SHAMELESS COMMERCIAL PLUG

Dut Tah Tah Daaaahhh! My new business!

HappyHostessGifts.com

The last time I was bemoaning the state of the publishing world in general and my lack of paid gigs in particular, Jeff suggested gently that I might want to try a new way to make a little cabbage--the old, "keep writing and blogging and hope I get discovered and on Oprah" plan having not panned out so much. He suggested I turn to one of the growing businesses out there--internet sales and god knows I'm familiar with that market as I buy almost everything except groceries and cars online (I know, you can buy those too, but I don't).

And so after kicking a few ideas around and brainstorming with a renowned retail consultant (my niece Layne) I decided to open an online gift shop of really cool gifts that you could take to a party as a hostess gift. (What, you may ask is a hostess gift? And many have. It's a nice little gift you take to hand the hostess when you have been invited to a party instead of bringing the usual bottle of wine you picked up at Trader Joe's on the way over.)

The entire process of coming up with the idea, figuring out what exactly is entailed with starting an online business, applying for the myriad of business numbers and licenses, meeting with my accountant and a banker, finding and working with a web designer, and oh yeah by the way, shopping for and amassing inventory, would probably take an ambitious web-savvy person about two months. I managed to drag it out to six months. But in my defense. No I don't really have a defense. It just took me that long.

Anyhoo, today I announce to you, my loyal readers, that I have started a new business called Happy Hostess Gifts (second, not so subtle, chance to check it out!). I even hope you might buy something and send the link on to two or three of your favorite people.

My hope is that the site will be fun and entertaining (for the reader as well as me of course) AND a great place to find a hostess gift. Most of the items are gifts I actually have received over the years. Well, not the actual gift, that would be re-gifting--I mean I got the idea from an actual gift. For example, the fun fashion rubber gloves are the same kind Jennifer K. gave me a few Christmases ago at our annual bash and I LOVE to wear those while I clean the toilet and pretend I am Bree VanDeKamp.

My new plan is to get this site up and running, sell a few things then get on Oprah to talk about it and have a wealthy business investor beg me to sell her the site (like the Facebook guy although he still said no to the latest offer of several billion--yes that's with a b--and who can blame him he's only 26 and what on earth would he do with all the money and free time?)

So thanks in advance for helping me realize my dream. And for those of you into that sort of thing you can follow my business on Facebook or Twitter.

GOING HOME

Though Jeff and I moved to the Chicago area 24 years ago, we still sometimes say "going home" when talking about going back to Michigan for family events or visits. Last weekend I went home for my sister's retirement party. I don't get back there very often anymore. Before kids we went home every few months. When the kids were very little we still tried to get there for major holidays and events but not so much anymore.

I don't like this but what can you do? When you move away four hours (now up to six hours thanks to ever-increasing and unavoidable Chicago traffic) and when you go from two of you to five of you (and two of them are teenagers with lives of their own) you aren't as mobile as you'd like to be. This does not make the people back home happy. My mother gamely tells me about every baby shower, dance recital, and pig roast that she thinks I should attend involving any of my dozens of cousins (some of them are HER second cousins, I don't even know what that makes them to me, twice removed or something) but for the most part we just can't pull it off which is why we're down to weddings, funerals, reunions, and retirements (for parents/grandparents/siblings/nieces & nephews only).

Those who have not moved away from home and indeed some who have not moved out of the zip code they were raised in, are not very understanding or sympathetic of those of us who have. In fact, I have come to realize there are a lot of unwritten rules about an arrangement like this. I know from talking to other friends who have "moved away" that these rules are pretty universal.

Here are some of the unwritten rules I've learned in 24 years of living away from "back home".

1) If you are the one who moved away, you are the one who has to come visit. It does not work the other way around." Yes, this defies logic and even common sense but still the grandmas and the aunties like to say "Gosh, it's been a long time since you came to visit" even though most of them have never been to your home or have been only once a long, long time ago.

2) No matter how long it has been since you moved away; no matter how far away you now live; no matter how busy you are; no matter how many kids of your own you have; no matter how much traffic you must battle--you are still expected to attend major events. I don't know if this applies to people when they get to a certain level of busy-ness or have so clearly made a new life for themselves far away. Maybe Oprah's cousins still ask if she will be attending the annual Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps George Clooney's sister expects him to attend her daughter's ballet recital. I don't know but I know in my family and in most families, this stuff is still expected.

3) It is the right, nay the duty, of those who have chosen to stay in the childhood town to make fun of those who moved to "the big city." Though you would not make fun of the podunk town you have escaped, they feel free to tell you that they would NEVER live in the city you have chosen. The traffic is awful, there are too many people, the housing is outrageous, and the last time they visited they had to pay $6.00 for a Coors Light!

4) It's best to sneak into town and out of town without telling too many people. No matter how many of the family and friends you want to visit you will never be able to see them all so you will have to resort to sneaking in to town. My sister now does this to me since two of her three kids live about 20 minutes from me. The fact is by the time you make the long drive and have a nice visit with whomever you've come to see you have NO energy or desire to try to cram in one more visit. I'm okay with that since I've had to do it for about 24 years now.

And finally, the most important rule of all:

5) Regardless of how long you've been away, and how much you love where you live it's nice to know that when you go back home, you are always welcome. Because that's what home is all about.

If I've missed any more rules (Jennifer K. I'm thinking of you by the way) please let me know.

BUENA SUERTE SRA SERAFA

My former high school Spanish teacher, Ms. Serafa is retiring this month and I wanted to send her a photo of the fantastic trip to Spain she took us on in the summer of '77. So I dusted off my photo album and found this picture. Atticus (16)looked at it with disbelief. "Is that girl holding a cigarette?" he asked--yes, I explained, students used to smoke in front of their teachers if they were over 16. , "And what's in all those cups?" Beer and wine silly! We were in Spain for crying out loud!

