Mo-therrr!

Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T10:27:00.000-08:00

Surprise! I'm still here!

I was a little shocked this morning to look at my old blog and discover it had been three days shy of a year since I last posted. Time flies, or something.

Since Valentine's Day has come around again, here are a few thoughts on the holiday:

I give my kids gifts on Valentine's Day. This year the gifts included Starbucks gift cards, games, books, and, for my granddaughter, a little figurine of a baby dragon breaking out of its shell. My husband got a card. I might get one, too, if he has time to swing through a card shop before the day ends.

For some reason this day for us has always been about kids rather than romance. Partly, I guess, we get all the romance we need in our day-to-day. But there's also the feeling that the most romantic thing we've done has been to produce and raise these kids. They're us, projected into the future.

I suspect Valentine's Day makes more people unhappy than happy. As I see it, there are four kinds of people: first there are the newly-in-love who adore the whole concept - a tiny segment of the population of which I have little if any firsthand knowledge. Then there are the ones in a stable relationship who don't do much by way of celebration because, after all, Christmas was just the other day, and who needs another reason to spend money and gain weight? Next up are the people in a relationship - whether happy or not - whose expectations regarding this day are never quite met. And finally, we have the people who aren't in a relationship and who wish they were. For them, this is a day to contemplate their failure to thrive in the world of romance. Sad, and not a good way to spend a day at any time, much less deep in the doldrums of February.

On the other hand, it's a very good day for people who sell cards, candy, and flowers. So there's that.

I don't know if this is a made-up holiday, or if there was an actual person named Valentine who was so spiritually inspired and inspiring that he was sanctified by the Catholic Church. Kevin Bacon played a terrific Valentine in the movie Tremors, though.

I'd love to spend Valentine's Day every year cocooned in front of a crackling fire with a good book and a bottomless pot of hot soup. I suppose it goes back to that 'February doldrums' business. In fact, if it weren't for the money to be made by the romance-merchants, I'd think this holiday was invented to lighten people's spirits in that dark space before spring begins to make itself felt. As a spirit lightener, of course, it's a bit of flop - review long paragraph above. Still, the decorations are red and white. That's gotta count for something.

All rightie, then. I've gone on long enough in this vein. If you're in the right frame of mind to enjoy this day then, by all means, have a Happy Valentine's Day. If you're not, my condolences. Next up will be Saint Paddy's Day and green beer and leprechauns, all of which I enjoy, and none of which are likely to inspire another soul-searching ramble like this one. So take heart.

All rightie, then.

2010-04-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

I installed a chunk of the redwood border with the help of my husband, and I cooked that beef and served it Monday night with polenta, veggies, and a tossed green salad. (What veggies? Hm. Wait a minute, let me think. I believe I steamed a mix of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and corn.) As for the high shelves - the cleaning ladies fear them for a reason. Let's not go there.

I was looking at the picture I posted of Youngest Daughter and me at the Poppy Preserve, noticing that seven years ago she was still shorter than I am, and I got to thinking. The very next year, in the pictures we took in Italy, we were the same height:

Now, of course, the situation has become simply ridiculous:

(Yes, she's the tall one in back on the right, and she's hunched down a bit so she can put her chin on her brother's shoulder. Don't ask about the funny hat. It's there for a reason...)

But way back at the beginning she was little. When we'd go to the grocery store, she would always step on the rung at the back of the cart, hold onto the handle, and lean against me. I'd push with my arms around her. This went on from the time she got too big for the seat in the cart (maybe when she was three?) until she was so tall I had to hitch my head over to the side to see around her. She must have been seven or eight. At last I told her that she was too big, and she couldn't ride there anymore. She said, "You mean never again?"

It still makes me laugh to think of that. I said, "Yeah, that's about it, honey. You aren't going to get any shorter. People grow in just the one direction: up."

On abandoning a blog

2010-04-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

Yeah, that's what I did and not once, but twice, having also abandoned my highly grumpy and often inappropriate political blog. I didn't abandon my pair of blog-babies for the same set of reasons. Oh, sure, in both cases time got short and I got overwhelmed; but there's more to it than that.

I'll blog about the politics over there, but my reasons for not posting here are complicated and have to do with a recurrent suspicion that I really don't know a damn thing about raising kids and that there are better things for me to do than inflict my meanderings on the Internets. I could, for example, work on one of my books. I could dust the high shelves where the cleaning ladies fear to go. I could do some yoga, or even better, some tai chi. I could thaw that good slab of beef, cut it in chunks, and cook it Tuscan-style with red wine, peppercorns, and garlic. I could dig a little trench in front of the roses for the nine-inch-high redwood border I bought last spring.

My youngest daughter - the recalcitrant teen - is barreling headlong into adulthood. My eldest daughter is being dragged inexorably towards middle age. My middle kid will soon be Doctor Dave. And although all of these brilliant people spend a large amount of their time here, I'm feeling very empty-nesty, which, coming on the heels of forty years of parenthood, is a bit of an adjustment. In that light, I have found it easier to ignore this blog.

Yeah. Easier, and less threatening. Nobody's perfect. Every parent makes mistakes and it's painful to look back and admit them. You find yourself caught between kicking yourself and grieving for what might have been if only you'd been wiser, more experienced, more patient, more generous. Ack, you think. Let's just move on.

On the other hand, chronicling the lessons-learned might make a difference, if not for other parents going forward, then at least for my kids looking back. And there are the laugh-out-loud-funny moments we all shared.

So maybe I will still post here. Maybe. First, though, I really need to get that redwood border installed.

Friday dog-blog

2010-01-15T10:34:00.001-08:00

Here's Roxy, sleeping with her toy on her nose.

I'd blog the cat, but she went outside and refuses to come back in. She's mad because Roxy waltzed into the bedroom where she was sleeping. Worse, poor kitty was subjected to a giant brown Roxy-nose sniffing her tummy. Bad scene all around.

What Roxy's really doing in this picture is waiting for someone to try to steal the toy away so that somebody will have to chase somebody else. Her preference, of course, is that when it all settles out, she'll be the one being chased. I'll be the one running after her.

The kitchen is a wrap

2010-01-11T16:32:00.000-08:00

Here's what we started with:

And this, along with an empty savings account and a few more gray hairs, is what we have now:

Yeah. It was worth it.

It's a new year

2010-01-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

and let's hope it's a better one than the last. Here are ten of my fondest wishes:

1. Newspapers recover. Twenty-four-hour news outlets fail.

2. It rains in California. It stops raining in Iowa.

3. California calls for a constitutional convention and produces a new constitution which requires a two-thirds majority to amend the constitution and a 50%+1 majority to pass a budget and to raise taxes. Lowering taxes requires a 60% majority. Heh.

4. The Supreme Court decides that money does not, in fact, constitute political speech and caps corporate political spending.

5. The FCC decides that nudity is not scary, that the word 'fuck' will not harm future generations, and that freedom of speech is not threatened by banning ads which contain demonstrable falsehoods.

6. The FDA bans commercials touting prescription drugs.

7. Genetically modified foods are found to taste awful. Monsanto gives up its GMA programs and devotes itself to promoting organic gardening.

8. No Child Left Behind is amended to require a.) national testing standards and b.) an increase in funding for all schools which fail to meet yearly progress goals.

9. Roman Polanski goes to prison.

10. Health care reform becomes law, and includes caps on profits by insurance companies and for-profit health-care providers.

On to the new year

2009-12-31T17:57:00.000-08:00

and good riddance to the old. I have no idea why 2009 was so awful - it just was. The partisanship from the right which crippled Congress; the hatred and racism spewed over the airwaves by the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh; the idiocy from the left when it became clear that President Obama was only a very smart man and not the magic liberal fairy-godfather they thought they'd elected; and the continuing pressures of recession, high unemployment, and climate change all combined to make everybody in the world crabby, intolerant, and out of sorts.

