YOUR SOMEDAY TATTOO

Tattoos have become so mainstream that just about anyone under the age of 50 has their someday tattoo in mind even if they don't actually have a tattoo. I realized this last weekend as I ran into a friend at Borders and when she asked what we had planned for the evening and I told her we were going downtown to get Jeff a tattoo she did NOT say, "Really, you know employers frown on that sort of thing," nor did she say, "Do you know how saggy that's going to look some day?" which are both silly things I've heard old people say about tattoos. Instead she said, "Oh, if I ever get a tattoo it will be the iron man symbol and it will go right here," and she showed me the spot on her arm where she would put her someday tattoo. I should point out she is a banker, not a biker.

Jeff has also had a someday tattoo for some time; musical notes on the inside of his forearm that he could see when he looks down the neck of his guitar. I've encouraged him to turn this vision into reality but so far the opportunity to get a tattoo had not presented itself --until last weekend when the bunny shelter that Lilly volunteers at had a fund-raiser at a local tattoo parlor. Yes, for two days, all the proceeds of all tattoos and piercings would go to the shelter. At last, an excuse for Jeff to get his tattoo (that and his 50th birthday is right around the corner and you've got the perfect storm).

Which is why last Saturday night while our two eldest children were otherwise occupied with the annual high school variety show production, Lilly, Jeff, and I drove into the city. We brought Lilly because even though she is only 11 it is after all her charity.

The place was located in a not-so-gentrified part of town. Inside it was well-lit and set up like a Hair Cuttery. There were several 20 and 30-somethings sitting on benches waiting to get inked and most already had some visible tattoos. As the old suburban couple with a child we definitely looked a little out of place. I approached the counter and a Zooey Deschanel (with black hair not blonde like in Elf) look-alike took our information down and assured us that the wait was not too bad--half an hour. Oh goody, plenty of time to people watch. Lilly grinned happily because people watching is one of her favorite hobbies.

We sat and watched the comings and goings. The tattoo artists themselves were working on various body parts in chairs separated by curtains but all the curtains were open so we could watch. There was a woman wincing in one corner as the inkman bent over her back. I caught her eye and it was clear she was in pain. Zooey came and asked Jeff what he wanted done and Jeff showed her the photo he had brought. She asked about size and placement and then went to make a transfer of it. She said Tom would be doing the work. We had already seen Tom and were fascinated with his full-arm tattoo that was basically a colored dark green solid sleeve from wrist to elbow (picture above).

Lilly was wearing one of her bunny t-shirts (she has an extensive collection) so that sparked some conversation with the other customers. It seems that nearly everyone waiting was there to get a tattoo of a bunny or a bunny paw prints. They all talked bunny talk for some time and then Tom approached us holding the transfer. "So, who is this for?" he asked looking at all three of us.

I nodded toward Lilly and dead-panned, "Her."

Tom waited a beat. Blinked. Then said, "Cool."

I laughed and said not really and the others sitting there laughed with relief because really, a tattoo may be mainstream but no one wants to see an eleven year old with her parents getting one on a Saturday night. I mean really. I may TAKE my kid to tattoo parlor but I wouldn't let her GET a tattoo! What kind of mother do you think I am?

Tom had us follow him back to his chair. He put the transfer on Jeff's arm and wet it (think fake tattoos your kids get at birthday parties) and made sure Jeff liked it. He did, so Tom started the tattoo basically filling in where the stencil was. Now for those of you who have never seen a tattoo the way it works it that a little electric needle pokes multiple holes in your skin and the ink goes into the holes. It does not go deep but it IS a needle poking holes in your skin so it smarts a bit. Jeff was stoic and did not cry. He even watched.

I chatted with the girl across the aisle who was getting her 6th tattoo--a rather large memorial to her grandfather on her calf. She was friendly enough and mentioned her mother hated tattoos. I realized I was probably about the same age as her mother but I kept that thought to myself and I showed off my own tattoo (the outline of a heart on my hip which you can only see if I'm in a bikini) and she acted properly impressed.

Turning back to Jeff's tattoo man I noticed he had two certificates posted on the wall above him. One was verifying that he had the proper credentials to ensure no one would get an infectious disease from him and the other was "Best in Bible Verse Memorization for the Neighborhood." I found both certificates impressive and reassuring.

By then Tom was done and carefully put a bandage on Jeff's arm. The whole thing took no more than five minutes. We went and paid Zooey and that was that.

So there you have it. Getting a tattoo is now as mundane as going to the movies or out for dinner and takes less time than a haircut. The people there were friendly. No one was drunk and not one sailer or biker entered the salon the whole time.

Maybe you have a someday tattoo--you know what it would be and where it would go. Maybe you "almost got one" but were talked out of it (yes TJ, I mean you). Now that you know how easy it is maybe it's time you go get one because let me tell you if you get one in an out of way place it will not interfere with your job prospects and if you're worried about a saggy tattoo--well you're going to be saggy some day with or without the tattoo.

How about it? Is today someday?

LOVE NOTES in LUNCH BAGS

"So here I am, up to my ass in papers; permission slips, assignment notebooks, reading logs--I'm making eggs for four kids AND I'm packing four lunches," Coffee Friend 2 is describing her morning,"and BOOM Izzy says it, 'Mooooommmmm, why don't you ever put a note in my lunch like Morgan's mom does?" Coffee Friend 2 looks at me for emphasis, "Can you f**ing believe it? A note. In her goddamn lunch. Like I got time for this shit!"

Her youngest, the five-year-old interjects here, "Mom, I can hear you." Coffee Friend 2 shrugs apologetically.

Sigh. My friend has just fallen victim to the hyper-mom-syndrome. This is what happens when you take a bunch of lawyers and MBAs and they decide to stay home with their kids full time. They take all that go-go-go energy, all that extra-credit and over-time mentality that worked so well for them in college and the career world and apply it to their parenting which really requires a different skill set altogether with the first skill being, reeelaaaxxxx.

It is not enough that they offer their kids every opportunity at every sport and artistic endeavor available. It is not enough that they sit behind me at a restaurant and make Tyler do his multiplication tables while they wait for their macrobiotic meal (mine are coloring and eating mac and cheese). It is not enough that they volunteer for every activity at school and are on every PTA-type board (which reminds me of the recently-stay-at-home bank VP who used to say "vis-a-vis" at nursery school board meetings until I once broke out into a fit of giggles--I mean really we were discussing who would bring the lemonade and she somehow worked "vis-a-vis" into the sentence). No on top of it all they must put love notes into their kids' little lunches.

And that would be all well and good if our own children would just stop looking around and noticing we do not do some of this nicey nice stuff. Who needs that? I'm still recovering from a sleep over that Lilly went to hosted by the nicest mom in the world, Khaki Voss (the same one who has a Christmas party the night of ours and siphons our friends away--she and I are going to have to have a throw down in aisle 4 of the Dominick's if this keeps up). Apparently, Khaki--known as "Ella's Mom" in this story, not only stays up late to check on the girls at sleep overs and offer them timely snacks (I close the basement door and go to bed at 9:00) but she gets up early and makes the girls pancakes! In cute animal shapes! Damn you Khaki Voss and your Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes!

"Do you put notes in the kids' lunches?" CF2 asks me at the end of her rant.

After I finish snorting hot coffee out my nose I answer, "What lunches? They make their own. Actually, Lilly once wrote herself a note and asked me to sign it. Is that wrong?"

CF2 looked relieved. I know how she feels. Sometimes it feels like you're Alice in Wonderland and you're not sure if you're crazy or everyone else is. A wise social worker once told me it's important to seek out parents who share your parenting values so you don't start doubting everything you do.

Which is why I have coffee with that wise social worker once a week. And neither of us puts love notes in our kids lunches every day.

A LOVE STORY FOR VALENTINE'S DAY

Mary grew up in Western Michigan in a small rural town outside of Grand Rapids. Unlike her other siblings (all of whom still live in her hometown) she was subject to wanderlust and managed to get herself to Paris and then Madrid her junior year and that's where I met her--in Madrid. We were instant companions and I was drawn to her dry sense of humor (drier than mine even) and her shocking way of saying exactly what is on her mind to almost anyone at any time. We palled around Madrid that spring, drinking too much beer and following the cast of Conan the Barbarian to parties.

She ended up back in Michigan (as did I for a time) and we've kept in touch over the years. She got married young, had two boys young, and got divorced young. Since her divorce many years ago she has dated off and on but she seems to attract highly undesirable men and her Christmas cards are often filled with hilarious accounts of these men like the monk who liked to be spanked and the DJ who asked her to, well, I can't say what he asked her to do but she politely declined, and the blind date who was wearing tinfoil on his head so he wouldn't hear the voices. She teaches speech therapy (or something like that, she's going to correct me now) for the Flint school district which is as close to working for the Peace Corps as a paid position can be.

In all these years she has never gotten back to Europe. In all these years, she has pretty much given up on finding a nice man to spend her life with.