Sometimes when I regale my kids with a story of my own teen years Atticus will sigh and say, "You guys had so much fun." Usually this is in reference to something stupid and reckless we did which is now prohibited (which would be pretty much everything)--such as doing donuts in the school parking lot on a snowy day or cruisin' down Main Street with six or seven girls in the car, the radio turned up, and one of us hanging on to a coat hanger because the car antennae had long since fallen off. Current laws forbid driving in a car with more than one non-related teenager until you are 18. The law is perfectly sensible but not much fun.

This picture is just photographic evidence of a time long gone when kids were allowed to get in trouble some times and teachers and parents did not bail their asses out if they did. At our last reunion a friend reminded me of a band trip they had taken to Jamaica in the late 70's. On the way back through customs, one of the drug dogs sniffed out the pot the drummer had (surprise) and the police pulled him aside. When it came time to board the plane the police were still working the idiot over. One of the chaperones said to Willie, our band director, "Hey what are we going to do about him?" and Willie said, "F*** him. We're going home." And they did. No one got sued. I don't think anyone was even annoyed with Willie for leaving the chuckle-head there. In fact, I think his parents let him sit in a Jamaican jail a day or two before coming to get him.

Yes, kids. These things really did happen once upon a time in America. Kids got in trouble and their parents made them pay the consequences without the help of attorneys and phone calls made to authorities (well, unless you were a Kennedy).

It was indeed a different time and I thank Ms. Serafa and her husband Pete who were only in their mid-20s when they took us all to Europe and allowed us to have fun and even if it meant we might get into trouble. I thank them for turning a blind eye to some of our behavior and thank Pete for pretending to believe us when we missed curfew and said it was because we had not set our watches to local time (three weeks into the trip). It was a great trip and I know it changed my life, opening up a world I did not know existed and showing a sheltered girl from the suburbs everything from the running of the bulls in Pamplona to the majesty of the Alhambra in Granada to the late night discos of Madrid.

Now, thanks to overprotective parents and aggressive law suits most teachers don't take these trips. Those who do go have to impose such restrictions on the kids and themselves that they pretty much take all the fun out of travel (a teacher friend recently chaperoned a trip to Ireland. No one, not even the adults when they were alone, had a beer. Not one beer on a trip to Ireland. I weep for humanity.)

So today I salute Ms. Serafa as she moves on from her 35 years of teaching. I thank her of course for her countless hours of fantastic classroom teaching. And I thank her and Pete for showing Europe to me and so many others for the first time. I wish them well as they move on to the next adventure in their lives and I hope they can have a fraction of the fun we all did that summer.

And to Atticus I say, you will have plenty of your own fun and you will be ultimately safer than we were.

But you're right, sometimes, we did have more fun.

ARE YOU A HOARDER OR A PITCHER?

We had a dumpster in the driveway a few weeks back. Nothing gets the neighbors talking like a dumpster in the driveway and I don't blame them. You see a dumpster and you know something big is going on--anything from a new bathroom all the way up to a complete house demolition.

So when my neighbors inquired about it I had fun giving them the truth--no project, just throwing some stuff away.

People reacted to this intel in two distinct ways --they either 1) became completely puzzled as to how someone could fill a dumpster of everyday household items or 2) were instantly smitten with the idea and wanted to know how to order one. The difference is based on whether the listener was a hoarder or a pitcher. I am obviously a pitcher. I am an extreme pitcher. If you set it down and don't use it for a few days I am likely to throw it out. Stuff does not make me feel good or comforted. It makes me feel smothered and claustrophobic.

As with all big house projects I didn't just wake up one day and say "I think I'll order a dumpster." No, it started with a small and simple sentence when Wine Friend 1 mentioned that she'd heard second refrigerators use a lot of electricity and we should unplug them. This is particularly relevant around here becaues just about everyone has a second refrigerator left over from a remodel (done back in the go-go mid-2000s) when we all put it in the garage or basement and filled it with extra beer. Then our kids became teenagers and we all emptied our refrigerators.

I went home and checked what was in my second fridge and found two boxes of very old Girl Scout cookies, a dish of pudding circa 2007, and crickets for Lilly's pet frog. I pitched it all (except the crickets) and unplugged the fridge.

But this story goes on in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie fashion because the very next day I was driving along when I heard an ad on the radio from ComEd telling me if I unplugged my second fridge they would come and haul it away AND pay me $25. The only caveat was they needed easy access to it. Which was a problem because it was in the basement in the former laundry room buried under seven years of crap and after careful consideration I decided there was really too much junk to just move it around into different piles. What I needed was to get rid of it all. What I needed was a dumpster. But, I wondered, how does that work?

The very next day I had my final Church Lady breakfast of the year and I threw the question out to the crowd. They are a very resourceful group of women and I knew if anyone would know, they would know. They did. Call our garbage service and they will bring you any size dumpster you want then pick it up when you want (for a price of course).

And that's why there was a dumpster in our driveway a couple weeks ago. First I cleared out the basement, then Jeff moved on to the shed, and finally he finished up with that attic above the garage. He was skekptical at first that we could fill a dumpster but we filled that puppy to the brim.

I share this with you all so that if you are a pitcher you may know how simple it is to achieve pitching nirvana. If you live with a hoarder, I am sorry as I know you could never pull this off and I know your opposing views on stuff cause domestic strife.

As for me, I'm just happy as a clam, light as a feather, and pleased as punch to be 6 square yards of junk lighter.