On the bright side are these: George W. Bush is no longer president. We are not dealing with the worldwide economic depression that seemed inevitable a little more than a year ago. Our troops are leaving Iraq; and although Afghanistan is ramping up, there's a time line in place for our involvement there to end as well. Guantanamo is slowly being shut down. We are finally taking climate change seriously. Our government is re-establishing diplomatic ties around the world. Health care reform bills were passed in both the House and the Senate, and need only to be reconciled for at least some of the horrible inequities in our health care system to be addressed.

So let's ring in the New Year with hope in our hearts and a renewed will to work to make our world the secure and happy place it can still be.

Why I haven't blogged in a long, long time

2009-12-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

I don't really know. Words fail me.

Here are some other things I haven't been doing:

- Exercising. Really. Not at all. As a result, things that were sagging a bit before now appear to be melting into puddles around my ass and thighs.

- Unpacking the last of my kitchen things and storing them in the new cupboards. They don't look like they'll fit and I don't want to deal with the overflow.

- Gardening. The tomato vines are drooping in my garden like lost souls.

- Removing spots from my carpet. Including two dog-puke stains and three coffee spills. I avert my eyes.

- Writing books. Again, words fail me.

- Feeling Christmas-y. Though I did decorate, and I've been listening to Christmas music almost exclusively, the anticipation and the wonder elude me.

- Watching the news. I can't bear it - all the yammering from talking heads, the spin from so-called journalists, the chasing after stupid stories while the real stuff happens in the shadows. (Really, who - other than his wife - cares if Tiger Woods is a hound-dog instead of a Disney hero? Let's have a comprehensive story on the use of filibusters by the minority in Congress. Contrast and compare with the previous Congress. And if your story shows objectively that one party is more hypocritical and obstructive than the other, don't add some irrelevant nonsense to water your conclusion down.)

So. There you have it. I'm not blogging because I'm in a really, really bad mood.

Thanksgiving in the Kitchen

2009-12-01T15:54:00.001-08:00

We got this far:

Everything was in place for Thanksgiving, except the tiled backsplash and the range hood. We'd been waiting to take delivery of the accent tile which arrived yesterday. Still on order are three bronze decorative tiles to go above the range, and a panel for the side of the island. Once those come in and are duly installed, we'll really, truly be finished. Our contractor was fabulous!

Update

2009-11-20T16:30:00.000-08:00

We're really close, but there was a sad glitch yesterday. First, the good stuff that's finished:

With the cabinets in and the first appliances installed, it was time for granite. And that's when it happened:

Yes. The granite broke. That was yesterday. Today the granite guy is back with a new slab and as I type, he's installing again. This time no one can bear to watch. We're hiding in the rec room, waiting for the all-clear.

Tomorrow (knock wood) the plumber hooks up the sink and dishwasher. Sometime in the next few days, when the tile arrives, my husband will install the tile and then the range hood will go in. It's unlikely that those two things will happen before Thanksgiving, but as long as I have an oven and a sink, I'll be thankful enough.

Starting to look pretty

2009-11-13T12:57:00.000-08:00

Now, just imagine it with black granite countertops, some kind of pretty tile backsplash, and white appliances.

Moving ahead

2009-11-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

More cupboard pix:

We're still choosing tile. I got as far as placing an order at a local tile distributor, but I canceled it the next morning when I realized that the granite was thicker than I'd taken into account. Luckily, I'd asked them not to put it through until I called. The salesman was unhappy, but that's life. He asked me to come back in and choose something else, but I declined, saying I wanted to wait until the granite was installed.

So. By early next week the cabinets will be complete and the granite will be in. More pix to follow.

Oh, look. It might turn into a kitchen soon!

2009-11-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

The floors are in,

the paint's dry,

and here come the first cabinets!

Walls, and Our First Hiccup

2009-11-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

Finally, someone made a mistake! It was easily corrected two days later, but still. It's like the first dent in a brand new car - the pressure's off. We're normal. We had a problem.

Here it is, pictorially:

See it? That texture? It was applied to all the walls in the kitchen and extended into the family room in places, where it shared a space with our other, far less textured walls and screamed, "Look at me! I'm not the same!"

So our contractor, who really is wonderful, came over to take a look, shook his head sadly, and said of the plasterer, "You'd think he'd have noticed that it didn't match, wouldn't you?"

The next morning two guys showed up with buckets and scrapers, and within about three hours the walls were smooth again. By the end of the day, the kitchen had a coat of paint. It's hard to reproduce the color in a photo, but it's a nice grayish brown with a little green that shows up in sunlight. My daughter-in-law chose it and it looks good.

Next up, the new floor, still in cartons here but soon to make its appearance. Once the floor's in, the contractor says, things will go pretty fast. They should have the cabinets in before the weekend. (Unless we have another hiccup. What? It could happen.)

Look at me! I'm cat-blogging!

2009-10-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

But only because Amelie agreed to sleep on the cushions on the rec-room sectional all afternoon, which is something she rarely does. She usually prefers the roof or the balcony to any indoor location.

Pictures of progress

2009-10-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

The holes in the walls created by demolition have been repaired.

We have a new ceiling, complete with cans for light fixtures.

The old wallpaper is gone, and the wall has been extended to make room for a pantry-sized cabinet.

All the rough electrical and plumbing is complete, inspected, and approved.

See that pipe at the bottom of the wall? That's the gas line for the new stove.

We've chosen our flooring - 3/4" solid maple. Now we just have to finalize our decisions on paint, tile, under-cabinet lighting, and carpet (for the rest of the house, which will be installed as soon as the kitchen is complete.)

Today the plasterer is applying texture to the formerly papered walls and the ceiling, and then they'll be painted (so, I guess I'd better concentrate on those paint chips shown above...) The flooring will be delivered on Thursday, and will be installed at the end of this weekend, or the beginning of next. Cabinets are to be installed late next week.

I thought this would be harder

2009-10-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

The remodel, I mean. Except for needing to pour copious amounts of money into the thing, it's going very smoothly. Here's what we've done so far:

We packed up everything in the kitchen and stored it in other parts of the house. Here you see the living room with the kitchen table and three of our thirty-some boxes of kitchen stuff.

This is my favorite shot of the empty kitchen.

We made a makeshift kitchen in the rec room downstairs, where I cook sitting in a secretary's chair because leaning over to table-height to chop and stir would most likely leave me crippled.

Meanwhile, upstairs, a crew demolished the old kitchen

and we filled the garage with new appliances and cabinets.

Already, the rough electrical and plumbing are done, the walls are patched, and we've passed our first inspection. Today I'm listening to a lot of thumping and banging as the plasterers put in my new ceiling. I keep thinking, Where's the drama? And then I think, Excellent, we have none. So far, so good.

A Brief History of (our) Cats

2009-10-03T13:27:00.000-07:00

Before we had Roxy, we were cat people. We brought a cat with us from the Midwest when we moved to California, and there has been only one catless period in our lives since, during the three years when we lived in a house too close to the Angeles National Forest to keep our cats from becoming dinner for coyotes.

I know there are people who really, really don't like cats - usually because they're either allergic to them (and who can love an animal that makes your eyes swell and your sinuses clog?), or they don't understand them. For the cat haters out there, here's the key to understanding: cats aren't sneaky, they're a unique combination of predator and prey. There aren't a lot of animals in that class, but imagine the caution that drives a prey animal (think deer) and the grace and precision of a predator (think wolf). Roll those personalities together, wrap them in silky fur, decorate them with a throaty purr, and you've got a cat.

Then there are people who don't like cats because they catch birds. I really don't know what to say to that. My cats have all been in-and-out cats. They've caught some birds, some mice, some rats, some lizards, some grasshoppers, and the occasional moth in their time. It's in their nature and it doesn't bother me, because, as my mother (and probably yours) used to say: I didn't make the world. I just live in it.

So. Here's our list so far:

Alice came with us from Iowa. She was white with big splotches of pastel orange. She was absolutely trusting - when she had her (only) litter, during a cold Iowa winter, she stacked them (so new they were still blind and trembly) on my stomach one night to keep them warm.