Laurent is my Dutch friend. I met him in 1986 when he opened the door to the communal dorm kitchen in Eindhoven, The Netherlands to find me standing there blinking in the bright Dutch sun of a June day, jet-lagged, and a little confused having arrived for an internship without anyone to greet me at the airport. I had somehow made my way to the dorm I was to stay in but no one seemed to know I was coming. He smiled and invited me in for tea and cookies. We have been friends ever since. We kept in touch by letters and then the internet. He is passionate about old cars and guitars. He knows more about anything than anyone I know in the world. He speaks Dutch (of course) and English fluently. He is also quite fluent in German and French though he downplays this. He has had little experience with the opposite sex and often wonders about this. As he says, "Charles Manson gets marriage proposals. How is it I can't find a nice girl?" Exactly. I've encouraged him to internet date but that too has had its share of disappointments. He has long ago given up on the idea of finding a nice girl to share his life with.

Then last June I noticed that the two most frequent posters on this blog were Mary and Laurent. I realized they had a lot in common: they are both socialists, they both are very interested in everyone and everything around them, they are both extremely outspoken, frank, and honest, and they are both among the kindest people I know. I knew they would have fun "talking" on the internet and I introduced them to each other then left them to chat in the corner with a drink in each hand (metaphorically speaking--this was all by internet).

A few months later Mary revealed that she really, really liked Laurent but wondered how far things could progress being an ocean apart. I urged Mary to beg, borrow, and steal money to go see Laurent.

So for the first time in nearly 30 years, Mary got out her passport and took a plane across the Atlantic.

The trip was such a success that Laurent is now visiting Mary in Michigan (in February--think about that).

They are both coming to visit us this weekend. Mary apologized for "intruding" on Valentine's Day weekend but really, can you think of anything more romantic than sharing dinner with a couple involved in an overseas romance on Valentine's Day?

Me neither! Happy Valentine's Day everyone and remember love really does come along when you least expect it.

DRIVER'S ED

I am waiting for Atticus to finish up from stage crew, my van idling in a line of other vans with moms waiting for their kids. A lanky teen slouches out from Door O and heads toward the passenger side of the van in front of me. Then there is a brief, non-verbal exchange as the mom slides over. The kid, looking annoyed, reluctantly gets in the driver's side and off they go.


If you are the mother of a 15 or 16 year old, you probably are very familiar with this scene because for some reason, we have just raised a generation of kids who do not want to drive. Yes, you may have the exception, but most of the moms I know report the same thing: whereas we ALL ran to the DMV and got our licenses on our 16th birthdays, this crowd is being pushed, prodded, and pulled there well after their birthdays.


What gives? Why don't the kids want their licenses like we did? Well, there are many theories: one we make it damn hard to get the license. In Illinois (as in many states I'm sure) the kids have to drive with the parents 50 hours before taking their exam. FIFTY HOURS! Do you know how hard it is to get that time in? Well, after having his permit for the past 6 months Atticus has barely made a dent in the 50 hours. At the current rate, he will have his time in when he turns 22.

How many hours do you think we all drove with our parents before getting our license? I have no idea. Maybe ten? I don't think there was a requirement. My mother tells about getting her license (a long time ago). Her dad took her down to the sheriff's. The sheriff said, "Well, can she drive," to which my grandpa said, "Goddamn right she can." The sheriff handed her a license and that was it. Of course, it was so long ago there were only a handful of cars on the road and a lot of horses and buggies (heh heh, just kidding mom)

But times have changed. There's a lot more traffic just about everywhere. I know learning to drive around here is quite different from learning to drive around the sleepy small town I grew up in (which is also no longer sleepy). Pretty much every major road is a four lane nearly highway with all the current perils of geezers turning left when they shouldn't and distracted moms on cell phones not paying attention.



But here's my theory of why they aren't anxious to learn to drive: they don't need to. We chauffeur them everywhere and I blame this on the damn cell phones (and our overindulgent parenting, guilty as charged). That's right. When we were kids if we needed a ride somewhere we actually had to arrange for the ride ahead of time. Imagine the inconvenience of it all! If we needed to get picked up from band practice we had to tell our parents what time and then, we had to actually be there! And band directors, knowing this, somehow managed to finish on time. None of this end when you're good and ready. Yes, sonny, in my day we didn't have a little thing called a cell phone. We didn't just text our mommies and they dropped everything and ran to get us! No! We planned ahead, and then we waited until our moms were good and ready to get us. And sometimes they were late. And sometimes they forgot. And we were unable to call or text them. And we waited. And waited and waited.



And sometimes when we asked for rides they said no. Really. They just said no, we'd already been out twice that weekend and we weren't going out again. They didn't even have somewhere they had to be, they just weren't going to drive us any more.

All of which was a pain in the ass for us which is why we were so eager to get our licenses. I literally got my license on my 16th birthday. Took my mom home, dropped her off, rolled down the window (with a crank window, remember those?) and drove right over to Diane Kleckner's house all by myself. I remember exactly how liberating and awesome it felt: it was the sweet, sweet taste of independence.

Something our children apparently are reluctant to sample.

Oh, I have to go now. I just got texted and Grace needs a ride.

I'VE GOT GUYS

When you move to your first house after living in dorms and apartments and condos you quickly learn that no landlord or association is going to fix your house stuff--it's up to you. There are problems with any house: refrigerators break ; chimneys get clogged; toilets leak; hot water heaters stop working and you don't know a whole lot about how to fix them so you need reliable help. After a few years of that, you may move on to the home-improvement phase of home ownership and then you realize there are even more things you don't know like how to build a fence; design a brick patio; or the big kahuna--put an addition on.



You need help. You need professionals to come do stuff for you and you learn quickly that it is not a good idea to randomly choose someone from the phone book or the internet. No, like dating, it is much better to get a recommendation instead of going into it blindly. So you will soon find yourself asking all your friends "do you have a guy for_____" fill in the blank: painting, plumbing, HVAC, taxes etc. That's how I have found almost all my guys--from friends recommending them.


I have always found wonderful people this way. Like marriage, when you find the right guy, it is a thing of beauty. A serendipidous thing that brings to your life so much more than someone to fix something. In it's best form you will find someone who enriches your life and leaves you better for having known him.



So here, I pay tribute to some of my most memorable guys.


Richard: Richard was truly my first guy. A handyman who worked for the village by day and fixed everything in the neighborhood by night. When I called him to replace my bathroom door which had a split right down the middle he declared it was too fine of a door to replace. Instead, he took it home and glued it with boat glue and charged me a fraction of the cost of a new door. He did a lot more around the house and then he disappeared. Phone disconnected and everything. I suspect he really did retire to Florida (even though he was only 35) as he often threatened to do on the money he made off of all of us (every penny earned). A good handyman is almost impossible to find, even one you've used before.


Sean: Sean came to paint the outside of our brick house one spring. He only worked when the conditions were perfect so he wasn't there every day and he was meticulous. He did not even start painting until Fourth of July because he had spent a month scraping the old paint off first. He took the shutters down, primed them, put them back to cure for two weeks, then took them down and painted them again. He was Irish, still had his brogue, and said "shite" for "shit" which slayed me. He was a former trader who wanted to stay home to keep an eye on his youngest who was an adult but mentally challenged. She had had leukemia in the seventies and was cured but given so much radiation it had affected her mind. He would paint and then get a call from his wife asking for help with her and off he'd go. I didn't mind one bit. He did not finish the job until Halloween but he charged me just a fraction of what the others had bid the job at. That paint job has lasted more than ten years. He told me he really only worked for something to do and if someone asked him to bid on a job and he didn't like the people he just gave them a ridiculous quote to get rid of them. He was a wonderful man and I hope he is still around enjoying his family.


Duncan: Duncan is a landscape designer and the person who gave me his name described him as a genius who looks like a dirty Santa. This is true. White hair and beard, ample belly, and dirt under his nails because he does his own planting. I had contacted him once but he didn't seem in any hurry to do the job. Then one Saturday, without warning, he appeared in the back yard and asked if he could sit and draw up some plans. He got a card table and chair from his truck then set up in back with paper and pencil. He asked me questions like "How do you use this space?" "What feeling do you want to convey?" He told me I didn't really want a pergola (I had been quite sure I had) over the patio because it would make the back too busy with too much going on. What was the pergola for? Shade? Then he'd get me a nice shade tree. While talking to him about family I learned he was the father of 10 children. His wife had died years before and he was raising them alone. I commented that it must be hard and sad. "Not really, she was more needed with God then she was here. We'll be together again some day," he said with true conviction. I also learned that his oldest son was a Wilms Tumor survivor--the same kidney cancer that Lilly had. My Belief that these wonderful men are not sent to me randomly grows. By the way, the shade tree is gorgeous and the pergola really would have been too much.