Oh yeah, and I got rid of the second fridge too. Thanks ComEd!

I'M FIFTY

So today I turn fifty and I thought I ought to say something about this momentous occasion. I don't have any particular wisdom to impart so I'll just share some random thoughts about the whole thing. To all my peers, NHS class of '78, this one's for you:

- First of all I have to say that fifty really is old. You can no longer put a good spin on it and saying "Fifty is the new forty" does not make it so. No matter how you slice it you are well into middle age and on your way to old age. But I don't find this dismaying--instead I find it liberating.We are grownups and we can stop running so fast and let those younger people carry some of the weight. At last we have arrived.

-At fifty you should stop trying to suck your stomach in. As a friend once said, "The other day I noticed the cat was sitting on my lap. Then I remembered I don't have a cat." The point is, by 50 everyone has a cat sitting on his or her lap. Stop trying to fight it. Enjoy your cat. Exhale.

-We are happier: new studies out just this week declare it so. Happiness peaks at 18, declines rapidly as the real world throws its crap at us and doesn't pick up again until we are 50. So if you feel as good as you did your senior year in high school, you are probably 50 or older. Life IS good.

-People who fight too hard against aging look foolish. Madonna and Melanie Griffith come to mind. Yes they might be thinner or tauter but they are also kind of freaky. They do not look better. So do not try to be like them. As my friend Christie Mellor says in the title of her book, "You Look Fine, Really". Most people would rather look at Meryl Streep than Madonna. Embrace your inner Meryl Streep.

-And finally, when you have an older sister, mother, and grandmother still alive and all quite active, how old can you really feel? Yes, when my sister got her first AARP card (8 years ago) she said it made her feel old. Then my mom pointed out that when your first child gets her AARP card you feel old. Then my grandma chimed in saying that when your first grandchild gets her AARP card you feel really old. So how old can I feel? We have many more years ahead and miles to go before we sleep. Just ask my grandma.

Happy birthday to the class of '78. Happy birthday to us all.

THE DUMPSTER: HOARDERS AND PITCHERS

We had a dumpster in the driveway a few weeks back. Nothing gets the neighbors talking like a dumpster in the driveway and I don't blame them. You see a dumpster and you know something big is going on--anything from a new bathroom all the way up to a complete house demolition.

So when my neighbors inquired about it I had fun giving them the truth--no project, just throwing some stuff away.

People reacted to this intel in two distinct ways --they either 1) became completely puzzled as to how someone could fill a dumpster of everyday household items or 2) were instantly smitten with the idea and wanted to know how to order one. The difference is based on whether the listener was a hoarder or a pitcher. I am obviously a pitcher. I am an extreme pitcher. If you set it down and don't use it for a few days I am likely to throw it out. Stuff does not make me feel good or comforted. It makes me feel smothered and claustrophobic.

As with all big house projects I didn't just wake up one day and say "I think I'll order a dumpster." No, it started with a small and simple sentence when Wine Friend 1 mentioned that she'd heard second refrigerators use a lot of electricity and we should unplug them. This is particularly relevant around here becaues just about everyone has a second refrigerator left over from a remodel (done back in the go-go mid-2000s) when we all put it in the garage or basement and filled it with extra beer. Then our kids became teenagers and we all emptied our refrigerators.

I went home and checked what was in my second fridge and found two boxes of very old Girl Scout cookies, a dish of pudding circa 2007, and crickets for Lilly's pet frog. I pitched it all (except the crickets) and unplugged the fridge.

But this story goes on in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie fashion because the very next day I was driving along when I heard an ad on the radio from ComEd telling me if I unplugged my second fridge they would come and haul it away AND pay me $25. The only caveat was they needed easy access to it. Which was a problem because it was in the basement in the former laundry room buried under seven years of crap and after careful consideration I decided there was really too much junk to just move it around into different piles. What I needed was to get rid of it all. What I needed was a dumpster. But, I wondered, how does that work?

The very next day I had my final Church Lady breakfast of the year and I threw the question out to the crowd. They are a very resourceful group of women and I knew if anyone would know, they would know. They did. Call our garbage service and they will bring you any size dumpster you want then pick it up when you want (for a price of course).

And that's why there was a dumpster in our driveway a couple weeks ago. First I cleared out the basement, then Jeff moved on to the shed, and finally he finished up with that attic above the garage. He was skekptical at first that we could fill a dumpster but we filled that puppy to the brim.

I share this with you all so that if you are a pitcher you may know how simple it is to achieve pitching nirvana. If you live with a hoarder, I am sorry as I know you could never pull this off and I know your opposing views on stuff cause domestic strife.

As for me, I'm just happy as a clam, light as a feather, and pleased as punch to be 6 square yards of junk lighter.

Oh yeah, and I got rid of the second fridge too. Thanks ComEd!

PROM NIGHT

It's prom night in Glenview and of course all week the town has been getting ready. My neighbor finished sewing her daughter's dress and brought it over for me to admire. Hair and nail appointments were made. Boutonnieres and corsages ordered. It's a fun and magical time.

The school is gearing up for it too. Yesterday I took Atticus up to school early so he could help with the sound for the bi-annual anti-drunk-driving demonstration the school puts on for its seniors and juniors during prom week. As I dropped him off I grilled him about it but he didn't know much--just that they had some kind of program out at the football field and he'd be working the sound board.