Alice was succeeded by Susie and Sheila. Susie sported orange and black polka dots on a field of white. She was our dumbest cat ever, a little nut who liked to nibble on your fingers or your buttons or your shirt or whatever she could get her mouth on. We tried to get her to stop by gently rapping her on the head but she would just put her ears back and go on chewing. Sheila was a gray tabby with a white belly who didn't need anyone to pet her; she'd wriggle the length of her body under any convenient hand over and over again, petting herself.

For a very short time - measured in months, I think - Susie and Sheila shared the house with a half-wild silvery-gray tabby named Max. He learned to tolerate us and even seemed to enjoy being petted on occasion, but when we bought a new house, the change proved too much for him. On moving day, as we brought the cats in, Max streaked out the back door and down the driveway to the street where he turned left and trotted away, never to be seen again.

Next came Daisy and Gizmo. Daisy was an extravagantly pretty calico with half-a-black-mustache splashed on her face. She had a bad habit of napping in cars parked on our street with their windows down. One day she disappeared, and we always suspected that she accidentally hitched a ride to a new life in one of those cars. Gizmo was a tortoiseshell, black with swirls and flecks of brown and white. She liked to flop down on her side and sleep in the sun. When Eldest Daughter put up a picture of a sleeping Giz in her college dorm room, her friends nicknamed her the roadkill cat.

Eventually Giz went to her reward and was replaced by a giant brown tabby named Ratty. He got the name because he was such a sad, ratty-looking thing when we first brought him home; he grew to be a big, lazy lap-cat who purred like an engine and drooled when he was petted. He liked to sleep inside Middle Kid's shirt - with MK still in it - both heads poking out the neck so they looked like some kind of weird two-headed monster.

Ratty was joined by a companion cat, Cleo, an eleven-year-old black female who had briefly shared an apartment with ED. Cleo was sweet as she could be, but she had such terrible breath that Tom built a cathouse (I know, I know) for her on the deck. (And yes, Phoebe, we took her to the vet. He said her teeth had so much plaque that the only way to clean them would be to anesthetize her, and at her age, it was too risky.) Cleo and Ratty liked to bat at each other through the french doors that separate the deck from the rest of the house. When Cleo died at the ripe old age of fourteen, Ratty sat by the door for days, waiting for her to come back.

After Ratty we took in two kittens - Mia, a brown tabby, and Amelie, a gray-brown tabby with a white belly and legs. Mia never lost her kitten voice and, at seven, still mews as though she were two months old. MK borrowed her one day and never gave her back, so now she lives in Irvine and imagines she's at home there. Amelie is shy and skittish. The only person who can get her to come reliably is Youngest Daughter, although I've found that if I pour food in her bowl she'll hear me from wherever she is in the world, and will be waiting at the door when I go to look for her. It's poor, nervous Amelie who's had to learn to deal with Roxy; she's done it, but she still lets us know it wasn't her choice.

I have no idea who our next cat will be. If I could, I'd take one of my dear-departeds back. But the world doesn't work that way, (see above), so all I can say for sure is that there will be another cat, and it will be as individual as its predecessors.

Maybe I should make it a point to open EVERY cupboard once in a while

2009-09-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

because this guy was in the cupboard above the stove which was occupied by the hood vent. The vent itself never fit right and got knocked out of place at some point in the past, so this poor guy must have gotten into the attic and then flew down into that cupboard and got stuck. We never heard or smelled anything, so we have no idea how long he'd been there.

Yeah. Yikes. What might we find under the sink?

Who knew remodeling one room would affect all the others?

2009-09-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

Before you remodel, you have to get ready to remodel. During the summer we did the shopping part - shopping for contractors, appliances, cabinets, floor coverings, light fixtures, countertops, and even paint. Now the big items are about to be delivered, and we've had to make room for them. We started with the garage.

Our garage was a mess. (Parts of it are still a mess, but that's neither here nor there.) We aren't tidy-garage-type-people. We tell our kids we're going to stay in this house until we die of old age because to sell it, we'd have to empty the garage. We haven't parked a car inside the garage in at least three years - and that was only after an incomprehensible fit of tidying which we got over before we had room for the second car.

Sadly, with the coming remodel, we have to make room not only for a refrigerator, a range, a dishwasher, a sink, and a garbage disposer; we also have to make room for a terrifying number of pre-made cabinets, along with their attendant doors and trim pieces. We started at the beginning of August by donating some furniture to a rummage sale to benefit a family in our town. We stalled after that, but three weeks ago my husband got inspired by the calendar. After days of sorting and lifting and shifting and moving, countless trips to the curb with junk, plus more trips to Goodwill with usable junk, he has made space for most (we hope) of what will start being delivered tomorrow. So that's good.

Inside, I began work on the problems of emptying the kitchen and creating a cookable space somewhere else. The makeshift kitchen will be in our rec room downstairs. In order to achieve that, I had to reclaim Youngest Daughter's craft table, which meant I had to sort through the craft cabinets to make space for the supplies she keeps on her craft table. After days of sorting and discarding, and some necessary furniture rearranging, it's done. I've got a table to put my hot plate, coffee pot, and toaster oven on.

To cook, of course, we'll need water. We could use the bathrooms, but none of them has a sink that will easily admit a pot to be filled and my back isn't crazy about the idea of using a bathtub for routine cooking chores, so my husband moved a utility sink from the garage into the laundry room. (Of course, I had to make room in the laundry room for the sink...you see how this goes, right?)

Now, to empty the kitchen. First problem - get that big shelving unit out of the breakfast room. (Why it was there is a whole 'nother discussion, and you really don't want to know anyway.) The only place the shelf will fit is in the family room, and then only if we move YD's computer station to her bedroom. This means we have to move the student desk out of her bedroom, which requires days of emptying and sorting and (as usual) throwing stuff away. Last weekend we got the old desk out and the new desk in, and by yesterday we had the books back on the shelves and the pictures back on the walls in her room.

Also yesterday I got the shelving unit emptied, moved, and refilled in the family room. The breakfast room suddenly looks huge, which is a comfort. Now all I have to do is put the contents of the kitchen into boxes and move them to my husband's office to be stored until the kitchen is done. To make room in his office, we had to move the weight bench to the deck. To make room for the weight bench, we finally got rid of the last bulky Playskool toys. They'd been outside forever, so I had to scrub them first - a process which involved several close encounters with wildlife of the black-widow-spider variety. But it's done, the toys have been donated, and the weight bench is sitting under the macadamia tree.

I bought ten packing boxes at Staples, having told my husband with breezy (and misplaced) confidence, that I thought thirty would do it in the end. Assembled the first box, opened the first cabinet, filled the box with the contents of the first shelf (after throwing a bunch of stuff away), and thought, Oh, shit.

So. If I hadn't already spent so much money on appliances and cabinets, I'd be rethinking my position on remodeling. Seriously.

Saved - or Not

2009-08-31T10:10:00.000-07:00

I was raised a Roman Catholic by devout parents, even attending Catholic schools for thirteen years. My husband was raised in a conservative, fundamentalist household. These disparate experiences produced two people who (all belief aside) share a powerful aversion to organized religion. Naturally, our decisions regarding religious education for our children were informed entirely by this attitude. With that in mind, here are some religious memories and maybe an opinion or two.

Once, when she was very young, Eldest Daughter asked me if I would accept Jesus into my heart. It was 6:30 in the morning, I had just crawled out of bed, I had to get to work, and I was really, really tired. "Maybe later," I mumbled.
"But, Mom! Don't you want to be saved?"
"I have to get ready for work right now," I answered, yawning. I was most of the way back to my bedroom before I realized what we'd said. I wheeled around and padded back down the hall.
"Uh, honey? Who have you been talking to?"
"Church people. They come around in a bus. They said we have to be saved."
"Ah. Well, not everybody believes that."
"Do you?"
"No. Not really."
"Oh. Okay." I don't know if she looked relieved, or if I just remember it that way. I offered to talk later, but she lost interest and was spared my ramblings on the subject.