Andreas: Andreas is my yard guy. He came to me a few years back when I realized Jeff and I had completely given up any notion of taking care of our own yard and it was starting to be an embarassment. He cleaned up a year's worth of overgrowth and neglect in two days. The next week I asked how much to move two small trees for me. "$150" he said. Later he came with his helper and they dug up the trees in the pouring rain, transplanting them and their sizeable root balls by hand with a wheelbarrow. When he came to the door, soaking wet, he said, "That didn't take as long as I thought, I will only charge you $100." Seriously. I had to beg him to take the full amount. Then last winter I called him to see if he could get some ice out of my gutters. He went up on the roof and shoveled it all while his nervous looking helper held the ladder. He did that for over an hour (it was about 6 degrees that day)then came to the door. "I couldn't get the ice off so I really can't charge you anything." Seriously. I had to beg him to take $20 for shoveling my roof. I have to mention that Andreas is from Mexico so I doubt shoveling roofs is something he's terribly comfortable doing but he tried because I asked him.


Michael: Well you all know about Michael. He's my nearly mythical contractor that put the addition on for us six years ago. He comes back a lot to do odd jobs for me. Right now he's downstairs walling up a doorway I've always hated. He's a little like Eldon from Murphy Brown if you remember that character. The kids just say good morning over their eggs like he lives here when he lets himself in. I think maybe I've grown a little too accustomed to having him here because yesterday, after we conducted a brief meeting about the aforementioned door opening, I realized I was still in my pajamas.


So those are some of the guys in my life. Just a small listing really. I didn't even tell you about Painter Dude or Tile Guy or my accountant Bob who made that problem with the IRS go away in about ten minutes or Joe who invests our money more cautiously than I would. When Lilly was sick Joe and Bob (who do not even know each other) pretty much did my taxes for me that year. I love them all and thank the universe for bringing them into our house and our lives. May God bless you with some great guys too.

LITTLE OLD LILLY

A thing of ridicule to many: a work of art to others.

"You see," Lilly said, trying to explain her fascination with the candle shaped like an owl she was clutching as we stood at the end-cap in Target, "It's a candle AND it's an owl! I HAVE to have this!"

Mmmm. No. I did not see. It was a crappy little tchotchke the kind you find sitting on the back of the toilet in your Grandma's house. I said something to that affect.

"Exactly!" Lilly was thrilled I'd finally seen the intrinsic value of the object of her desire, "I LOVE little old lady stuff!"

"I don't know if you should have candles in your room, honey."

She looked at me as if I were nuts, "I'm not going to LIGHT it! Then it would be gone! I'm just going to keep it."

Since she is only eleven this is kind of odd. I guess there are old souls and then there is Lilly--she has an old-people-stuff soul.

I could see she really did want it, but alas, as she stood clutching the owl candle she must possess, she did not have enough money for it. I told her she could save up for it.

"But MOM! It won't still be here when we come back! It's on sale! And look, there are only," she paused to count, "Eighteen left! There's no way there will be any left when we come back!"

I assured her they would not exactly be flying off the shelf but she did not believe me. For days she alternately worked to earn money and warned me that if we didn't get back there soon those precious owl-candles would be sold out.

I first became aware of this little-old-lady thing she has going when we were on a charity dog-walk last summer, raising money for the bunny shelter she works at. In front of us was a woman with her dog. The woman was in her late 60s I'd guess, long silver braid down the middle of her back, gauze skirt, Birkentsock sandals. You know the look. Lilly nudged me and pointed at her, "See that! That's what I want to look like when some day. AND I'm going to have twenty cats and ten dogs."

Is it normal to aspire to be a cat-lady? I thought it was something you sort of accidentally became after everyone you know dies and your rotten grandchildren stop checking in on you. I pointed out that she would probably not have a husband if she went that route. She shrugged. Whatever.

When she finally had saved enough money for the owl-candle she made me promise we would go to Target that next weekend which we did. Much to my surprise the owl candles had been a big hit. There were only three left. "See, Mom! I TOLD you these would be big sellers. You know why?"

"Yes," I recited dutifully, "Because it's a candle AND an owl."

For Christmas I found the perfect gift for her. Soap on a rope shaped like a pig. She opened it and held it aloft with delight. "Look Grace, it's a pig AND it's soap! We can hang this in our bathroom and NEVER use it!"

I have no idea how she instinctively knew what to do with soap-on-a-rope--she's never seen it before, but somehow, like a little-old-lady savant, she knew you hang it up and never use it!

The pig will look great in the girls' new bathroom and since she'll never use it, it will last for years, which is great because some day she can hang it in her cat-lady-house bathroom.

BATHROOM REMODEL

The girls' bathroom is the only original room in this house. It still has hideous peachy-orange tile with black trim. Apparently that was in style when the house was built in 1947. When we first moved in I replaced the vanity (I did that myself I might add and will NEVER attempt a do-it-yourself plumbing project again. There's a reason plumbers make so much money) but even that was a decade ago and it is looking sad. Then there was the leak. Michael gave me the bad news last month--the clamp he put on the leaking pipe which is in the floor of the bathroom/ceiling of the downstairs-- was only temporary and about the only way to get at it is to pull out the old tub. Might as well re-do the whole bath.

To my surprise Jeff agreed. "Absolutely. That bathroom is hideous." And so it was decided.


Since Grace is the one who spends the most time in there I enlisted her help. She immediately got out her colored pencils and drew up three different plans of where the new vanity would go, how many new jets would be on the new shower, and what the tile would look like.


Unfortunately for Grace the bathroom is only 8' x6' (hard to believe it was the only full bath for the first 50 years this house existed and I know for a fact there were four boys living here in the 70s) and Michael informed me there really is no way to move anything anywhere nor is there room to expand anything. After the time she spent drawing up the elaborate plans we can't use she was exceedingly disappointed. So I told her she could choose the new vanity.


After an extensive internet search she chose one of those things that looks like a bowl set on top of a dresser. This is progress? This is what our great-grandparents washed up with--but I know they are in style right now. "Umm, Grace, I don't know if this is practical," I cautioned. "It will be hard to clean and also it's too trendy."


"TOO trendy?" she blinked. "Isn't trendy a good thing?"

"Oh right. Usually but you know, it will be really outdated in ten years or so."

"Ten years?" she blinked again. She's a very expressive blinker. I may as well have said a hundred years. What is ten years to a 14 year old? More than half her life that's what. Sometimes she doesn't understand me at all. I thought about it. Why on earth would she care if our bathroom looks dated in ten years? In ten years she'll be in her first apartment in LA waiting tables at night and going to auditions in the day. (A side-note here about how quickly time passes when you're old--I know, a recurring theme for me--last week I was making chili and I thought, "Hmm, this chili powder is probably a few years old now because my ex-sister-in-law bought it for me and they've already been divorced two years, so I checked the expiration date: 1995. The kids were howling at me.)


Anyhoo, sometimes I have to remind myself that one of the bad things about getting older, wiser, and more practical is that if you're not careful you can end up with a suitable, non-trendy bathroom that won't go out of style for twenty years (and 15 year old chili powder). It's nice to have kids around to remind you of that (and laugh at your old spices).


So after more thought I'm ditching my practical approach. Next time you're over make sure I show you our new bathroom. It will be trendy and look great.


But look quick--it will be out of style by 2020.

Afterwards, we'll have some bland chili.

FIRST DAY BACK TO SCHOOL/WORK

This is one of the dreariest days of the year--the first Monday after the holiday season. There's just no way to put a good spin on it. It's like the first day of school without all the fun. It's just the first day back after a nice break with no relief in sight. Add to it that January is perhaps the bleakest month of all with no real holidays and you're looking at a long stretch of the doldrums.


Knowing that this day was looming as the vacation was waning I decided to be pro-active. This year, I made sure the tree was down, the decorations were stowed away, and I even vacuumed up the tree needles. Because if your house has a hangover when the kids and hubby head out the door it makes it just that much more depressing. That way, I thought, I could focus on making sure everyone got out of the house and in to the new year on the right foot, with a hot breakfast in their tummies, and a big encouraging kiss from me.


But that didn't really happen so much. First, Jeff could not find his parking pass. It got lost in a holiday-car-switcheroo and is no where to be found. He quietly stormed around the kitchen looking for it, sucking the life from the room and mumbling until I reluctantly got up from my NYT and coffee to pretend to help him look for it. How do I know what he did with it? This man is notorious for losing things. He loses his wallet at least three times a year. He has lost two wedding rings. A parking pass is nothing. After a few moments it was clear it was not going to reappear so I went back to my paper, silently willing him out of the house. (Oh come on, like you've never willed your spouse out of the house before?)


Next came Grace who was in a tizzy because she could not locate her gym shirt. Really people? Can none of you gather your belongings the night before? Anyway, she found it under a pile of Atticus's dirty clothes in the laundryroom. This means Atticus had committed two egregious crimes: 1) he had kept her shirt in his room after I had mis-placed it there and 2) when he gathered up all the dirty clothes on his floor and chucked them into the laundry room yesterday he gathered up her clean gym shirt too. Grace was not letting this crime pass unnoticed and pointed it out to one and all rather voluably. But then another crisis arose and fortunately for Atticus, she quickly turned her ranting on her little sister who had the nerve to have misplaced her favorite pink mechanical pencil.