When I picked him up after school he told me all about it so here is what went on at my kids' school yesterday, according to Atticus:

All the juniors and seniors came out to the football field and the principle spoke about the dangers of drunk driving and texting while driving. He spoke eloquently about how this has affected him personally. He told the kids that texting now kills about as many kids as drunk driving. Behind him were two vehicles shrouded in tarps with firemen standing on each side. As he finished his speech two firemen pulled the tarps off dramatically. Jobee, a senior sound guy leaned in and told Atticus to make sure the mikes were up full volume. As the tarps came off there was a bloodcurdling scream from inside one of the cars. Then there was a multitude of crying and screaming from both the cars.

The cars which had been smashed by the firemen to simulate a car accident were full of student actors in prom dresses and tuxes. They had fake blood all over them and volunteer nurses had applied makeup to look like actual wounds. The kids screamed and cried and then the actor playing the drunk kid got out of the car looking bewildered, trying to help his date and the two couples trapped in the other car. Soon a Glenview cop car pulled out from behind the field house, sirens blaring and pulled up to the "accident". He radioed the accident in (he and the radio had mikes on them) saying there were two possible fatalities. The drunk driver grew more distraught and when the ambulance pulled up and the EMTs started working on the victims the police officer administered a field sobriety test to him, which he failed. The EMTs called for back up and a fire truck which had been parked around the school roared on to the field.

They announced they'd need the jaws of life to get the kids out. They pulled out the equipment and ripped the car open like a can opener (Atticus said one of the actors is in his math class and he said THAT was scary, having a giant metal claw a few inches from his head). The police officer cuffed the drunk driver and put him in the squad car and drove away. Just then they could hear a helicopter and soon the med-vac copter dispatched from the hospital next door roared over their heads landing in the middle of the field. The EMTs got out and hustled two of the victims into the helicopter and flew off.

The remaining two kids, a boy and a girl in their bloodied tux and gown lay lifeless on the ground. A hearse, driven by a former Glenview student who now owns a local funeral home pulled up. He and his partner got out and quietly zipped each student into a body bag and loaded them up.

As the hearse drove away, a firefighter who has had to do this in real life got up and spoke to the kids about the horror of it. He wept as he talked.

By now a lot of the kids were crying and when he finished speaking the 1,000 or so kids were silent.

Now, usually I kind of make fun of the over-the-top stuff they do at my kids' school. But in this case I have to say that this is an impressive and admirable use of the dramatic arts. Can you even imagine the adrenaline, heart-pumping scenario of hearing sirens and helicopters and watching them zip your fellow student into a body bag? If just one kid out of that thousand doesn't get behind the wheel of a car drunk for the rest of his or her life because of this re-enactment, lives could be saved. I wish every school in this country had the resources to do this for their students.

When I dropped Atticus off yesterday morning at 6:50 I saw the actors in their tuxes and gowns as they walked out to the football field, the early sun on their backs, and I was puzzled about who it was and why they were there. I don't know why but the hair on my arms stood up because there in the mist, for just a moment, I thought they were the ghosts of prom-night accidents past.

It's prom night in Glenview and around the country. God bless and keep everyone safe.

AWARD SEASON!

This is a repeat from last year. Partly because it is so appropriate this time of year and partly because I have writer's block.

Enjoy!

The month of May in Glenview (and in many school districts I suspect) means lots and lots of award ceremonies for all our brilliant and talented children. Of course, in a world where kids can't attend a birthday party without getting a custom-made T-shirt, we would not expect them to finish up their school year without making sure each and every one of the little darlings is given an award, a plaque, a certificate and a big round of applause just for being you!

This means that as a parent you will get a letter or a phone call from the school inviting you to attend an award ceremony because your son or daughter has received an award for some great scholastic or athletic achievement at school.

At least that's what you think the first time you get one of those letters or calls. You get the video camera fired up and see if you can talk a grandparent or spouse or a child into going with you for the big event.

Imagine your disappointment (not to mention your mother's irritation) when you get there and find out the award is for "Good Effort In French" which is an award given to just about any kid who attended the class on a semi-regular basis. Heh heh you smile apologetically at your mom for keeping her from her Pilates class as your brilliant progeny traipses across the multi-purpose room along with a dozen or so other slackers while Mademoiselle Jones hands him a "special certificate" she just printed out on her computer and says with a big smile, "Tres bien!"

I am only exaggerating a little here. To be fair, they also give out awards to children who really deserve the recognition for the nearly herculean efforts they put into the school year and the extra-curricular activities they participate in. The problem is that when you are invited to attend an award ceremony you have NO idea if your kid is going to get a real award or a bogus award. So you go, and since you've been duped before you don't make a big deal about it or even tell your spouse because you don't want him to take time off to watch your kid get an award for being above average in social studies. And THAT will be the time your kid actually wins the school award for all-around kid greatness that goes to only one kid and the newspaper will be there and they'll want a picture of your entire family and they'll wonder how such a great kid could come from such an apathetic family.

Well, that has never happened to me but it nearly happened to my friend Kelly who, a few years back, sent her husband off to work with reassurances that their son TJ would be getting some meaningless award only to find out that he was about to set a school record for receiving the most (real) awards. Thank goodness for cell-phones. We fondly remember that event as the "TJ Awards Ceremony" around here.

Of course it helps if you can crack the code. Last year I was going to the meaningless award ceremony (You're only invited to this one if your kid is going to win several meaningless awards, I have at least figured that much out by now) only to see the parents of the superstars leaving the building. "Hey, where are you all going?" I asked naively. TJ's mom explained gently, "Oh,they have the school-wide awards first. They just finished up," she said, trying to hide behind her back the stash of gold medals and award statues her son had just won. She's a modest woman.

WTF? They have the real awards first then break up into classes for the meaningless awards and I didn't even KNOW that?