Some years later, in a burst of parental guilt brought on by Middle Kid asking me if I'd ever heard of Noah's Ark, I bought an illustrated children's Bible to read with him. We got through the creation without too much trouble, and Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden, and the birth of their sons Cain and Abel. The trouble came after Cain slew Abel, and then ran away to a far land where he met and married a woman-
"Where'd she come from?" my son asked. "I thought there weren't any other people yet."
"Uh," I said. "Erm. I'm not really sure." (I'm a Catholic girl. We're New Testament people.)
"It doesn't make any sense," he said.
"Well, maybe we aren't supposed to take it literally."
"Huh?"
"Hm. Never mind. I think I'll make dinner now."
And that was the end of Bible stories for MK.

When she was in elementary school, Youngest Daughter used to attend church occasionally with a friend. One day, though, she seemed troubled when she got home. When I asked her about it, she said she didn't want to go anymore.
"You don't?" I said. "I thought you liked it."
"Not really," she said. "It makes me feel bad."
"It does?"
"They're always telling us we can't be saved unless we believe in the Lord, and well, I just don't."
Uh-oh. That 'saved' thing again. "You know, being saved is a personal thing, honey. There are lots of different ideas about what it means."
"But do you believe in Jesus?"
"I believe that Jesus wanted us to be nicer to each other. And I think that's a really good idea."
"Oh." She wandered off to play. A little later she came back and said, "I still don't want to go anymore."
And that was the end of YD's religious career.

Recently, I went to a funeral. It was a beautiful funeral, a truly lovely - and loving - celebration of a life cut short. After the eulogies and some wonderful music, the pastor stepped up to give us his pastoral message. "There are two kinds of people here today," he said. "The ones who've been saved and will some day sit at Jesus's right hand in heaven, and the ones who won't."
My eyebrows shot up. I turned to the friend I was sitting with and whispered, "Did he just tell us we're going to hell?"
"I think he did," she said in a bemused tone.
"That's kind of rude," I said.
"Yeah. I think so, too."
I listened through the rest of the sermon, and the pastor quoted quite a lot of scripture (all New Testament, which was at least something) to support his allegation. I kept waiting for him to get back to the subject at hand - the funeral, the grieving family, the good life the departed had lived. He never did. Apparently he thought the family would be comforted best by knowing that some of their friends were going to hell.

Which brings me to a list of theological pet peeves:

1. Old Testament 'Christians.' Does not compute. The story of Christianity lies in the New Testament. The Old Testament should be literature.

2. People who thank the Lord after every sentence. Please. God already knows how grateful you are, and the rest of us won't think less of you if you keep it to yourself. We promise.

3. People who insist on pronouncing judgment on everybody else. Crazy radio personalities, crazy politicians, crazy preachers, crazy people carrying signs displaying their opinions as to where various other people will reside after death. Right back at'cha, folks, because you know what? You're just guessing.

4. Relatives who pray for your soul every day, and then tell you about it. What are you supposed to say to that?

5. God as the Candyman. Be good, and God will give you everything your heart desires.

6. God as the Hairy Thunderer. Be good or God'll getcha.

7. Religious enforcers. You know who I mean: the Taliban, extremist Israeli settlers, the likes of Pat Robertson and James Dobson. And who can forget the Spanish Inquisition? Ugh.

8. The rapture, and all veiled threats leveled my way with regards to that event. Excuse me. I intend to inherit the earth, so feel free to rapture yourself right outa my way.

On the plus side, I've known some very nice - and very conscientious - people in my life, people who seem to take the spirit of their religion to heart. But that's a post for another day.

Stuff we don't have anymore

2009-08-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a short list of things I remember well, but which my kids either don't remember at all, or consider quaint and curious.

Television sets without remote controls: back in the day, we got up to change the channel on the television set. There was no channel surfing during the commercials. And some people ended up watching the same channel all night because nobody wanted to get up.

Party lines: I can't decide if the world is a better place without these, or not. There was so much drama around party lines - sneaking the phone off the cradle and listening in; having conversations interrupted by a crabby neighbor telling us to get off the phone; stopping to chat with your fellow party-liner.

Individual ring tones: I'm not talking Beethoven's Fifth. I'm talking two longs and a short for your house, three shorts for your neighbors', and two shorts and a long for the guy around the corner. Everybody's phone rang every time, and you answered only your ring.

Phones with cords: everybody had a phone table when I was kid, and that's where you sat to talk. Private conversation? Puh-leese - you shouldn't be saying anything you wouldn't say with your mother in the room, anyway.

Phones with rotary dials: I still love the sound and feel of a rotary dial. Each number sounds different because the dial travels a different distance for each number. I remember a movie where a mystery was solved by someone hearing the sound of a number being dialed and later messing around with the rotary dial until they figured out what the number was.

Metal tv stands with wheels: these were flimsy little things which enabled you to roll the tv into the dining room if there was something special on. Of course, this implies that a) tvs were a lot smaller (and they were! Seventeen inches was considered a reasonable size!) and b) you didn't have to worry about plugging the thing into cable. You used your rabbit ears.

Milk boxes: on the porch. For the delivery of milk in bottles with foil caps. The cream floated just under the cap.

Pedal-operated sewing machines: I really liked sewing on these. Your ability to control the speed of the machine was nearly infinite, limited only by how fast you could pedal.

Push mowers: I saw a guy mowing his lawn with one of these the other day. I thought, Gosh. He should take better care of his antiques.

Metal garbage cans: I'm sure people still use these somewhere, but in my town it's all big plastic bins provided by the waste removal company. I kinda miss those gun-metal gray cans, with their dents and their lids that didn't fit after the first year or so. Those cans took a lot of punishment - and it showed.

Cranks for rolling car windows up: it's all buttons now.

Typewriters: I still have the little green portable I took away to college with me, but the ribbons are a thing of the past.

Slide rules: yes, I minored in math and I did not own a calculator. When I was in college, a four-function calculator was still a prohibitively-expensive item; I settled for the slide rule and the books of math tables.

Blackboards: and erasers and chalk dust. Last year we got a SmartBoard in the classroom where I tutor - we can now display pages from the computer, or let the kids 'write' on the board and save their writing to a file, or scan text-book pages and display them. No more teachers' pets staying after school to clean the erasers.

Bench seats in cars: three in the front, and three (or four) in the back. We used to wage battles for the front seat and the windows. And some poor schmuck (or, in our family two poor schmucks) had to sit in the middle of the back with no view and no air.

Recess: this was the most important part of the school day when I was a kid. It's when all the socializing happened; when relationships formed or fizzled; when dominance issues were resolved. Now recess in 'structured.' Yikes.

The status quo sucks

2009-08-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

Health care reform - that's what I'm talking about. Let's have a little honesty on the subject.

1. The President has recommended goals for reform, and here they are:

No discrimination for pre-existing conditions
No exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles, or co-pays
No cost-sharing for preventive care
No dropping of coverage for the seriously ill
No gender discrimination
No annual or lifetime caps on coverage
Extended coverage for young adults
Guaranteed insurance renewal

Raise your hand if you disagree with any of these. And I don't mean you jump three assumptions into the future and disagree with what some sleazy insurance company hack has told you will be the eventual result. Just stick with the facts, ma'am. I'll bet you'd seriously like you some no-pre-existing-condition-discrimination. I know I would, because AGE is a pre-existing condition.

2. It's not Obamacare. The President has not proposed a bill. He has left the writing of legislation to the Congress. You may call it Senate-care, or House-care, or Washington-care. Or, like me, you may call it better-than-the-crap-we-have-now. Whatever.

3. If you believe that anybody in Washington is planning on killing grandma in order to pay for the plan, then you need help. I hope the coming healthcare reform will cover psychiatric visits so you can become a happier and more grounded person in the near future. Oh, and while we're on the subject, most private plans already cover end-of-life counseling. What are we to make of this?

4. If you believe that the government is going to create panels to rule on your treatment options, then remember this: insurance companies have panels to rule on your treatment options. And the people on those panels get bonuses for saving the company money, i.e. denying you treatment. Feel better about the status quo now?

