47.   I never have cash and can go around for days with just a dollar or two in my wallet.
48.   Sitting at the beach for hours bores me.
49.   When I hike a mountain, there is some mysterious force that draws me to the top, and I am practically unable to stop along the way.
50.   I can do 50 push-ups on my toes without stopping, although the last ones wouldn’t be pretty.
51.   I love to listen to my daughter sing.
52.   Last fall I discovered that I actually enjoy watching my son play soccer.
53.   My family sits down to eat dinner together most nights.
54.   I do not like to cook fish any way but on the grill.
55.   Lighting the grill scares the shit out of me.
56.   I sleep with three pillows, one between my knees.
57.   Not since I was eight years old have I been unselfconscious in my body.
58.   I wish I could experience how it feels to run around in the lean, quick body of a young boy.
59.   I do not like cats.
60.   My mother did not like cats.
61.   My son is allergic to cats.
62.   Putting myself out there is not easy for me.
63.   My home is my sanctuary.
64.   I am compelled to watch TV infomercials; they are my version of horror films.
65.   I cannot function with chaos and clutter.
66.   I hate cleaning because it is never done.
67.   I am good at getting rid of things I no longer need.
68.   I am not overly sentimental.
69.   I am extremely sensitive.
70.   I care too much what other people think of me.
71.   Sincerity is what I value most in other people.
72.   I am looking for understanding and recognition through this blog.
73.   When I’m discouraged about the blog, I realize that I am documenting my life with my children, and then my purpose is renewed.
74.   I have a sister that I rarely see or speak to.
75.   She brings out my judgmental side and always has.
76.   She has a heart of gold but has made many unfortunate choices.
77.   See what I mean?
78.   When I was in eighth grade I could pick apart the most complicated sentence and identify every word’s function, whereas today I could hardly tell you what a gerund is. In fact, I couldn’t tell you what a gerund is.
79.   I love to entertain in my home.
80.   I like to go to parties.
81.   I am a miserable, all at sea public speaker.
82.   I wanted to speak at my mother’s funeral, but was discouraged to do so. I think that was a good call.
83.   I often feel alone and unreachable by others.
84.   In general, I can be counted on to stay within my comfort zone.
85.   I do not like reality TV — at all.
86.   I do not get any regular dose of the news.
87.   I rely on my husband to tell me what the weather is expected to be.
88.   I am quietly competitive.
89.   I don’t believe in God.
90.   I am a very conventional person.
91.   I do not like gratuitous profanity.
92.   When I am really pissed off, there is nothing like a four letter word to express myself.
93.   I tear up fairly regularly — usually apropos of nothing.
94.   I am a fanatic for clean laundry and do upwards of 12 loads a week.
95.   I love the smell of campfire, except when it has infiltrated my hair and clothes.
96.   I cannot not pick a zit.
97.   I very rarely get sick.
98.   I am not an especially sympathetic caregiver when one of my loved-ones is sick.
99.   I could easily have produced 100 things.

Oscar Wilde and The Princess Bride

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."  — Oscar Wilde


Indigo Montoya: Who are you? I must know.
Dread Pirate Roberts: Get used to disappointment.
— from The Princess Bride

In which I cross a line

Middle school talent show + camera-wielding mother = you decide.

#98: Morning at the bus stop

Our front lawn slopes down to the street — gently, but with enough pitch that the kids can build up some pretty good speed on a sled before having to bail or land in the street, which is busy. The snow has been fast lately, with a good crust of ice. All winter, G sleds while he waits for the school bus, which picks him up right out front. He loves it that he can actually sled to his bus stop. We say goodbye, quick kiss, and then I stand in the door and watch him every morning, sipping my tea.

Today he grabs his snow scooter and sits on it, aims for the jump he has built midway using a skateboard ramp. He pushes off, hits the plastic ramp, flies up, parts ways with the snow scooter in mid air and lands in the snow, muttering to himself. He gets up, dusts off, and does it again. This time he sticks the landing and careens all the way to the bottom of the hill, slamming into the embankment the plows till along our property every time it snows. G jumps up, throws his arms in the air in victory, congratulating himself. He leans forward and checks up the street to see if the bus is coming; no sign of it, so he climbs back up the hill for another go. After a few more runs, he collapses onto the snow bank, fully stretching his body out and resting his cheek in the snow. I think how he’s getting soaked, or that it might look from the road like he’s in trouble, but in an instant he’s up again for more sliding.