"I CAN'T FIND MY PENCIL AND IT'S LILLY'S FAULT!" she screamed as she stomped around the kitchen. I pointed out that there were four perfectly good pencils in the drawer but she kept screaming that she cannot write with a regular pencil. Okay, now I had put up with her nonsense up to this point but here I had had enough and I decided I needed to put an end to her tantrum.


First I threw the pencil at her head then I "calmly" explained that she needed to learn to use a regular pencil. The words "spoiled brat" may have entered into the "discussion". (Oh, like you've never called your kid a spoiled brat.)


Ahhh, good times.


Finally, I got the big kids to school and only had Lilly left. She mercifully is a low-maintenance person so I got her to the dropoff line without incident. Unfortunately, the automatic door had frozen on the van so I had to get out of the car to give it the hipcheck it requires (Oh like you never had to hip-check your frozen van door). Most unfortunately for the man in the car behind me who was dressed nicely on his way to work, I wearing my usual morning driving clothes: slippers, pajamas, a really long robe, and a winter coat. I looked like a deranged escapee from an Arctic insane asylum. I smiled and gave him a nod. He did the same back. Probably he was thinking, "Wow, I'll bet she's hot underneath all those layers." Yeah.


So that's how we started off the New Year.


I hope yours got off to a better start but if it didn't, rest assured, you're not alone.

THE CHRISTMAS PARTY

I don't know how it is we never get any pictures of our party except of Jeff and me just before the first guest arrives. But here is the one pic we have!

On Saturday we held our annual Christmas party for our neighbors and friends in the area. This was our 12th annual event and they have evolved over the years from a casual open house to a big bash with kids invited to the current more intimate but elegant cocktail party (no kids) that we now have for about 40 guests.

We've done this long enough that the party follows a somewhat familiar pattern: 7:00 we stand waiting breathlessly for the guests to arrive, slightly panicked that maybe no one is coming. By 7:15 the first guests arrive and then a steady stream until the house is packed around 9:30. We usually cap out at about 45 people and then they start to drift off, some going home early, others to competing Christmas parties (darn that Khaki Voss who always throws her party the same night as mine! She is one of those incredibly nice people who also happens to do everything just a little better than everyone else and I'm sure she has a lot better food at her party than we do....) but anyhoo the party always finishes off with ten or so lingerers and Jeff and our good buddy Dan get the guitars out and sing and play and things wrap up around 1:00 or 1:30.

This year things went as expected. The only change we made was that I added a new convenient feature out front. I shoveled a spot at the curb and leading up the front walk for the ladies in heels and then, thinking it would be nice to make sure no one blocked the cleared spot I set up two sawhorses in the street with signs that said "Bag Drop" on them. The golfers in the group got it, pulled up and let their "bags" out then went to park. I'm thinking of patenting the idea.

The next morning we always have fun doing post-party debrief, sharing conversations and deciding things like who said stuff they shouldn't have and who wore the most revealing dress. This year (as usual) that would be me and me. The kids chime in and tell us funny things they saw and heard too as they are the official coat-takers and hostess-gift keepers. As Lilly said, "By the end of the night when the grownups came to get their coats they were all standing really close and talking loud."

Over burgers yesterday I even got to hear a story of a past party that I had never heard before. We were talking about party number five in 2003, the last time we invited children. We did that for several years until it got rather "Lord of the Flies"-like and when I went up to bed after that party I found Atticus (who was ten at the time) asleep in the hallway lying with his face in a pile of crushed Goldfish crackers not unlike Al Pacino in Scarface. I just checked my notes--we had 54 adults and 62 kids that year.

We were laughing about all that when Grace said, "Lilly, that's the year you hid in the bathroom and we couldn't find you."

"What?" I asked. This was news to me. We had had babysitters that year to help wrangle the kids so I guess I had missed the parallel kids' party.

"Yeah," she explained, "it was late and the grownups don't usually come upstairs so I ran from my bedroom to the bathroom to go potty in just my underpants but when I opened the door there was a grownup waiting for the bathroom so I slammed the door in his face and locked it."

"We couldn't figure out why that door was locked for so long," Atticus recalled.

"But why did you hide in the cupboard?" Grace asked.

"I was afraid mom might find the key and open the door and grownups would see me in my underwear. So I crawled in the cabinet."

That is not a big vanity --30 inches tops and it would be a tight squeeze even for a small five-year-old.

Ahh, good times.

I like to believe that these big parties with their mishaps and their funny stories that live on for years are as much fun for my kids as they are for us. I can think of no better way to usher in the Christmas week than with a house full of the parents of your friends who make up your world--adults you've known your whole life--all laughing and telling stories and just enjoying each other.

I hope your Christmas and holiday season is also full of love, and laughter, and noise and may you too have your own share of stories of locked bathrooms and crushed Goldfish crackers.

Merry Christmas.

DOES THIS MAKE OUR BUTTS LOOK BIGGER?

--> Just me in the Jeggings.

(below) Lilly and me in the same Jeggings.

My old high school friend Andy who lives in LA asked me to try a pair of pants she sells on her cool website, Repeat Possessions. She assured me that these awesome "Jeggings" (combo jeans/leggings) fit ANYONE so to prove that point Lilly and I got into a single pair and I think you can see that we do indeed both fit.

Then, a bit more skeptically I tried them on myself. I wasn't sure a nearly --cough cough--50 year old should be wearing leggings but I was kind of impressed with how flattering they are. As you can see they do fit nicely, look like jeans and I can assure you they are incredibly comfortable.

So if you're still looking for a great Christmas present for a daughter or girlfriend you should go to Andy's website and check out the Jeggings. Check out the other stuff too. I know she has cool clothes because she lives in Orange County and that makes her automatically hip and well-dressed (which she is because I saw her at the class reunion but unlike other Orange County housewives she still has all her original parts).

CENSORSHIP

Grace tried out for the talent show at her high school this week. They were required to sing a passage from Don't Stop Believin that old chestnut by Journey which seems to be resurrected every few years by politicians, sports teams, and this year our new favorite show, Glee. They gave her a copy of the sheet music to practice and Lilly was looking it over when she said, "Hey, they cut out the line that says 'smell of wine and cheap perfume'. It just says 'smell of cheap perfume'." We all puzzled over this odd bit of editing. It was clear the word "wine" had been whited-out (is that the past-tense of white-out?). Grace worked on the music a while trying to figure out how you even sing the song without enough syllables.

The next day in glee club Grace's teacher mentioned it. "I cut out the w-i-n-e word," she said spelling it out as if it were a curse word.

Is wine a bad word now? This is the same school that just put on To Kill a Mockingbird and wisely kept the "n" word. What the fuh? The "n" word stays but the "w" word goes? I didn't even know it was the "w" word. What would this teacher think if she knew I sometimes have a glass of "w" right in front of my children!

The puzzling thing is that this appears to be the decision of a single teacher. It's not like the school has a "no singing songs with alcohol in them" policy (well, I don't think they do). Though if they did you might wonder how they would sing a lot of songs like Days of "w" and Roses or Bob Marley's Red Red "w". (A side note, The Days of Wine and Roses was the prom theme when my sister was a high school senior, which was only slightly more inappropriate than my prom theme which was Nights in White Satin which kind of makes you wonder where the adult supervision was in our school but then again that's what we get for electing a burnout as our class president that year.)

Anyhoo back to the censorship at hand: for some reason this teacher took it upon herself to edit the song. I don't know why. There are no banned books at my kids' school and this spring they are going to put on the play Rent. I hope this teacher doesn't get her hands on that script because instead of the play being about a bunch of gay people battling AIDS she might change it to a bunch of heterosexuals who all contract really bad cases of mono from kissing.

I'm kind of perplexed by this "w" thing. Would it be appropriate for me to protest to the school about censoring music? On the one hand it is a song by Journey and I'm not sure they've exactly earned the right to artistic freedom. On the other hand, if we let this go what's to stop it from escalating? I can only imagine the Holiday Concert in which Holly Jolly Christmas would have a line that says "and have a cup of cocoa" or the line from Baby It's Cold Outside (which my kids call the creepiest date rape song of all time--and it really is if you listen to the words) could be "hey what's in this milk?"

I was mulling over the right to free speech and my duty as a bleeding heart liberal in all of this when Grace told me a story that made me realize I did not need to intervene. It seems that during the audition process one of the seniors sang the song his own way in protest. He got a big laugh when he sang, "Smell of fermented grape juice and cheap perfume," and I have to hand it to him because really, one of the most effective tools against censorship has to be a good dose of teen-aged ridicule.

Don't stop believin.

OUT OF THE WOODS

Okay, you know the self-righteous housewife doesn't often wade into the world of pop culture, as I leave that to the experts at People and Perez Hilton but this Tiger Woods story is too good for me to pass on. So here it goes:

There are so many weird pieces of the story we know (the story we don't know is probably sadly familiar) that I just have to comment on a few of them.