5. If you think that a government plan will limit your options, then you might want to check to see what options you have. Hm. Only the ones your company offers, you say? And your company changes those options every year? And none of those options include vision or dental? (And how about that psychiatric treatment?)

6. Will you be retiring early? Why not? Uh-huh. You have to wait until you qualify for Medicare, because your company doesn't offer coverage for retirees, and no private insuror will provide coverage to a 59-year-old person. Same here. Sucks, doesn't it?

7. Do your young adult children have insurance? Why not? I see - they haven't been able to find jobs with benefits. Well, maybe they should purchase private plans. Yes, I know they'll have to live at home in order to pay their premiums, but that's the way it goes. At least they don't live in a socialist country. Well, except for the socialized fire and police protection, the roads, the schools, and a few other things.

8. Do you hate your job? Why not give it up? You could be an entrepreneur, and fulfill your lifelong dream of owning a book store or publishing a weekly newspaper or designing jewelry or writing free-lance software. Oh, I forgot - you can't get health insurance because you have asthma, or a bad back, or acne, or allergies, or menstrual pain, or Type I diabetes, or a congenital heart murmur, or...

Well, you get the picture.

9. Are you worried about balancing the budget in Washington? What makes you think keeping the status quo will contribute to that goal? Our health care system is on the brink of collapse; it's a huge burden on business right now. If that burden were lifted, businesses would be more competitive in the world market place. Profits and the workforce could grow, which spurs more growth, and improves tax revenues. Stop looking at it as a new cost - it's not. Reform is intended to shift and contain costs. The potential benefit to our economy is huge.

Frankly, people, the status quo sucks. We need reform. Stop listening to Glenn Beck and that scary blond woman who was on The Daily Show the other day, and start praying that reform succeeds.

Life gets in the way

2009-08-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

of blogging. I'll be splitting my time between traveling and remodeling for the next few weeks. Here's my report on the remodel: we've selected our contractor, laid out the plans for the new kitchen, and chosen our cabinets. We'll place the cabinet order next week (after our trip to San Francisco), which means within four or five weeks, the current kitchen will be demolished.

The new kitchen table, which I had intended to order later in the process, arrived today. It's got a nice farmhouse feel to it - rectangular, with the legs set all the way out at the corners so the top doesn't overhang. It can be expanded to seat eight by unfolding a nifty leaf which stores underneath the table top. It's coffee-colored. I've already done a crossword while sitting at it, so it has been appropriately christened into our family.

I bought the table now because I gave the old one away, along with the matching hutch, to be used at a rummage sale to raise money to benefit a family in trouble here in my town. In the few days we spent without a table, I discovered that it's really hard to enjoy the newspaper without a place to prop my elbows. So I bought the new one, even though it means moving it when it comes time to empty the kitchen. It's a small sacrifice.

So far, nothing awful has happened with respect to our remodel. But that, of course, is because it's way too soon for the adventure to turn dangerous. I'll keep you posted.

And just like that

2009-08-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

the squirrels are gone. The nuts are gone, too. This hasn't happened before - that the nuts ran out well ahead of the ripening of the avocados. Honestly, I'm thrilled. I can use my deck without having to sweep it twice a day.

I suppose this is due to our odd weather, which is an accumulation of several years of odd weather. Odd weather has become the new normal - record highs, record lows, weird storm patterns. I'm not sure we'd recognize the weather we used to call 'usual.' Climate change. There you have it in a nutshell. (Pun intended. I apologize.)

Random Thoughts on Squirrels

2009-07-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

A cat (not mine) killed a squirrel in our backyard last Saturday. Except for the scale of things, it looked just like a lion killing a wildebeest - you know, dragging the squirrel down by the neck, then kicking it with its hind feet while keeping a death grip on the throat. You've seen the drama on Animal Planet, I'm sure. When the squirrel was limp, killer-cat carried it off and we've seen nary hide nor hair of either of them since. I feel as if I should be sorry for the squirrel, but I'm not.

There's a squirrel on the deck right now, winding its way up and down my Engelmann oak. Its tail looks a little scrawny to me - maybe it had a close call with something hungry. It can have all the acorns it wants, but when it starts in on the macadamias I get annoyed. It's not the competition for the nuts, which are hard to open and require roasting and all what-not; it's the mess. See? I just swept that deck earlier this morning. Damn you, you little vandal! (It dropped a nut shell on me while I was taking pictures.)

The birds hate the squirrels, and not without reason. The squirrels eat the bird seed I put out, which is just grossly unfair. Squirrels are capable of drilling a hole in a macadamia shell, and they waste time stealing sunflower seeds? Puh-leese. Leave something for the less fortunate, you little bandits, you.

They'll dispose of my macadamias and then they'll start in on the avocados when they ripen in November. Squirrels love avocados as much as they love macadamias, and when they go after those, they seriously piss me off. In that case it's not the mess; it's the food. We're in direct competition for the avocados.

Eating all those macadamias and avocados (we're squirrel-gourmet-central here) makes our squirrels fat. When one jumps from the tree onto the roof, it sounds like a bear landed up there.

Squirrels are vindictive. If I fight back by throwing things into the tree or poking at them with brooms, they break things I leave on the patio, like lanterns and flower pots. This year the fight has been escalating - they've started knocking things off the balcony, too. I'm beginning to regret my rule that the balcony belongs to my cat - a little Roxy-presence might make a difference. Sadly, my cat (Amelie, who, you must remember, is not the killer) needs the balcony to be safe from coyotes, and she's worked out a truce with the squirrels, a feat she hasn't accomplished with Roxy. She'd rather be eaten by a coyote than share a space with the dog.

In spite of everything, I have to admit that squirrels are cute. If it weren't for the mess and the loss of avocado-goodness, I wouldn't have the heart to cheer killer-cat on. As it is, all I can say is: the killer-cat is cute, too, and it doesn't eat avocados.

Updated to clarify the non-killer nature of my cat.

Why are we born to suffer and die?

2009-07-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

There's been a dearth of posts lately because I've been having a bit of an existential crisis brought on by the prospect of turning sixty next year.

Oooh, every time I think of that number I get a little light-headed. Wait a minute, let me just close my eyes for a second. Deep, calming breaths. Inhale, exhale. Ahhhh.

Okay, we'll go on but we'll leave the precise numbers out of it.

So, here's the deal. I'm getting old, and I hate it. I hate the stuff that goes on with your body - the sagging and the bagging and the sun spots on your cheekbones where your glasses reflect, and the shocking discovery that your grandmother's hands have somehow attached themselves to your body. I hate the thick waist and pouchy tummy and unruly gray hair, the sore back and hips from osteoarthritis, the inability to sleep through the night. I hate the new heights to which my cholesterol has soared. (Exercise more and eat less red meat, my doctor advised. Um, I exercise five to six days every week as it is, and I eat red meat about once a month. But, okay. I'll do better.)

More than the physical, though, I hate the mental stuff. I hate losing my glasses and my keys every day. I hate having words slither right out of my mind just when I need them. I hate the way time seems to have speeded up so I can't achieve a fraction of what I need to achieve in a day. I hate the feeling that doors are slamming, that my opportunities are fewer and farther between. (I dealt with the fact that I'd never learn ballet when I turned forty, that I wasn't going to get comfortable with horseback riding when I was fifty. Now, as another zero approaches, I wonder if I'll ever be a published author. Actually, with the economic woes our country and my poor dysfunctional state are experiencing, I wonder if I'll end my days living under a bridge on the 605 Freeway.)

I hate the social stuff, too: the relatives and friends who've died at an alarming pace in the last ten years; the way our conversations have drifted from things we hope to do, to things we've done, to complaints about our receding gums, our weight gain, and our leaky bladders; the inability to appreciate music that doesn't hail from the previous century.

So. I keep wondering, as the characters do in Kilgore Trout's book, Venus on the Half-Shell (I know, I know - Trout is fictional, but the book exists...): Why are we born to suffer and die? The answer in the book is Why not? But I'm still pondering.