All of this came back to me yesterday when I got a letter inviting me to the Science Awards Ceremony at the High School. This is the first year I have someone in high school so now I have to try to decode the ceremony system there too. I was quite suspect of the invitation. For one thing Atticus is barely carrying a B+ in that class. Can they really award that? Maybe he found a cure for a disease or something. So I asked him about it when he got home.

"Oh that. It's nothing. I think the teacher has to give out a certain number of awards and our class is so lame he had to choose me. I wouldn't come unless you're incredibly bored."

"So you knew you were getting it?"

"Yeah. The teacher had me address the envelope to you."

Wow. That is an honor. Here, send this letter to your mom so she'll know we're giving you this prestigious award. (author update--went to the ceremony--it was a ruse to get the younger kids to see the amazing things the older kids are doing in science--a sort of science PR event if you will)

So I'm proposing an award system code that is just for the parents. The invitation to the award ceremony could have a three-tier code system like our oh-so-helpful homeland security threat system:

Code Blue: This is a perfunctory award given to your kid because he or she has not physically harmed anyone in this class and did show up, fully dressed almost every day of the school year. Come if you can squeeze it in between the grocery trip and the bill-paying.

Code Yellow: This is an actual award only the top 15% of the class will be given. Nifty certificates with their names printed on them will be given! You may want to attend this and even make an attempt to photograph the event on your cell-phone.

Code Orange (also known as the TJ code): This is a REAL award. Your son or daughter not only got all A's but also headed up a project to implement an easy-to-use recycling system for the cafeteria that involves the help of the special needs kids AND led the basketball team to a state-wide victory (another author update...Grace actually won one of these last year and I was able to attend the early award ceremony for high achievers...and I was restrained and only said "In your face" once to Kelly who was there with her usual armload of awards) Bring your family and your camera and your video camera with tripod.

Happy awards season. I hope your children get many awards, real and otherwise!

SURPRISE ME

Lilly's birthday present. It's NOT a surprise.

When it comes to gift-giving surprises there are two kinds of people: 1)Those who will go to great lengths to NOT figure out what gifts are being amassed or plans being laid for them and 2)The criminally insane.

Guess which one I am? Once when I was seven, I accidentally saw the doll bottle my brother John bought me for Christmas (he hid it in MY closet for crying out loud) and I can honestly say I am not exaggerating when I tell you I was wracked with guilt. I could not look him in the eye until Christmas morning when I unwrapped it and declared very unconvincingly (I am a terrible liar too) "Thank you! What a surprise!"

So I was more than a little taken aback to learn relatively recently that both my girls possess criminal minds. They will go to great lengths to figure out what their gifts are. In fact, one of them confessed that a few years back they actually UNWRAPPED a Christmas gift under the tree while Jeff and I were out to dinner. Of course, then they had to wrap it back up which was a problem because Grace wraps gifts very well and I, well, I don't. So after she re-wrapped it, Lilly had to tell her it was too good and she had to do it all over again only messy.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that they differ so drastically on this topic from me. It may be in their genes. I remember that my Grandma Zimmerman, quite possibly the sweetest, kindest person I have known in my life, exhibited these tendencies. In the last few years of her life she started opening her Christmas presents a week early. It gave her a great guilty pleasure to do this and she giggled like a school girl at the shock on our faces when she confessed to doing this.

Lilly's birthday is next week and she's been pestering me for days to tell her what I'm getting her and I just keep shooing her away. I refuse to tell her. I mean, we just can't do that--can we?

You know, when you think about it, people do go to ridiculous lengths to keep birthday secrets. I am reminded of my friend Sondra who once planned a 50th birthday surprise party for her husband. After weeks of finding her having surreptitious phone calls which ended when he came in the room he confronted her. Was she having an affair? No, no she denied it but did not reveal what was really going on. Why, I asked her, didn't she just tell him, for the sake of her marriage, that she was planning a birthday party? "What?" she asked in horror, "And ruin the surprise!"

I thought about that and the whole keeping it a secret thing (I'm in general NOT a fan of keeping anything a secret) so when Lilly pestered me for the umpteenth time last week I finally said, "Okay fine. You really want to know? You really want to ruin the surprise?" and she said yes and I told her. And nothing happened. The gift police did not arrest either of us and the world kept spinning.

Strangely she has shown no regret or remorse for having finagled this info out of me. In fact it seems to give her great pleasure to be able to enjoy the knowledge of her gift before she actually has it. I guess it's like knowing the sex of a baby (something I refused to find out--go figure)--while it does take a small element of surprise out of the event it hardly makes the baby any less of a gift.

So maybe it's okay that Lilly knows she is getting a new outdoor bunny hutch and that she's running around making plans for where to put it. And I guess the "I want to know what I'm getting now" gene skips a couple of generations.

As for me, I like to be surprised, so don't hide my gifts in my closet.

AU REVOIR!

The local high school has been hosting some French students the last few weeks and I seem to hear about them all the time. The local paper did a feature on them; both Atticus and Grace have met them all since they came to speak to their French classes; and Lilly's friend Carolyn's family is hosting one of them. That's some of them in the photo wearing sunglasses they received as a gift from the American students.

It seems everyone loves them. They are beautiful and they speak with that most coveted of all accents. Lilly gets updates from Carolyn about the student they are hosting. His name is Tristan and here are the stories she's collected so far:


On day 1 when he woke up after sleeping off his jet-lag for hours, Carolyn asked if he would like something to drink. Tristan responded, "No thank you, I do not thirst."

Day 3 he discovered Eggo Waffles and now each morning he asks for them.

Day 4: his host mom asked if he'd like to drive the car and he said yes. She asked if he were scared and he said yes.