Point One: Rich and famous people don't know their neighbors: As pointed out by my son, how is it that Tiger Woods' neighbor did not know that was him lying outside his car? I mean, in my neighborhood, if Tiger Woods lived across the street and came barelling out of his driveway at 2 am hitting the fire hydrant I would at least KNOW it was him when I called 911. I would probably even run out to help him too. Yet this neighbor, (who was good enough to call for help,) did not know who was lying out there in his street.

You know that reminds me of the time this really drunk Asian lady I don't know fell through my front door, cocktail in hand, and looking up from the floor (she had not spilled a drop of her half cocktail) asked if she were in the Robinson house (name changed to protect my neighbor). They were having their annual Christmas party and she had missed it by a few doors. No, I explained, that was four doors down, but could I freshen her drink? See, now that's what neighbors do. They don't go calling the police and acting like they don't even know each other.


Point Two: Rich famous women smash out car windows to save their husbands: On Tiger's website you can read his statement that his wife "acted courageously when she saw I was hurt and in trouble." Let's review: he backed into a fire hydrant and a tree and she had to smash out the BACK window to pull him out of the car? Just how pinned in do you get when you back into a fire hydrant?How strong is this woman that she could drag an inert full grown man from the front seat and out the back window? Maybe she panicked and it was the butler's night off so she had to do it herself. And she just grabbed the first thing she saw which was a golf club which they probably have laying all over their house and yard since Tiger is a golfer.

Now if I were "acting courageously" and wanted to "help my husband out of the car" I would not grab a golf club. Why? Because my husband doesn't care about golf. I would grab one of his guitars and then I would "courageously" smash out his back window and "help" him out of the vehicle by beating him with the guitar. I'm just saying.

Point Three: Rich and famous people get to tell the police "We need some privacy" and that works: If you or I were to knock over a fire hydrant, and run into a tree, and CLEARLY were involved in the middle of a domestic disturbance, we would not get to tell the Police the following morning they should respect our privacy. Well, I guess we could say those words but I doubt they would tip their hats and say, "Sorry to bother you ma'am." In fact, since there are children in the home we would probaly get a little visit from DCFS too and I don' t think you get to tell them to "respect your privacy" either.

In conclusion, I guess things are different when you live in a gated community in Florida where the neighbors don't even know you.

Those people probably don't even have a block party there.

I'm glad I'm not rich and famous.

JUST HOLD A TOWEL OVER THE WINDOW

My first car was like this Ford Fiesta.


I should be out grocery shopping and getting ready for the Thanksgiving crowd I am hosting this Thursday but instead I am waiting for an auto mechanic who makes house calls to come help me. My ten-year-old minivan refuses to start today. Well, technically, she can start--the problem is the key no longer turns in the ignition. Alas it is not a simple fix--the spare keys don't work either which means the key isn't worn out but the ignition is and banging on it with a hammer is not working.

My kids keep telling me we need a new minivan. I say, "You're a bunch of wimps." They have no idea what it's like to drive a real beater around. Right now the only thing wrong with my car (except for the aforementioned issue) is that the passenger window rolls down but doesn't always roll up. Which is why I say, "Quite whining and hold a towel over the window" when it rains. Usually it will roll back up but only after you drive around a bit pretending you don't care that the elements are coming in on you. The back wiper doesn't work either but so what? How many cars actually have back wipers anyway? The trunk latch broke a few months ago but I did replace that. You really can't have a mini van without the use of a trunk.

Other than that for a ten-year-old car with 100,000 mile on it, it goes great. It is NOT anywhere near the clunker/replace it now stage--and believe me I know.

My first car ever was a used Ford Fiesta my parents bought me when I graduated from college. Now that car sucked. It had fuses that blew if I made a left hand turn with the radio on (I knew how to change them without stopping, they were in the dashboard) and the gas gauge never worked so of course I was frequently running out of gas because I had miscalculated how far a tank of gas would go. It broke down constantly and was so poorly designed you had to pull the engine to do even minor repairs. In case you have never heard the words "pull the engine" let me translate. It means "will cost way more money than you have and take days to repair."

It is one of life's sad truths that only people without much money drive shitty cars that need a lot of money to repair regularly which is why I finally got rid of the car when they told me they had to "pull the engine" to change the oil. I am only exaggerating slightly on that.

My second car was a used Toyota Corolla. It was awesome! It NEVER broke down and the only money I put into it was for brakes. I would still have that car if I hadn't had kids. I can only imagine their complaining if I did still have it. It had vinyl seats, no air-conditioning, crank windows and NO radio which believe me you do not miss as much as you think you'd might. It was a stick shift (which I happen to drive with amazing skill if I do say so myself) and I loved tooling around in that.

Between the Corolla and the mini-van I bought my parents used Buick LeSabre. I know, it looked funny to see me get out of a Grandpa car with my two toddlers in their car seats but that was a nice car too. Very comfy and plush. The only thing was that after driving the Corolla with the manual, that thing was like driving a La-Z-Boy with wheels. Comfortable but boring.

I happily traded that up for my only new car--the now old mini-van and I've been very satisfied with that since. It does the trick when you have kids and it's a Toyota so it doesn't break down.

I had to borrow Coffee Friend 2's car this morning to go to a school appointment and she told me, "Why don't you quit being a cheap hippie and get rid of that piece of shit car before you break down on Lake Avenue like trash." Really. She says stuff like that to me all the time which is why she's one of my favorite people in the world.

But the fact is that even though I can afford a new car (or at least a new used car) I just don't know what I'd get. I still need a minivan and really, who gets rid of a car just because it rains inside occasionally or you can't turn it on when you need it.

Not me.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am thankful I have a minivan and I can afford to repair it when it breaks down!

PASTOR KRISTEN and THE NEW YORK TIMES

Landing Safely in Madrid

When we took a family vacation to Spain in '08 we had to fly on Friday the 13th and Lilly was convinced the plane was going to crash. Lilly is incredibly superstitious, has an over-active imagination, and is more than a little bit morbid. She went online and picked out her casket. It was a cute little thing with a teddy bear on it. She packed reluctantly pointing out that she would never get to wear those clothes anyway.

When she gets like this no amount of logic or reason can dissuade her from her morbid thoughts. Maybe having cancer at the age of four makes you this way. Maybe she would be this way anyway. I don't really know. When she was 7 she was obsessed with "What happens when we're all dead and the world ends?" This bothered her so much I finally made her go talk to our minister. I don't know what that wonderful Pastor Kristen said but after an hour in her office Lilly stopped worrying about the end of the world.

Until lately because now the news and internet are full of this "End of the world in 2012" crap that's been floating around lately. I tried reason, pointing out that the end of the world has been predicted many many times and it has not happened yet. Then that damn movie came out. "Why did they make a movie about it if it isn't going to happen?" she wanted to know. I pointed out that most things in movies don't really happen like old men floating in houses held up by helium balloons going to South America. She was not reassured.

It probably does not help that sometimes, having worn down all my logic and reassurance I tend to go to the sarcasm. Like last night when she brought it up again and I said, "Hey do we have an actual date on the end of the world?" Yes, Atticus informed me, it is December 21, 2012. "Awesome! I don't have to buy any Christmas presents. I could tell you I bought you a pony but I won't actually have to deliver."

Lilly countered, "You don't care if the world ends in three years because you're old! But I just got here." I had to explain I was kidding because I'm not worried about it. I tried to enlist some help, turning to Atticus who is well-versed in this kind of thing due to the hours he logs watching The History Channel. "Tell your sister. The Mayans did not predict the future." "Well," he said, "They did accurately predict World War II" This sent Lilly screaming from the room to go say goodbye to her rabbit.

Luckily, I am very happy to report that thanks to my beloved New York Times, this morning we put an end to all the nonsense because today they published an essay entitled, "Is Doomsday Coming?: Perhaps But Not in 2012" In it, the author assures us that according to NASA and other reliable sources, there is no evidence that the Mayan prediction will come true. I made Lilly read the whole article as she ate her eggs. She kept quoting the happy news, "Hey, NASA says so!" and "This scientist says 'Most of what’s claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy and a level of paranoia worthy of ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ " after she tripped over the word pseudoscientific she chuckled out loud.

She asked if she could cut the article out and take it to school. "I'm going to show it to all those crazy kids who are scared," she said, conveniently ignoring the fact that until ten minutes ago she was one of those crazy kids.

And so I sent her off to school, relieved for the first time in months that the world will not end any time soon and I felt good too knowing that Pastor Kristen and the New York Times have got my back.

FRIENDS' PARENTS and PARENTS' FRIENDS

Jeff and Grace with Veerle, Max, and Laurent who are all destined to be mythical creatures.