We're remodeling our kitchen

2009-07-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure this will consume me for the next few months. Our kitchen isn't awful. It's just worn out, doesn't allow traffic to flow, and gets too crowded when more than one person tries to cook at a time. It's that last bit that's the biggest motivator. I like help. I especially like chopping help, because we eat a lot of veggies around here and they all need to be sliced, diced, or julienned.

Right now we're evaluating bids. We've received two, and one is substantially higher than the other. At the moment, I'm inclined to go with the higher bid because it came with item-by-item documentation. I can believe in it. My husband would like to believe in the lower bid, too, so we need to ask questions of the contractors and that's what I'm doing today - assembling a list of questions for each.

This is all a bit scary for us because we had a bad experience with the last general contractor we hired. Seventeen years ago, around the time our youngest was born, we decided to add a bedroom, bathroom, and laundry room. Our contractor did a reasonably good job on that addition, but when we decided to also turn an unfinished area under the garage into a rec room, we ran into trouble. Our contractor disappeared, leaving us a room which was framed but unfinished. My husband and my son worked patiently on weekends for two years to finish the room and the deck onto which it opens. (When they laid the decking, my husband marked the location of every screw. Then he drilled each hole and set the screws in place; my son, who was fifteen by then, came behind and tightened every screw. This took days. After working for several hours, they'd come in rubbing their arms and complaining about being exhausted by all that screwing, causing my eyes to roll back into my head. 'Right,' I'd say.)

Kitchen memories:

When we first moved here, in 1984, the kitchen had avocado green and harvest gold foil wallpaper. No, really, it did.

The guy we bought it from liked to party. The plastic panels which covered the fluorescent fixture had numerous champagne corks embedded in them. He didn't feel the need to remove them, which was part of why we were able to afford the house.

My husband replaced the garbage disposer sometime in the first week. We didn't get that wallpaper down for four (long) years.

Once I turned on the oven to preheat and went back to mixing the cornbread I was making. All of a sudden, a very strange crackly noise began emanating from the upper oven. My husband and I exchanged a glance, and I opened the oven door. Thick black smoke poured out, and below it I could see electrical sparks and something dripping onto the floor of the oven. I stood there, paralyzed, thinking, Oh, shit, the house is going to burn down. I knew this for a certainty because a) my sister's house had burned down a year or so earlier, and b) we'd had a close call a couple of months before when an electric blanket shorted out and started a mattress on fire. So, I just stood there, waiting for somebody to dial 911. My husband reached around me and turned off the oven. The sparks stopped sparking, the ceramic lining of the heating coil stopped dripping, and the smoke stopped smoking. Thank goodness somebody kept their head.

That big black refrigerator you see is the newest appliance we own. It's enormous - absolutely dominates the space. (Well, okay, if I were to reduce the clutter on the front, it might not seem so huge...) My son named it Darth on the day it was delivered. It will be replaced by a white side-by-side, which is taller than Darth but won't stick out so far. (I'm quite sure the clutter will simply transfer to the new location.) We haven't been terribly happy with Darth. It's really very difficult to organize those bottom freezer drawers in any meaningful way.

We bought the range top a few years before we bought Darth. It's black glass. Here's my very best advice: don't ever, ever, ever buy a range top made of black glass. It will always look dirty because there's no cleaning black glass without leaving streaks. By the end of the first week after it came to live in our kitchen, we knew we'd made a mistake. We've been marking time for ten years, waiting an appropriate interval to get rid of that sucker. It (and the double oven) will be replaced by a white, five-burner, double-fuel, double-oven range.

I expect this venture will have its moments. I'll keep you posted.

Bears and things

2009-07-08T16:20:00.000-07:00

We spent the long weekend at my daughter's place in Lake Arrowhead. It was lovely. We swam off the dock every day, and we took the boat out twice on the Fourth - though it got so crazy crowded with everybody wanting to be on the water for the fireworks show that we tied up the boat around two-ish Saturday afternoon and didn't take it out again. Around eight-fifteen that night, we took flashlights and walked the mile or so to Tavern Bay to watch the annual (pretty darn fantastic) fireworks show over the lake.

To spare my daughter, we agreed on a new cooking scheme - each family took a day and provided all the meals, including clean-up. I promise - this is the way of the future. Everybody got to put their feet up a lot, but everybody went out of their way to prepare meals that were out of the ordinary when it was their turn to cook. Extra special - my daughter's grilled salmon and potato salad, my son's whole wheat buttermilk pancakes, and the open-faced grilled gouda and tomato sandwiches my daughter-in-law made. We had guests for dinner Friday night and they brought a wonderful New Mexico casserole of corn, squash, green chiles, and cheese as a perfect companion to the beef and chicken skewers my husband and I served up.

No trip to Arrowhead is complete without mornings on the deck with coffee and breakfast and some critter-watching. As usual lots of jays and woodpeckers and flickers and hummingbirds and gray squirrels stopped by. Ground squirrels popped up the new staircase to help themselves to the goodies in my daughter's garden-in-pots on the upper deck. And this year we had a larger guest - a black bear meandered up and cleaned out the bird feeders around five on Sunday morning. We're not sure if the lights going on scared it away, or if it had eaten as many nuts and seeds and raisins as it wanted, but by the time we decided to investigate the racket, it was back on the ground and ambling away.

Any lessons? Not a one. We had a good weekend. We ate, played, laughed. Nothing going on here, move along.

Bad moon rising. Or something.

2009-06-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

Best commentary I've seen on Michael Jackson: A Dismembered Soul.

Farrah Fawcett: A Life in Pictures.

Ed McMahon: A Salute to the King of Sidekicks.

Friends of ours, and this really sucks!

So there you have it. Let's hope next week is better.

The zen of the matriarch under stress

2009-06-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

We meant to go to Lake Arrowhead on the Friday before Father's Day, but the universe said no in the form of errands which had to be completed before we could leave, and time being intractable, and energy having limits. So we decided to go Saturday morning. Again, the universe didn't seem to be crazy about the idea, but we persevered.

With organizing and packing and people milling around in the house while I ran from task to task as fast as I could, which wasn't nearly fast enough, I began to feel pretty ragged and unenthusiastic. Minutes before we left, I remembered that I needed to bring some basil from the garden for the pasta salad I had planned for dinner. Everybody was either already in a vehicle (there were two cars making the trip), or standing outside a vehicle trying to hammer one more piece of luggage into place. I took a pair of Cutco kitchen scissors and headed out across the lawn towards the garden.

I was in a mood. I hadn't had enough sleep, I'd had a stubborn headache for three days, and my stomach was a little shaky. Instead of looking forward to spending the weekend with my family, I was wishing they'd leave me so I could spend the weekend in silence, alone, reading books and watching America's Next Top Model reruns on the Oxygen channel. This clearly wouldn't do, so as I tromped through the drizzle I tried to get myself into a better place. Just stay in the moment, I told myself. You have this day to enjoy and you should start now. Look at how happy this little bit of rain is making the yard. Look at the baby sycamore, how big it's gotten in only two years. Look at the garden - wow, the peppers are loaded! And look at those tomatoes ripening so early! And the basil's gorgeous! Mmm, I'll take this bunch right here...snip...ah, smells good...snip...snip...

OUCH. I cut my finger. I cut my god-damned finger with the scissors! OW! I'm bleeding on the basil!

FUCK MY LIFE!

(The weekend worked out just fine, although I never did achieve any sort of Zen state about it.)

Graduation

2009-06-10T08:40:00.001-07:00

Middle Kid graduated from high school in June of 1997, on a day a lot like today is shaping up to be - overcast, drizzly, with maybe some actual rain to come later on. Our graduation ceremonies are always held on the football field in the evening, so rain truly puts a damper on things. The picture of MK snapped as he accepted his diploma shows him in a green gown with big wet splotches on the arms and shoulders. What it doesn't show is what was going on in the bleachers.

We were all there - my husband and my two daughters. We all had umbrellas, but because the bleachers were crowded we could only put two of them up. My husband crouched under his umbrella with Youngest Daughter. He was holding a video camera and once he got it pointed in the right direction, he just sat still and watched. I sat with Eldest Daughter under her umbrella. She and I both had flash cameras.