Day 5: when asked if he wanted more Eggo Waffles he said, "No thank you. My stomach is already crowded."

So when Atticus and Grace brought a note home from their French teacher asking if we'd be willing to host a French student who may be stranded by the volcanic ash incident (a different group than the Glenview group--these kids have been in Ohio but are scheduled to fly out of O'Hare tomorrow) we raised our hands enthusiastically and said "OUI".

Cute French kids that say hilarious things like "my stomach is crowded". Heck yes, sign us up.

Unfortunately for us, with the planes flying again it looks like we won't get one after all. In fact, even if they are stranded we may not get one because it turns out that we were just one of 40 families who raised their hands and said "OUI" and there are only 9 students who might need to be housed.

And you gotta love that. I'm quite certain that all over the US there are families opening their doors to stranded exchange students and the same thing is happening in Europe to stranded American students.

So despite the lost commerce of last week's volcanic episode you gotta love the whole thing: that we were reminded that yes indeed, Europe is very, very far away and hard to get to without planes; that it isn't just terrorist attacks that ground planes but mother nature too; that when people are displaced and need a place to stay there are always friendly families willing to open their doors and just say "Bonjour, may I get you an Eggo Waffle?"

ARE YOU A GOOD PARENT?

These are the days of self-doubt and reflection for me and my peers. Many of us are coming up on 50 and our kids are about to launch into the real world. With this collision of events you could not be human without having doubts about where you are in life and whether or not you've done a good job with the kids.

I just spent time with a friend who expressed doubts about her parenting. This was shocking since she has --by anyone's assessment-- some of the most talented and nicest children I know. But still she wonders if she's done enough and worries that mistakes have been made. This is proof I suppose that only a bad parent would never question the job he or she has done. The good ones take a look at it frequently and readjust as needed.

But how are we supposed to know if were doing a good job? Too many parents look to the easy assessments--grades, advanced/honors classes, elite college acceptance, awards, athletic accomplishments, invitations to dances. Yes all of these achievements (or lack of them) are easy to quantify but that doesn't make them valid assessors. We know they tell a very incomplete story. We know the super star athlete who is so stressed by the pressure he commits suicide or the over-achiever with the big smile who has a secret eating disorder. We also know these superficial measures of success do not predict future achievements or happiness. We've seen it all by now, the valedictorian who didn't do much; the homecoming queen thrice divorced; the captain of the football team who never surpassed the glory of his senior year. So how DO we know if we've been doing a good job?

My friend Christie Mellor has a list of how to measure success that I like very much in her new book"You Look Fine, Really" which deals with the self-doubt women in their 40's and 50's have that leads them to do silly things like get plastic surgery or inject their wrinkles with botulism. She also talks about the bigger self-doubts like wondering what on earth we've done with our life--doubts that make us wonder if we are successful. Then she lists a wonderfully insightful and reassuring check-list for us all. She suggests we:

"take a cold, hard look at what the heck you have been doing for the last forty or fifty years. Have you been learning new stuff? Have you become friends with some good people? Do your friends love you and do you love them? Do you laugh on a regular basis? Are you excited about what's coming next? Then you're a very, very successful person."

I thought of this list today after I talked to my friend and inspired by Christie I have a similar list--this one to determine if you have been a successful parent:

Take a good long look at your child. Is he kind? Is he respectful of you, teachers, grandparents, and his siblings? Does he help when he sees someone in need? Is he very good at something (it does not matter what--just one thing that is "his thing")? Does he know how to work hard to achieve a goal? Can he hold a conversation with an adult? Does he have at least one good friend? Is he happy? If so then you have been a very, very successful parent.

If you can say yes to all of that you've done a fine job. The rest--finding a fulfilling life vocation, building a loving family, and whatever hopes and dreams you have for your child will take care of itself because you have provided him with the basic building blocks.

So my friends, stop worrying, you look fine, really. And yes, you are very,very good parent.

YOUNG LOVE

The waiter circles back for the third time to check on Jeff and me. We have been deep in conversation for some time so he says politely, "Do you have any questions?"

"Yes," I say looking up from Jeff, "Is our 14-year-old daughter too young to date?"

"Hmm, does her boyfriend drive or do you have to drive them everywhere?"

"He's 16 but doesn't have a license yet. We have to drive."

"Well, that's not dating, that's a playdate. Here's the wine list," he says and leaves us.

Yes, Grace, my Freshman has a boyfriend, Billy, a Junior, and love is in the air. This has caught us completely off guard. Whereas we know just the kind of boy Lilly (11) likes (short, muscular, dark, and slightly bad-boy), and Atticus has had girlfriends and friends who are girls since 6th grade, Grace never discusses boys even the movie star kind. Also, for some ridiculous reason, I thought because I was a late bloomer my daughter would be too. Silly me.

It's thrown the whole household off a little. Atticus mentioned that he saw Billy in school and wasn't sure how to react, "We made awkward eye contact," he said. Jeff seemed to turn into a bit of a neanderthal dad saying, "I need to meet this boy before you go out with him!" and I'm not sure what to do.

Only Lilly is sure of her supporting role. Over spring break, Grace and Billy did something every day. By Thursday they had run out of ideas. "Mom, what should Billy and I do today?" I had no idea.

Lilly jumped in, "Well let's see, you've been to the movies, had a picnic, walked around Lake Glenview, and he helped paint your bedroom. If this were a Disney movie today would be either wash the car and spray each other with the hose or have a mis-understanding and get in a fight day. You could have a mis-understanding about me--maybe Billy is threatened by our relationship."

"Thanks, but I think we'll just go to the park and he can push me on the swings," Grace replied.