Mr. E., the father of Lilly's BFF Danielle, is like a character in a movie to Lilly. He even has a tagline--whenever she calls he sings into the phone, "Lilly Ludwig--Lilly Ludwig--Lilly Lilly Lilly" before he goes to get Danielle. And ever since big sister Grace gave a speech at the eighth grade graduation last spring he brings it up whenever Lilly visits. "That sister of yours--she's going places. She can give a great speech. Wonderful skill. Alexander," here he pauses to look at his own offspring, same age as Grace, "You should be able to give a speech like Grace. That girl is going places." And as if that were not enough fodder to entertain Lilly for hours (she is a great mimic) Lilly went sailing with the family this fall and every time Mr. E. found a piece of litter in Lake Michigan he would head the boat toward it, fish it out of the water and hold it aloft shouting to the world at large, "This is nature's playground people! Is this how you treat it?"

When Lilly tells me all of this I am reminded of that wonderful, mythical creature of my own childhood--my friends' parents. I remember them all so clearly and with great fondness and amusement.

There was Mr. K. who was the nutty community college professor who seemed to have disdain for anyone less intelligent than him (or is it he? this would make him crazy) and his equally brilliant wife Mrs. K. who loved to do jigsaw puzzles then shellac them and hang them on the walls. The K. family thrived on order and predictability and actually had the same meal schedule every week. Monday was chicken, Tuesday meatloaf and so on. I loved that I could always get my favorite meal--a BLT on any given Friday of my entire junior and high school career.

I grew up next door to my best friend Jenny S. Her dad was a huge man with a perverse sense of humor. He told his kids outrageous lies like "Eat the burned toast, it will clear up your acne." Once, returning from an excursion to see the fireworks they shoot over the Detroit river (we had been on the Canadian side) we got stuck for hours on the Ambassador Bridge. Both Jack (his son) and I desperately had to use the bathroom. Instead of trying to find a place for us to relieve ourselves or reassuring us he kept saying, "Think of running water, kids!" "Try to focus on sprinkling fountains!"

Equally intriguing were those people we saw less frequently but were no less mythic: the friends of our parents. Mr. and Mrs. W. who did not have children but had a poodle named FiFi who had her own bedroom with a pink princess phone! They were impossibly glamorous: they only drove Cadillacs and smoked cigarettes and Mrs. W. always left a smear of lipstick on her cocktail glass. And Mr. D. the three (plus) martini lunch man who occasionally called late at night, waking my parents to invite my father to join him at the bar. He was one of the original Mad Men.

In college I met a whole new cast of friends' parents, widening my circle. I was especially fond of Mr. and Mrs. D. Both were fabulously brilliant people of wit and words. A sort of Nick and Nora of Southfield Michigan. He was an editor for the AP and she was a Smith grad, something I'd barely heard of until I met her. They both smoked and could do the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink and drank whiskey sours. I adored them both as they were the kind of couple who made you feel like they were just sitting by the fire waiting for you to drop in on them at any time.

As I go over all the parents of my friends in my mind I realize many of them stood just in front of a shadow I only glimpsed from time to time. As a guest in a friends' house, a child sees just a bit more than an adult would and I was aware even as a kid that sometimes something else was going on in a home. As an adult I now know there were in many households struggles with alcohol, marital problems, eating disorders, and abuse. But as a kid I never thought to ask about it or judge it--it was just there.

It is hard for me to believe that we are now the friends' parents and the parents' friends of many. What do they see when we are around or are being talked about? I know Jeff has gone a long way toward being an eccentric memory for our children's friends: between the fact that he never puts his guitar down and that he sings with great gusto as he plays and that he insists on greeting every child who enters our home with a conversation stopping, "So, tell me a story!" (he thinks this is a conversation starter) he is well on his way to being frozen as a childhood memory for some.

I do not really know how I am viewed by my children's friends. I just hope I am memorable enough to some day be immortalized as one of these great and mythical creatures--a friend's parent.

HALLOWEEN: THEN and NOW

Lately I've been on a "look at how things have changed" jag so at the risk of becoming Andy Rooney-esque I'm going to just keep going today with that theme. Today's topic is Halloween and how it has changed since we were kids. Come along and see if any of this is familiar.

COSTUMES: When we were kids we were either hobos or clowns or if our parents were rich and sprang for one of those lame plastic one-piece costumes we were superman or a princess. If our mother were handy with the sewing machine (and mine was) your repertoire could expand and I was even a pumpkin one year, my mother patiently sewing a many-gored costume she designed herself, but really, that kind of thing was rare. Now all the costumes are awesome. Even the cheapest costume at Target is of far superior quality to anything we had. Babies can be adorable fuzzy ladybugs and older kids can have elaborate horse and rider costumes all at affordable prices. This is all I'm sure due to global trade and I will try not to think about the fact that probably some Chinese waif was paid four or five grains of wheat to sew my kid's bunny suit.

CANDY: Man what was that crap they gave out when we were kids? Good N Plenty? Wax lips? Those god-awful peanut butter chewy things wrapped in orange or black waxed paper? And people were stingy too. None of this fistful of candy. You got one or two per kids. I remember SINGLE servings of Life Savers. I kid you not. Now my kids get handfuls of some of the best chocolate candy they make. Butterfingers, 100,000 bars, 3 Musketeers. The GOOD stuff. I suppose this is just another example of our super-sized mentality that has brought us our super-sized butts but I'll tell you one thing--it makes raiding the kids' candy bag a lot more fun for us.

DECORATIONS: I don't really need to tell you about the explosion of Halloween decorations do I? We all have a neighbor who now puts out more lights, hangs more stuff, and drapes more trees at Halloween than even the craziest of neighbors did at Christmas time when we were kids. Halloween decorations when we were kids? That meant putting out a pumpkin with a candle in it and a paper pumpkin on the doorway that you made at school (unless Ricky Soloway from down the street conned you out of your own paper pumpkin and his mom put it on THEIR door, not saying that ever happened to me or anything but it could and you might even be bitter about it 44 years later).

WEATHER: Now this changes every year of course especially since Al Gore got involved but since my youngest was born we have actually had many, many Halloweens that were fairly warm. Warm enough that you did not need a coat over your costume and that is weird because we live in Chicago. This NEVER happened when I was a kid. If you did not have long underwear AND a winter coat under or over your costume on Halloween you must have lived south of the Mason-Dixon line. And most of those nights it was raining too. Sideaways.

SAFETY: In this safety obsessed time when everyone is a stranger and we teach our kids to run screaming from them all it is hard to believe that at least for this one holiday our parents were even more paranoid than we are. That's because back in those days we were taught that there were crazy people who put razor blades in the candy. Our home town police even offered to x-ray the candy before you ate it. To my knowledge they did not once find a pin or a razor blade in the candy. I haven't even heard about this alleged scare in years. What does that mean? Did these crazy razor-blade toting, child-hating people all die off or did they all become strangers trying to lure our kids into cars with puppies? I have no idea.

These are some of the things that have changed over the years but for the most part, around here at least, Halloween looks like it did when I was a kid: Grandmas still open their front door and peer into the dark saying"Oh what a beautiful princess!" and "My what a scary monster!"; preschoolers to preteens still wander the streets past dark, safe for one night to cross the street without looking; and autumn leaves skitter at their feet pushed on by a wind that tells us snow is not far behind. Most of all it is still a magical night when every child gets to dress up and pretend to be anyone or anything he wants while filling up a pillow case with more candy than he could eat in a year.

Happy Halloween!

STAY AT HOME MOMS and USED CAR SALESMEN

This is a lovely and respectful depiction of my co-workers


Hey fellow stay-at-home moms, good news, there's a new movie about our wacky, unfulfilled, stressful lives out there! It's called Motherhood and it stars Uma Thurman (who ironically, is a working mom in real life). In the article I read, the women who wrote, produced, and star in it discuss how they are uniquely qualified to make a movie like this because men just wouldn't know what it's like to be a stay-at-home mom.





But then it goes on to say that none of them are stay-at-home moms either. According to the New York Times article:

"All the women who created Motherhood have made different life choices from Eliza (the maind character), in that they have all stayed in the work force and risen to positions of power. 'For all of her angst the fact remains that Eliza has the option of not working,' said Rachel Cohen, head of production for the iDeal Partners Film Fund, one of the producers of the movie and a mother whose son is 5. 'I didn’t have that option, and if I did, I think I would still want to work'. They work, the creators agree, because they fear becoming their lead character, who has metaphorically lost her voice and is struggling to figure out what to say about the choice she has made."

Err, excuse me?

Is there any career more horribly depicted in our culture than stay-at-home moms? Always shown as petty (New Christine), over-sexed (Desperate Housewives), depressed (Mad Men), and/or harried (Everybody Loves Raymond).

Maybe used car salesmen. I guess I have never seen a movie or TV show that showed the upside and fulfillment of that job but it, like any other job, has its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows.