It was raining pretty steadily, but the ceremony went ahead as scheduled. ED is our best photographic documentor of family events, and she was completely in the zone that night. She snapped every important step in the ceremony: the procession into the stadium, each speaker, my son walking across the stage, receiving his diploma, and returning to his seat. Each time she lifted her camera she tilted the umbrella towards me. The top of the umbrella would dump its load of rainwater over my head, a mini cold shower cascading through my hair, over my face, and onto my shoulders. I would close my eyes and gasp and wipe my face and say, "Uh, Honey?" But it was noisy and she was caught up in the spectacle on the field.

Now, if you follow this through to its logical conclusion, you'll see that I not only got thoroughly soaked, I also missed every moment worth a photograph in the entire ceremony. At the end of the evening, ED turned to me, blinked, and said, "Oh, my gosh! What happened to you?"

Fortunately, my husband's video was comprehensive. I saw everything at home, after I'd toweled my hair dry and downed a stiff drink.

Three things that cracked me up

2009-06-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

I can see my family rolling their eyes. "Here come the stories," they're saying, and they're right.

Biggest baddest dog:

One night last spring, my husband and I took Roxy for a walk after dinner. Roxy has matured so she's pretty easy to walk, if you don't mind letting her range all around you so she can smell the pee-mail and leave messages of her own. (If you're one of those who needs your dog to stay at heel, forget it. Roxy ain't there, and she ain't never gonna be there, unless she gets too old to sniff and pee.) So we were mostly ignoring the dog and talking, maybe hurrying a little as we came into the home stretch because we didn't want to miss whatever was coming up at the eight o'clock hour on tv.

As we reached the last corner before our house we saw a stray dog standing on the sidewalk, a skinny yellow lab mix with a collar but no leash/owner attached. Roxy seemed skittish, so we kept our eyes on it. It backed away a bit warily as we crossed the street towards it, which made me think it wasn't aggressive, but suddenly it snarled and lunged at Roxy. My husband jumped between Roxy and the stray, stretched himself to a couple of inches taller than I ever knew he could, and lunged right back at that dog, barking in a deep (and yes, scary) voice. The stray did one of those cartoon leaps - straight up, with a spin in mid-air - and ran off down the street yipping with the volume turned all the way up. It eventually turned and ran into what we presumed to be its own backyard. We could still hear it yipping when we reached our front door.

And that's why we call my husband 'Dog.' Heh.

Things that go bump in the night:

To understand this story, you have to know a little bit about the layout of our house. We are situated on a hill with our backyard a full story lower than the front, so street level, to us, is the second floor. That's where the living and dining rooms, kitchen, and family room are located. The bedrooms and bathrooms are on the first floor, with the master bedroom directly beneath the family room.

This happened before the kids were married, on one of DiL's visits from Ireland. On the night in question, my husband and I had gone to bed but the kids were upstairs watching a movie. We could hear the tv faintly, and now and then the kids moving around or talking a little. Then we started hearing this very pronounced, rhythmic, bumping sound. We both became very tense. My husband said, What is that? I said, I don't know. We listened some more. The sound didn't stop.

My husband said, What the hell is that? I said, I don't know. We sat up. Are they-? he said, and I said, No way. They wouldn't. Go find out, he said. I'm not going up there, I said, but of course, I was already getting out of bed. I put on a robe and walked out into the hall and stood at the bottom of the stairs.

Dave? I said. The noise stopped. There was a moment of silence.

What?

Um. We heard a noise.

Another silence. Oh. Sorry.

Okay. Going back to bed.

Okay.

I got back in bed. Less than sixty seconds later, the noise started again - pretty much the same, though maybe a little faster now. My husband said, Oh, my God. What are they doing? I said, I don't know. He said, Make them stop!

So I crawled back out of bed and went to the bottom of the stairs. Dave?

Silence. What?

What is that noise?

Long silence. Then I heard what sounded like someone getting up, some footsteps, and my son appeared at the top of the stairs with a dish towel dangling from one hand. I spilled an orange soda, he said sheepishly. And I'm trying to scrub it out of the carpet.

Caring for cats:

My eldest daughter is the product of my first marriage. When my (current) husband and I were married, we moved to California. Every summer my daughter would fly back to Iowa to spend six weeks with her dad. The first year, she left us a note (which I still have in an envelope somewhere.) She had just turned seven. Here's what it said:

How to take care of the cats

1 Feed them
2 Pet them
3 Do not swing them by the neck
4 Pay good and lots attention to them

Good advice. We've pretty much followed it ever since, and none of our cats has run off.

Expect the unexpected

2009-05-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

We all grow up with some idea of the framework on which we'll build our lives. I'm not talking about hopes and dreams; I'm talking deep background. We might dream of being an astronaut, but unconsciously we assume that when we get back from our spacewalks there'll be a husband or wife, two-point-two children, two cats, and an aquarium. We aspire to win an Oscar, but we assume we'll display it on the mantelpiece of a brick fireplace in a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house on a shaded, Midwestern street. We hope to enter politics one day and to serve a term or two in the United States Senate; of course, it will be the great state of Iowa which will elect us to that post.

But in my experience, the framework is as subject to the whims of fate as are the dreams and aspirations. So here are a few aspects of my life that I never expected:

I never thought I'd live in California. I thought the farthest away I was likely to settle from Iowa was Minnesota or, possibly, Colorado. And yet here I am in a house we've owned for twenty-five years, in a town ten miles from the Rose Bowl and so close to the San Gabriel Mountains that north and uphill are synonymous. Two of my three children and my granddaughter are native Californians. I don't own a coat heavy enough for an Iowa winter anymore, and I can't remember the last time I saw an ice scraper.

I never thought I'd have a baby at twenty. I expected to graduate from college and then to work for awhile. Children were on the horizon - so firmly on the horizon that I had no idea when (or even if) I'd have any.

I never thought I'd like baseball, much less serve on the board of a youth baseball league for five years, learn to keep score!, and be glued to my television set during the World Series. And don't even get me started on hockey. (This is what happens when you have a son who likes to play games.)

I never thought I'd have a baby at forty-two. I was ready to retire from the high-pressure world of engineering to write fiction. I thought I'd get up early and write for three or four hours, take a long walk, chat with my agent or my editor, drink coffee in the afternoon with the other writers, and throw together a simple but elegant dinner to be served in my craftsman dining room after dark. Then I'd write a little more and go to bed. Rinse and repeat, every day for the rest of my life. A baby? At my age? Don't be silly. How can that even happen? (Well, I mean, I know how it happens, but to me? Not in a million years.)

I never thought I'd enjoy teaching middle school kids. Math. For free. I really, really, didn't see that coming.

I thought I'd have a lot more use for formal wear. I like to dress up; I thought I'd have many opportunities to do it, and that it would involve plenty of lace and satin and high-heeled slippers. I had no idea I'd spend so much time putting on the good jeans with a tee-shirt, a blazer, and some lipstick, and calling me 'ready.'

I thought I'd always be skinny and toned and bathing-suit-worthy. I mean, I was, for the longest time. And it wasn't as if anything changed in my diet or my exercise habits. But one day I woke up to the realization that I needed a Victorian swim costume if I was going to continue to swim in public places.

I never thought I'd own a dog. My daughter and I were in the car yesterday, waiting for a light to change, and I saw a pudgy middle-aged lady in a lime-green tee-shirt watch from behind while her little gray schnauzer pooped, and then lean over and pick up the poop with her hand gloved in a plastic grocery bag, and then tie the bag shut and walk on carrying a sack of warm shit like a purse. "Oh, dear," I said. "I've turned into that lady." The only difference? My dog is three times the size of hers.

I never expected to love sushi. Well, who in the Midwest does expect something like that? It's beyond comprehension, until you move to the West Coast. And taste it.

Okay, there you have it: the stuff I didn't know I'd live with. If you're young and you're making plans, I advise you to keep this in mind: life is unpredictable. Stay loose. Expect the unexpected.