When he came over one day to watch a movie in the basement I realized just how little I understood what my role was. "Lilly, go downstairs and make sure everything's okay," I said.

She looked puzzled, "What do you mean?"

"You know, spy on them and see if they're kissing or something."

"Well, aren't they supposed to be kissing?" she said reasonably.

"Umm, well, ummm," and again I realized I was in the weeds on this. In the end I just went down every half hour or so (the "or so" is key--predictability renders the exercise useless) and asked if they wanted a snack or something. I figured that somewhere between leaving them alone with a bottle of wine and candles and sitting between them like a human bundling board (look it up) lies my role.

So that's what's going on around here. Grace is twitterpated, Atticus feels uncomfortable, Lilly is coaching, and Jeff and I are so clueless we're reduced to asking single waiters at Wildfire for parenting advice.

GLAZED HAM

My mother comes out from the kitchen and says to the room at large, "Who wants glaze on the ham?" Everyone's hand shoots up except my Grandmother who at 95 is understandably hard of hearing and fussing with her annoying hearing aid.

"What are you talking about?" she says to me as I am siting closest to her.

"Glazed ham!" I shout. She shakes her head no, she did not catch that. Now the room begins a ridiculous, yet all too familiar game of trying to get the hard of hearing person to hear you. My sister tries a little louder. "Glazed Ham!" My aunt tries, adding a bizarre hand gesture that presumably represents the drizzling of glaze on a ham. My children, lined up on the couch politely visiting with the adults are watching all of this are trying not to laugh but when Aunt Nancy adds the confusing hand gesture it is too much for them and they bust out laughing as does Jeff who is sitting with them.

"GLAZED HAM!" I shout. Grandma fusses with her hearing aid.

"It's talking to me," she says and I'm not sure what she means. Please lord, don't tell me she's hearing voices in her head. "It talks to me all the time. Tells me the batteries are going. Asks me about the settings I want."

"That's cool," I say.

She shakes her head no. "No it's not. I just want it to let me hear. Where's the button for that?"

My sister comes in from the kitchen with a note that says, "Mom wants to know if you want glaze on your ham." My grandmother reads it and registers a face that says, "Good lord is THAT all you were talking about?" She shrugs and says, "Sure."

This scene is familiar to me. As a child I was frequently in the room with an elderly relative with poor hearing. My paternal grandmother wore hearing aids for years and my great grandmother was stone deaf but wore the hearing aids in a futile attempt to hear something going on around her. I know all the tricks--speak clearly and directly. Try a different pitch rather than just talk louder. But even all of this does not always work.

My sister comments on how much this sucks. Why are hearing aids just never quite right? Unlike glasses, which seem to immediately correct the problem, I have never known anyone who popped those aids in their ears, looked around and said, "I can hear!" No, there is always the fussing and screeching and fumbling with batteries.

I already have a small amount of hearing loss--normal I assume for my age--but with the family history it is pretty much inevitable that some day I too will be staring blankly as my grandchildren shout "Glazed ham!" at me.

This will not be remotely fun for me but I hope at least it will be funny to my grandchildren. I know it is to my kids. This morning at the breakfast table I got a huge laugh from them all by just shouting, "Glazed ham!" Lilly added to the hilarity by imitating her aunt's hand gesture, the now accepted international sign for dribbling sugary syrup on a piece of pork.

Happy spring to you all. I hope you had a wonderfully glazed ham yourselves yesterday and I hope no one had to shout too much for you to hear them.

I REMEMBER YOU

Today while I was typing I made so many typos that I finally called Lilly in to the room to test me for a stroke. “Hey, when I smile do both sides of my mouth go up?” Yes she confirmed. “Tell me to raise my arms.” She gave the command and I raised both my arms. I hoped. Yes, she nodded, I really did raise both arms.
Whew! Part of the reason I worry I might be having a stroke is because my mind does seem to be going a bit. I think it’s because I’m in the “foggy years” of pre/menopause. At least I hope that’s what’s going on because if this is permanent it sucks.
My friend, umm, what’s her name, uh we went to high school and I saw her last summer. Her name starts with an A and she used to live on Eight Mile and she had to miss our Halloween party senior year because she had an emergency appendectomy and she dated Bob K., you know, umm her name is, umm, Andrea. That’s it. Andrea. I saw her for a mini-reunion last summer and she was telling us that she takes some pretty strong medication for arthritis with some unpleasant side-effects. She went to her doctor and said, “Hey this medicine is making my hair fall out and I can’t remember words for you know, stuff.”
The doctor nodded and said, “Well the medicine can make your hair fall out but it doesn’t give you problems with word retrieval. That’s your age. Studies show this peaks for women between about 49 and 51.”
What a relief. Along with the typos and the forgetfulness and the word retrieval this stuff can get worrisome. I’m happy to blame it on a phase that will pass.
For some reason I have a lot of trouble with the word “pantry”. I say to the kids, “Can you put this peanut butter in the um, you know it’s like a shed but it has food,” and finally one of them rolls his or her eyes and says, “Pantry, mom, pantry. You know this, you can do it,” they say like they’re trying to rehab a stroke victim, which I am not, as I proved earlier. Is that burned toast I smell?
I was talking about all this with my church lady friends today as we cleaned the kitchen after serving the Glenview clergy luncheon. (I totally just dropped that in there so you would be somewhat impressed with my goodness.) Anyhoo, I mentioned this word retrieval thing to my friends who are all around my age and my friend, umm, her name is, well it starts with an L and she lives over on that street next to mine and she got her MBA at Wharton. Now wait a minute, how is it I can remember she got her MBA at Wharton and I can’t remember her name is Laura when I want to? Well she mentioned that she heard this word retrieval thing is worst with those words that mean, umm, they mean something like a person, place, or thing,
“Noun?” I supplied.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
So how weird is that? I mean we never forget the word “it” or “run” or “serendipitous” but just try to remember “pantry” or the name of someone I’ve known for years and forget it.
In the meantime when I run into you at Dominick’s and it’s clear I don’t remember your name (and you apparently can’t remember mine, thank God) please don’t be offended. I DO remember that we were in book club together and that one time you brought the most awesome artichoke dip and your husband is kind of hot and works in advertising though I heard he was laid off and your kids are big jocks and you live over on the other side of town in that really nice house and you added the kitchen on a few years back and it’s got a great granite island and when Lilly was sick you brought us chicken and rice (can I have the recipe?) and once when we made Margaritas you forgot to put the top on the blender and it blew all over my kitchen.
I remember all of this.
I just can’t remember your name.