Just once I'd like to see a stay-at-home mom on TV or in the movies that looks just a little like the smart, funny, kind, extremely generous moms who I know. Moms who look great in a pair of jeans, garden like Martha Stewart, and offer to watch kids when you're sick. Women who were once lawyers, business execs, and teachers who left it behind to do endless loads of laundry in exchange for the privilige of being present for every first step, new tooth, and birthday party. Moms who clean up every drop of puke, pee, and blood from every one of their blessed offspring. Who read Green Eggs and Ham a thousand times and then read it again. Great women who run church fundraisers and make meals for sick neighbors. Good friends who always know when you need a cup of coffee to discuss the latest child worry , or a glass of wine to celebrate a small rite of passage. Amazing women who know how to turn hydrangaes pink, install a light fixture, and get mud out of white pants.

But I guess the truth just doesn't make good TV or movies.

In fact, now that I think of it, there a few groups of women who are as maligned in the movies as stay-at-home moms --it's working moms (who are always shown as torn between two worlds) and career women (who all allegedly lust after babies).

I guess the message from our culture is clear then: no matter what you're doing--you will be ridiculed.

So here's to all of us- moms and childless, working and staying home. We're all terriffic-- we just aren't funny movie characters.

HIGH SCHOOL HAS CHANGED IN 30 YEARS

High school girls still do their nails!


Now that I have two kids in high school I'm pretty much an expert on the topic. Especially since I have both a boy and a girl there. Yes, two is definitely a statistically significant number when n is 2 and N is a bazillion. I learned that in statistics.

Anyhoo, here are a few observations in case you do not have a high schooler in your life and you would like to be in the know or a real "hep cat".

1. First of all, no one says real hep cat. I'm not sure anyone ever did.

2. Hugging: hugging is very big in high school. Girls hug boys, boys hug boys, but most of all girls hug girls. They hug good morning and good bye. They hug when they run into each other in stores. They hug because they can. We never hugged. We only hugged people we were dating or when we said goodbye to friends at the end of the summer. No, not even then. We were repressed and more than a little homo-phobic. They are not. They are like Europeans or something--all this touching and hand-holding and cheek-kissing. I think this is a great development because it's healthy to hug and be hugged. Yet in our culture after hugging, snuggling and petting our kids like kittens for the first 10 years of their life we drop them like lepers when they hit puberty. No wonder they're in need of a hug! All this innocent hugging they do, I would think, could even postpone the inevitable "advanced hugging" which is what kids who crave affection often get into.

3. Dating: no one goes out on a date. Not like we did. No one. I repeat, no one calls a girl on the house phone (yes, that's what they call that thing plugged into your kitchen wall) and says, "Hello Debbie, would you care to go to a movie with me on Friday?" (partly because no one is named Debbie anymore. What happened to all the Debbies?) No. High schoolers tend to travel in packs and then sort of peel off unofficially to do their he-ing and she-ing. So the dating looks more like a pack of antelope heading off to the watering hole. If anyone is "asking" anyone on a date, it will take place in the form of a text or a message on Facebook. "Do u wanna go to da movies?" which means dads can no longer terrorize potential suitors calling daughters and they will never have the chance to yell "Tell that kid not to honk his horn anymore," because kids don't honk their horns in the driveway anymore they text each other.

4. They are much, much more connected than we were: With the aid of texting and "social media" (that means Facebook and MySpace) the kids all know where everyone is at any moment. And what they are doing. All the time. That's why as you drive to grandma and grandpa's for Christmas you will know that Maggie is on her way to see her grandparents in Ohio and Sam is going out to the movies with a bunch of friends, and Michael is skiing in Colorado. I kind of like this too. Somehow it takes away a little of the sting of having to spend long periods of time with your own family (don't pretend you don't remember that feeling.)

5. They are better friends than we were: Yes, I have to say that despite my concern that all this electronic communicating would result in the death of verbal communication and the decline of western society in general it doesn't seem to be the case. In fact, the opposite seems to have occurred. With all this connecting it is even easier to check on a sick friend, help a friend who forgot her homework, plot to decorate a locker for a birthday, and make plans to watch a friend at a swim meet. These things just lend themselves to a casual text whereas several separate phone calls might be just enough of an obstacle to pass on the whole thing.

6. They "joke" in electronic ways and they are dang funny: Have you been "rick roll'd"? Well that's what happens when a friend sends you an email with a link that might say "check out this video it's so cool funnycats dancing" But when you click on it (and I hope you will) you get transferred to a YouTube video of Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up" which is quite possibly the most atrocious, cheesey, music video ever made. They pass along YouTube videos and jokes just like your friends do but theirs tend to be a little more culturally relevant than those ladies from the 30's doing that freaky circus barn dance.

7. Some things never change: Even though a lot of things have changed a lot of things haven't. There are still burnouts, now called "emo", and jocks and cheerleaders and the usual assortment of nerds --drama, band, chess club. And even though a lot of the lingo has changed a lot of it hasn't. Just the other day the kids were discussing a girl in their school who dresses inappropriately. Too short, too tight, too much. You get the idea. Atticus said, "We have a name for girls like that." I leaned in close, eager to hear the latest slang for "girls like that". "Really?" I asked, "What is it?" He knows I fancy myself a student of current slang and he knows he is one of the few translators that I have. So he grinned as he shared it with me, "Whore."

HOMECOMING IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM

It's homecoming weekend here in Glenview! The whole thing--pep rallies, parade, dance. Oh, yeah and I think there's a football game too. As I scoot around town I can see reminders of the big weekend everywhere: village workers hanging high school banners on street poles; a line at the florist as the moms order corsages/boutonnieres; another line at the dry-cleaners while girls wait to have hems pinned for alterations; and temporary signs around town warning us that Glenview Road will be closed for two hours on Saturday for the parade.

This has of course got me reminiscing about my own homecoming experiences. In my four years I went to two of the dances. I would have loved to have gone to all four but I was only asked to two and back in the olden days you could not go to a dance unless a boy asked you . Even when I did go, it was not with a boyfriend or one of the boys I had a crush on --in both cases I went with nice friends who asked me as a sort of sympathy gesture who probably would have liked to go with someone else too but did not have the nerve to ask. I was just so grateful to be asked, to be allowed to take part of the magical evening, to have a ticket in the form of a boy. The other two years I went to a movie with some girlfriends and sulked. (It's hard not to when your peers are all dressed up in their Gunne Saks going to Mountain Jacks for dinner and you're not.)



Well, I am very happy to report that those days of waiting for a boy to say the word to go to the dance are over. Yes, in case you do not have a kid in high school now (or recently) you may not know that this archaic custom is pretty much gone. To be sure, most of the kids attending the big dance do have a date--but many, many do not. That's right, this generation has figured out something that is so obvious that I cannot believe we did not see it right before our eyes. If you want to go to the dance, grab some friends and go!



Which is why tomorrow, though neither one has an official date, both my kids will be going to the homecoming dance. Grace (a freshman) will get all dolled up, meet her friends for pictures, dinner, the dance and a sleepover. They will look great because as she recently told me when I said boys don't care if her shoes match her dress, "We don't dress up for the boys. We dress up for the girls." Wow. It took me decades to figure that one out. Atticus (a sophomore) will be hanging with his posse made up mostly of couples but a few going stag. They will also go to dinner, the dance, then go play broomball, have a sleepover, and end up at Great America on Sunday.



If they were following the old rules of our day they would miss all of that.



So here's to the young generation. They have brought us texting and YouTube and now, much more importantly they have shown us that the world doesn't need a stinkin' date to go to the homecoming dance and I call that progress.



I'll end this with a special thanks to Mark and Neil, my sympathy-friend-dates. Thanks for the ticket in. It was a blast.

47, 48, 49 OBLIVION

My parents: do they look demographically obsolete to you?


They just said on the radio that the new H1N1 vaccination is being recommended to everyone between the ages of 2-49. And this morning I read in my beloved New York Times that The Big Bang Theory does well in the coveted 18-49 year old viewing demographic. And just now when I took a parenting magazine survey and they asked my age the final two categories were 45-49, 50 and older.

So what, you might ask? Well, I happen to be 49 and now realize I am on the verge of demographic obsolesence. This comes as a great surprise to me and perhaps even more so to my parents in their 70's and my grandmother who is 94. Really? Really, America you decide that anyone over 49 is no longer demographically significant? Soon you will no longer waste flu vaccines on me or care what I'm watching on TV or how I parent my kids?

This is especially funny to me when I consider that based on family history I will probably live another 49 years and will be watching more and more TV as I age AND that I have a whole lot more discretionary income than I did when I was 18. But do advertisers care what I watch? Well, yes, they do for another eight months but then it will be all, "Oh, you're 50 so you can't be cool anymore and we don't care if you watch Glee and MadMen because you're old."

Fifty? When did fifty signal the end of life? I mean, when since the medieval times when we all had babies at 12 and lost our teeth at 30 and died at 40, did 50 mean old? Whatever happened to that line "Merry Christmas to kids from 1 to 92" (I often wonder what my grandma thinks when she hears that line. I guess she has to acknowledge she is no longer a kid).