I can hear in the distance the low rumble of the bus engine. G hears it too and grabs his messenger bag that’s been sitting in the snow all this time, hoists it over his shoulder and stands attentively. Will he look back at me? The bus glides into view and stops, spitting as the doors snap open. He used to check for me before getting on the bus, but he doesn’t do that today and I realize it’s been a while since he did. He waits for the driver’s signal that it’s safe to cross, and then he skids down the snow bank and jogs across the road, repositioning his bag on his shoulder. He rounds the front of the bus, and all I can see of him now, framed below the undercarriage, are his snow boots. One foot lifts off the ground, then the other, as G climbs the steps. The stop sign under the driver's window collapses, and the bus is moving again. I close the inside door and turn away. And now I can begin my day.

#97: Human potential obliterated

There was a car accident over the weekend: teenage driver lost control of car and crashed into tree. The driver and passenger were not seriously injured. But the back seat passenger, who was 17 and the older sister of the girl in front, died at the scene. I heard about the accident yesterday and it pulled at me the way these stories always do. But today I discovered I actually knew the girl. She was in N’s karate class a couple of years ago, and I knew her mother. Seconds after the accident, her younger sister called her parents on her cell phone screaming for their help. They rushed to the hospital in terror — but believing both their girls were at least alive. There they learned that their daughter was dead.

Is there a worse moment for a soul to endure?

Every parent considers this horrifying possibility from the moment his or her first child is born. What if? What if? What if? That nagging mantra that runs on a continuous loop through the subconscious. The older the child grows, the louder it gets. I know that the really scary years are ahead of me, but still I can’t ignore the reality that anything can happen at any moment.

A few weeks ago I was grocery shopping with G. I observed an older woman coming into the store; she looked familiar to me and something made me pay attention. I recognized her then as the wife of someone I had worked for many years ago, when I first came to Maine. Part of that family’s narrative was that they had lost their beloved youngest child, Lee, to brain cancer, more than 30 years ago. His father displayed a picture of this boy standing at the helm of a sailboat, and I always studied it when I was in his office. Lee was a solid looking, smooth-haired boy in shorts and a polo shirt. He wore glasses. He had been an avid hockey player, and a few years ago the family bequeathed an outdoor skating pond and pond house to the town in their son’s memory. Every time I take my kids there to skate, I think of that photograph of Lee on his father’s boat, and I think of who he might have become.

That day in the grocery store, Lee’s mother didn’t recognize me, but I watched how her eyes went straight to G. I understood that she always noticed boys everywhere she went, summoning her own child, who she last saw in 1974, when he was around G’s age. And I understood that this loss would always be the defining event in her life. How could it be otherwise? I placed my hand protectively on G’s head.

I know it’s not possible for those of us who have never lived it to comprehend the grief of losing a child. It must be the cruelest suffering, the deepest sorrow, the most devastating pain — from which one can never truly recover.

It can never be made sense of.

It’s every mother and father’s living hell.

#96: The tall and small of coffee

It has finally happened: Starbucks has come to my town. I am happy about this mostly because there will be less waiting "over to Dunkin’ Donuts" as they say in Maine. To be sure, this morning I noticed much lighter traffic than usual. I also noticed that they were writing how the coffee had been ordered on the side of the cup, like they do at Starbucks. And that just seemed sad.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy a cup of Starbucks now and then, but it’s disconcerting to me how ever-present they are (186 locations in Manhattan, compared with 28 Dunkin’ Donuts). Elbowing out the small and local competition, Starbucks has become the superpower of coffee. That distinction comes with a certain amount of antipathy, a phenomenon familiar to America itself. [Last summer my very good friend L, a Canadian who travels extensively for work and pleasure, told me about a fabulous and pristine resort area she visited on the Baltic coast. She said this region has become the fashionable new destination for Europeans since Americans have now taken over the Riviera. I laughed and asked her if Americans were truly persona non grata the world over. “Haven’t you heard?” she sighed.]