I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND

"I saw you and Jeff going for a walk the other day, holding hands so cute," Coffee Friend 2 says, almost accusingly.

I am confused so I say, "Don't you and your husband hold hands when you go for a walk?"

"It would NEVER occur to me," she says emphatically.

Hmm. This is very funny to me as she is Italian and she and her hubby are big huggers and her husband even kisses the men he greets on the cheek but they don't hold hands?

So in my late 40's I noticed for the first time that not all couples hold hands. Weird. In my family everyone holds hands. Married couples, parents and children, young siblings.

Lately my hand has been getting held less though. First Grace and now Lilly have announced they are too old to hold my hand in public. Atticus--well I don't think I've held his hand since he was 3.

I understand of course. You can't very well go to your sixth grade conference holding your mommy's hand but still, after reaching for a child's hand for sixteen years and always finding one it's a bit unnerving to reach out and grab only air.

Today in the van on the way to school I asked Lilly for a stealth hand-hold. She complied but only after making sure the angle of our arms would not give us away to any casual observer driving by.

Is this what parenthood is ultimately about? Forming incredibly tight attachments and bonds the first ten years and then learning to untangle them and let go for the next 50?

When I dropped her at the school door she turned her face in my direction. I no longer expect a kiss goodbye but at least she looked at me and smiled and thanked me for the ride. This is more than I get from my two high-schoolers. I notice they are nearly out the door before the van comes to rest, eager to start their day in their own world, shouting goodbye over their shoulders.

Which is all just how it should be and though we grieve all endings I am left in a lovely place, where this all began. Holding Jeff's hand.

MINDFULLY NEGLECTFUL

The thing about trying to be an old-school, kids-should-not-be-the-center-of-our-universe,and-they-should-suffer-the-consequences-of-their-decisions, and-learn-to-be-self-sufficient parent is that sometimes other parents simply cannot allow it. Often when I have made a purposeful decision to allow my child to learn a lesson or take a more difficult path other parents mis-read the situation as a one-time error of omission on my part. But it's not. See, what they think is my accidental ineptitude is my deliberate neglect.

As an example, I like to allow my son to walk to and from his friends' home. To you this might seem like child endangerment but to me I think a 15-year-old who shaves can walk around the neighborhood. Even in the dark. But every time I arrange for him to do so, someone offers him a ride (to clarify, I mean someone he knows--if it were a stranger then my entire premise would be faulty).

Or the time he left his bike out on garbage day when he was in the first grade despite many warnings and it got picked up (fairly) by the scrap scavengers. When I told him I would not replace the bike a neighbor got wind of the story and dug out an old one for him from her garage. And when he wanted a new PS-Game-X-Thingy and I told him he'd have to wait until his birthday the mother of his friend bought him one thinking I could not afford one. She made an excuse, "I bought this for a friend and he didn't want it" but it was still in the package so I don't think so.

People, these are teachable moments. Work with me!

This kindness and generosity extends not only to the children around here but the parents as well. I never bring a camera (much less a camcorder) to school events. This is because I want to enjoy the event then capture it in my memory. That and the realization that no one, not even you, wants to see photos (much less videos) of your kids at school events. Sorry to inform you of this truth but not even the grandparents (especially the grandparents) wants to suffer through this crap despite anything they may have said to the contrary. In fact, not even the kid at the event wants to see the photos or the videos. No, not once has one of my kids said, "Hey Mom, do you have a nice clear shot of me playing the clarinet in the fourth grade winter concert?" And I am fairly sure that no kid has ever come home from college and said, "Mom, can I borrow the video of me in the fifth-grade play, I want to show it to all the guys in the dorm." So, while I attend all my children's events, I do not record them for history. But this for some reason, makes other moms very uncomfortable. On more than one occasion a very nice, and well meaning mom has leaned over and said, "I see you forgot the camera. That happened to me once," then snapped pictures of my kids and emailed them to me. I am not making that up.

And I just remembered the time when I was snack mom for a soccer game and had not had a chance to get to the store. Screw it, I thought. The little rats can go a whole hour without fruit roll-ups and granola bars. But when I got to the game and ran into a friend from the neighborhood and told her what was going on she blanched. No, she could not allow this. She got on her bike and rode home for granola bars and juice boxes. She did this not because she felt the little tykes on the field needed snacks, no, she did this to save me. (In hindsight it was a good thing too because I don't even know what the social consequences of "failure to bring snack when you're snack mom" are--I've never seen it in 16 years.)

I believe someone once said (maybe it was me) that when it comes to parenting anyone who does more than you do is obsessive and anyone who does less is neglectful.

So please don't think I'm neglectful--I'm deliberately doing less.

That sounded a lot better in my head than it looks on paper

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.