It is not fun to have to check the last box on a survey especially when it comes to age. Though, come to think of it, it is not fun to have to check the last box for a few things like marital status: (single, married, divorced, seeing someone, it's complicated, please mom get off my back, married in some states but not most).

With other categories it might be fun to check the last box say the one for educational level (high school, some college, college, some post-grad, graduate degree, PhD, good god are you EVER going to stop going to school?) or the income level boxes (0-$20,000 a year, $25,000-$40,000, $40,000-$65,000, $65,000-$100,000, $100,000 to more than anyone really needs).

It's getting so I am a little embarrassed to have to check that age box at all. Sometimes when I'm filling out forms in the doctor's office, I let my hand hover near the top of the list in case anyone is watching (which reminds me of the game we used to play at University of Michigan when we'd go see our grades posted--since they posted them in the order from 4.0 to 0.0 with our student ID number next to them we would all tilt our heads up as if looking at the top of the list while our eyes scanned down the list until we finally came to our actual grade--I nearly gave my eyes a hernia trying to keep my head up but see my calc grade).

Anyhoo, I am digressing. Back to the old age thing. I think it is kind of weird that Letterman who is 62 and Leno who is 59 are chasing after the 18-49 year old viewers (though not as weird as chasing after that age group in the office--bah-ding-bang!).

Maybe I'll write to the TV station and complain about this age-ism. But I better hurry because in eight months my letter will just end up in the "50 and over" pile.

THE SUMMER OF '03

I saw him for the first time in a long time the other day. He stopped by for a few minutes. We laughed and joked and just for a moment it felt like old times. But it didn't last long. I could tell he was thinking of her; the latest in his succession of women; I even know her name--it's Martha, a good friend who lives in the neighborhood. He always has them lined up like that --one right after another. Sometimes he even juggles two or three at a time. He's very organized that way plus he has Oscar and Alberto to help him with the heavy lifting.

I'm talking about my contractor of course, what did you think I meant!

Yes, my contractor, Michael. He stopped by to look at a leak in my bathroom ceiling. He's the guy who added on two baths, a sunroom and an expanded kitchen for us in the summer of '03. We saw each other every day back then, that golden summer, huddled over grout samples, discussing the placement of outlets and waste water pipes. Those were heady days.


I remember running into my friend Carrie in the grocery store during that time. "How's the construction going?" she asked me.

"Great!" I said, "I love my contractor."

"Oh that's good," she said, "That makes such a difference."

"No, I mean, I LOVE my contractor."

She nodded knowingly. "That's very common. Like falling for your shrink or your doctor. They're the perfect man. They do anything you tell them to."

"I know!" I said, relieved that I was not the only one. "And he knows what I want."

"Totally!" she said.

Oh yes my friend, Michael knows what a woman wants. He should--he's been pleasing them for years. He knows we want lockers for the kids' stuff, double-hung closets, and a counter to fold our laundry. Those are just the little things he remembers. He knows about the big stuff too like making sure the workers are there on time every day and having them clean up after themselves.


Yes, we spent a glorious summer together as he knocked out walls and built my dream house. And then one day when an autumn wind blew through, and the counters finally arrived, he finished installing the garbage disposal, hooked his thumbs in his tool belt, cocked his head and declared the job to be done. And he walked out of my life for good. (Except for last year when he came and redid the basement.)

It was good to see him the other day but I could tell his mind wasn't on my leaky ceiling. No, it was on Martha's drywalling that was going up that day. I could see that. It's okay. I know, that's just how it goes. Right now it's all about Martha and that's how it should be.

I saw Martha at a neighborhood party Saturday. I couldn't help but ask her how it was going.

"It's great. It's like having a second husband!" she enthused. "When he comes in every morning I call out, 'Hi honey!'"

Damn her! I never thought to call him honey. Maybe if I did he'd still be here, fixing that leak in my ceiling. Adding shelves to the laundry room. Re-doing the old bathroom that's causing the leak.

My only consolation is that this won't last. No, my dear Martha, when the counters go in and the garbage disposal is all hooked up he'll do the same to you that he did to me. He'll move on. Who knows where. Maybe an addition in Highland Park. Could be a teardown in Arlington Heights. But make no mistake, a man like Michael is always looking for the next job, moving forward, moving on. And then you'll be just like me and the rest of the women he's left behind--just another former client.

But take heart, you'll always have the summer of '09 --and that fabulous double-hung walk-in closet. No one can take that away from you.

CASSEROLES CURE CANCER

The first lasagna came the first night I got home from the hospital. Jeff and I were switching off between the hospital with Lilly and being home with the other two kids and it was my night home. The doorbell rang and it was my neighbor Bill. He looked ashen and held a lasagna in his hands. "I'm sorry to bother you but Marjorie and I wanted you to have this. You can freeze it if you need to." Behind him I could see my next door neighbor Sue looking disapproving. It was her job to keep the crowds away and manage the meals. Bill had slipped by her and she wasn't happy about it. I smiled and waved her off.

Under Sue's expert management, the meals came twice a week. There would have been more if we had wanted between the nursery school, the elementary school, and our church we were inundated. At one point, I ran into a friend in the grocery store. "I tried to get on your meal list but it's easier to sign up for the Titan swim classes," she said, referring to a popular class that you have to camp out for to get your kid into.

The truth is I had plenty of time to cook. We only went to the hospital for chemo once a week and the rest of the week looked (though it did not feel) fairly normal. I kidded Jean the social worker at Children's Memorial. "It's like people think casseroles can cure cancer,"

She laughed and then said, "People want to help. Let them." And so I did.

And it was good. These women, having made countless meals for each other as each child was born were expert at putting together a fabulous, nutritious, kid-friendly meal with a bottle of wine thrown in for mom and dad. But it was more than that, much more than that. Their meals were prayers in action; a ritualistic offering; quite simply they were love you could eat.

I've been remembering those days lately because I've been called on to make a few meals for church members. Young and old, facing illness and too much time in a hospital. I am so very grateful for the chance to make these meals. To give back just a little to the universe that fed us so well seven years ago. To deliver a prayer in a casserole dish.

I always said that science cured Lilly and prayer got us through it.

And the casseroles certainly helped.

PURE MICHIGAN

Stuffed raccoons for sale in an ice cream store

in a place called Michigan. Pure Michigan.

There are still places that can slow the world down just long enough for us to catch our breath. Reconnect with what really matters at one of over 11,000 crystal clear Michigan lakes, thousands of rivers and streams, and more freshwater coastline than any other state in the country. Find out what pure feels like on your Michigan vacation.

Have you heard these radio advertisements extolling the virtues of my home-state, Michigan? Here in Chicago we are bombarded by them. The narrarator sounds like George Clooney and he describes a near-Nirvana that you can find in Michigan. Sometimes I wonder what the hell he's talking about. His Michigan is magical, mystical, and full of wondrous beauty. My Michigan is full of wondrous beauty but after that, not so much. I have to believe he has never set foot in the state. For one thing, he pronounces the town I was born in as Yip-silanti, when it is really pronounced Ip-silanti. For another thing, he almost never mentions the stuff I think of when I look back fondly at the state I grew up in and still visit frequently.

So here, with apologies to my friends and family who still live in Michigan, is a more realistic advertisement for Michigan.

Cue the background music:

There's a place just 90 minutes from here where fancy cars give way to beat-up Ford trucks with charming bumper stickers that say clever things like "Gun control is holding it with two hands." A place where old cars are never sold or disposed of but are merely set up on blocks in the front yard for the neighbors to admire. Where you can keep your haute cuisine and just enjoy a coney dog.

In this magical place, everyone wears a University of Michigan or Michigan State sweatshirt even if they never set foot in a college classroom. Yes, school team loyalty is a passion sprung up no doubt in the absence of any decent professional team in a place called Michigan.

In Michigan there is a special time called hunting season which is so revered that auto factories simply shut down on the first day of deer season. In a place called Michigan, you can take the animal you shot, stuff it and hang it on the wall and it is considered fashionable decor.

Yes, in Michigan, pure Michigan, every major event is celebrated by opening the garage door, putting the lawn chairs out, and renting a keg from a place called a "party store". And at every graduation or birthday party in the garage, your uncle is sure to have snuck venison into the sloppy joes and then say proudly, "Bet you didn't even know that was deer meat, did ya city girl?"

In Michigan, pure Michigan, when you ask someone where they're from they don't need a map, they simply hold up their left hand and show you. And if you drew a line from the base of your pinkie to the base of your pointer (that would be Muskegon to Bay City) anything above the line is a wonderful place called "Up North."

Up North is a wonderful place full of bars where men wear baseball caps with the names of farm equipment manufacturers on them and women who should not, wear tube tops. And in the winter at these magical Up North bars, the height of fashion is to wear your unzipped half-hanging down snowmobile suit.

Up North is where everyone you know has a cottage (never a lakehouse or a cabin) and you are always welcome there where you can be sure to play Euchre and drink beer while it rains the entire weekend.

Yes, there's a magical place and it's waiting just for you, a short drive from here.

It's Pure Michigan.