But back to coffee. Me, I can’t drink coffee until after I’ve had my tea. Maybe this is a vestige of my Canadian heritage, which is in turn a vestige of Canada’s British heritage, but I am really more of a tea drinker. I steep a cavernous mug of Red Rose (Only in Canada, eh? Pity!) for myself first thing every morning, and again around 3:00 in the afternoon. So refreshing, and warming to the core. Later on, I will grab a cup of coffee as a reward after working out, or as I sit down to do some work. One cup a day easily meets my coffee requirements.

At Dunkin’ Donuts, I get a medium half regular/half decaf (JH refuses to place this "unreasonable" order for me) with milk. I used to order it with cream, but I’ve weaned myself off of that artery-clogging goo, although it does make the coffee so much richer and creamier. Many people find Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to be flavorless, and when you start drinking espresso-based coffee drinks, it’s easy to see why. But very strong, Starbucks-style coffee is bitter to my tastebuds — it’s like drinking liquid ash — and no matter how much room is left for milk, I can never quite get it to mellow to my liking. If I do go to Starbucks, I will order a tall latte with light foam. For the longest time I resisted their baroque lingo and loved to march up to the counter and ask the “barista” for a medium coffee. But I’ve gotten over that. Tall, grande, venti. Yeah, whatever. I’ll play along.

At Dunkin’ Donuts, my medium coffee costs $1.70. This has been steadily rising (right in line with the rate of inflation, of course) year by year, but it’s still a deal compared with almost $3.00 for a tall (which we all know means small) from Starbucks. My other coffee option is my neighborhood Town Landing Market, where you pour your own cup out of those old Bunn coffee makers, put in your choice of additives (coffee creamer – yes, flavor shots – no), and it’s a steal at $1.05. Here the coffee is only okay, but still better than if I made it at home. For reasons I have never been able to establish, my coffee is just not potable. I’m much better at tea.

#95: Under the tent

The other night N asked for advice about something that is going on at school involving a boy. When I asked what it was all about, she said, “I’ll tell you in bed.”

So when I climbed onto her bed for our good night snuggle, she pulled the extra blanket from the foot of her bed up over our heads to make a tent. Then she began talking about a boy — two boys actually — and not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, and not wanting to be hated, either. I can’t say any more, because she confided in me under the tent, and that is sacred.

One thing she did want to know was how old she would have to be to start dating. I told her sixteen. I don’t know. I’m just making this up as I go.

And as far as the situation at school goes, I wasn’t instantly sure what advice to offer. She’s ten years old, and her notion of dating is only a teeny tiny sidestep from her notion of friendship. Maybe that’s just my delusion, but I’m clinging to it. So after stalling for a minute while I tried to figure out what to say, I suggested that she doesn’t have to feel pressure to say or do anything. She can carry on as usual without hurting anyone’s feelings, or confirming them, either.

But as I was saying this, I worried that I was teaching her to be coy, when I value sincerity pretty much over anything. Once again, I’m faced with the difficulty of trying to put myself in her shoes, familiar territory these days, and they simply do not fit. When I was in fifth grade I’m certain we were younger and more innocent than fifth graders are today. I see N alternate between sometimes feeling as though she is younger than her peers, with their fascinations with fashion, dating and dieting, and seeing herself as growing up too rapidly, with these kinds of boy troubles.

I could really sense the pressure and confusion she was feeling, and hoped that I had eased her burden a little bit. I want her to hold onto her carefree days as long as possible. She seems so little to me, playing with dolls, sucking her thumb, longing for the security she felt as a baby. But then she will show me her independent side, where my very presence is an embarrassment to her. This is her rite of passage, and I can not and do not let it get to me.

I know that if I ask her to fill me in on this situation, she will feel intensely intruded upon, and will share nothing. I have to be patient and cool with her, but also ready to help her untangle these dilemmas that come up at any moment she’s willing to talk about them.

My access to her world is shrinking almost daily, and at these moments when she invites me in, however briefly, I am practically giddy with gratitude. I just have to make sure not to show it.

Evolution of dance

This guy's got moves!

#94: On writing

When it’s going well, writing is like a meditation for me. I am wholly involved in the scene, event or person that I am rendering. It’s as though I can reach right through my present reality and touch the invented or remembered one, that’s how clear it becomes for me. And then it’s just a matter of choosing the precise combinations of words — like finding the right pieces to complete a puzzle. Writing, when it’s like this, is almost effortless.