I'm here

2009-05-27T18:44:00.000-07:00

and I'll be posting shortly. What with the Recalcitrant Teen (diagnosed with mono just as the AP tests arrived), the garden (cool mornings sucking up my blogging time as I battle vinca for possession of my front slope), the holiday (mountain, lake, boat, you do the math), and a passel of good books (tent sale at Vroman's, sorry, totally indulgent), I've been buried. But I swear, I'll be back. Very soon. In the meantime, Lee Child's last Jack Reacher novel - Nothing to Lose - is fabulous. (And he has a new one out this month which I haven't seen, called Gone Tomorrow. I'll be reading it as soon as I get my hands on it.)

P.S.: ED has been nagging me for a post; here it is. And the Recalcitrant Teen is a) feeling better and b) making much better grades.

Aging gracefully

2009-05-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

I just read an article from the 'Living' section of The Huffington Post about aging gracefully - the premise is that keeping the spine flexible through yoga is key. Okay, I can buy that. Flexibility is definitely important to feeling and looking youthful. But I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that.

The model they've used in the article to demonstrate the recommended yoga pose is no more than twenty-eight years old tops, and that's only if you push me. She's slim and pretty with thick, glossy hair. She's doing the extreme version of the pose - the one we all think we are doing, until we watch ourselves in the mirror and discover that we look a lot more like a coffee table going up and down than a cat arching and stretching its back.

So, this model looks gloriously youthful and graceful, because she is.

But let's talk about the reality of aging. Slim - not so much. There's this thing that happens to your waist - it thickens, even while you're eating and exercising as you always did. Pretty - not so much. There's this thing that happens to your face - it sags in places and puffs in others. You get eye-bags and jowls, and your cheeks seem to fall towards your jaw line, which is itself heading down towards your neck, which is so determined to go south that it pushes out amoeba-like bulges which wobble horribly under your chin. Thick, glossy hair - not so much. Your part - should you be so foolish as to attempt to wear a part in your hair - gets wider and wider. And gray hair is wiry and unruly and it doesn't shine.

Your joints get stiff: hips, knees, fingers, spines. You can't get comfortable enough to sleep at night because your newly-fragile body seems to have developed aversions to every sleeping position known to man. And once you've learned to counter that problem by propping various body parts up with pillows, you discover that there's some kind of sleep circuit in your brain which has shorted out.

Your gums recede, which makes your teeth appear to be longer. (Yes, you're getting a little long in the tooth...) This also creates sensitive spots which keep you hopping during dentist visits. And, to add insult to injury, your enamel thins, resulting in a warm yellow smile. You can remedy that problem with those at-home whitening strips, but you'll pay with even more sensitive spots than Mother Nature (that cruel bitch) has already allotted you.

There's quite a lot I haven't covered - your thighs slide down to puddle over your knees and your boobs start getting in the way of your belt; your satiny skin turns to crepe paper; things you used to love to eat make you fart now; and sitting in the sun will turn your skin blotchy brown - forever. Your nails form ridges. Your blood pressure goes up; your libido goes down. First you need glasses to read books; then you need glasses to read street signs. (Yeah, that spells bifocals.) You start to say, "What?" all the time. You have to label all your photos so you can remember your friends' kids' names. Receptionists ask if you need help getting out of your chair.

Now, if doing the cat pose once a day, or three times, or - heck, I'm willing to go as high as twenty! - will reverse these changes, then I'm thrilled to hear it. But I think the real issue is completely different. There's nothing - no pill, no surgery, no cream or makeup, no diet or exercise - which will restore our bodies to youthful perfection. So, in an article entitled "How to Age Gracefully," I think what we need is advice on enduring, on watching ourselves go to pieces with grace and good humor. I'd offer my advice, but as you can see, I haven't got any. I'm stuck at griping about the whole damn process.

Update: I edited this to add some stuff I forgot about.

So now what do we do?

2009-05-11T11:43:00.001-07:00

As if this year weren't exciting enough already, Recalcitrant Teen has been diagnosed with mono. Yeesh. All those homework assignments, all those milestones, all that angst - for this? To end the year curled on the sofa, white as paste, unable to swallow around the dragon which has taken up residence in her throat, unable to pour a glass of ice water without sitting down to rest? At this moment, she's still hoping to turn up Wednesday morning and take the AP English Language test. After all, she was sick on Friday when she took the AP US History test, and she says getting through it wasn't all that bad.

I'm waiting to hear from her counselor and teachers. Her doctor says she's had it long enough (we thought it was a cold dragging on) that she's no longer contagious. She can go to school if she can GO to school. Now we need to know if the school objects, and how much flexibility we can expect from those in charge. And of course, we have to see a bit of improvement. It won't do any good to send her to school if she's going to spend the day curled in a corner, asleep.

What a comedy of errors this child's junior year has been. Maybe our next stop will be a brief stint of home-schooling - yet another brand-new parenting experience, thirty-nine years into the gig. Who knew?

Success (breeds success)

2009-04-30T10:40:00.000-07:00

Youngest Daughter is preparing for her Advanced Placement tests in US History and English Language. It's been a difficult year, for many reasons, but the upcoming tests have been more of a drag than we expected. YD's having trouble concentrating on her studies - and without being able to turn up the focus, it's very hard to retain the solid factual stuff which makes up the first part of each test. She's also having trouble finishing the essay questions in the allotted time, and those comprise the second part of the test. Things don't look good.

Focus is a problem for her at the best of times and not one I expect her teachers to be able to solve; she's got a powerful case of ADD and we work on it in our own ways at home. But she's had no advice from either of her AP teachers as to what strategies to employ in order to improve her timing on the essays, and that surprises me. Wouldn't you think they'd have an idea or two on the subject? One of her teachers was alarmed enough to contact me; the other simply offered her failing grade after failing grade.

Both of these teachers, I should mention, obviously care about her. They enjoy having her in their classrooms: the first is urging YD to take a follow-up class with her next year; the second failed to flag YD's failing grades for the office because he didn't want her moved to another, less rigorous, classroom. Without her, he said, there'd be no insightful class discussion. He couldn't let her go.

Middle Kid - the one who intends to pursue a career in teaching - offered her the first piece of helpful advice she got: if you can't finish in the time allotted, he said, then write less. He was right on the money - YD is a perfectionist and wanted to be able to write the same sort of essay in forty minutes that she would have written if the essay were assigned as homework. It was hard for her to attack these questions at that different, shallower, level; but once she got the hang of it, the grades began to come up.

The second bit of helpful advice came from me, but it was entirely accidental. Over spring break, she wrote several practice essays taken from the College Board's website. For some reason, on the very first one, I set a kitchen timer next to her. She finished the essay with a minute-and-a-half to spare - and it was a damned good essay, too! It turns out that YD really has no internal clock at all, no sense of time passing, no ability to gauge how much time is left. Having a timer at her elbow made all the difference.

We still had to battle a bit with the College Board. She'll take a timer to the test, we thought, and that will be that. Not so fast, said the CB. You can't bring anything that beeps. Okay. How about the stopwatch function on a watch? All you do is push start, stop, and reset. It won't beep at any point because it isn't timing down - it's counting up. No, no, said the CB. The start, stop, and reset buttons beep when you push them. Fine. She'll set the watch next to her, make a note of the time she should finish, and proceed from there. Fine, said the CB.

But let's go back to those teachers for a moment. I'm a huge fan of public education in general, and of our local school system in particular. But in this case, I felt that YD didn't get the sort of attention she deserved. It's true that students in AP classes are expected to keep up, but when a student who clearly should be able to work at that level fails, is some teacherly action too much to ask? Maybe YD's profound disconnect with time is unusual enough that her teachers were stumped; but surely runaway perfectionism is something they confront regularly.

The excuse I hear most often is that this is a college-level class, and in college she wouldn't receive any special treatment. Ah, I say, but she's not in college yet. She may be able to comprehend more intellectually challenging material, but she's still a high school student. Obviously she needs strategies for dealing with work of this caliber, and if you aren't going to offer them while she's still in high school, when exactly will you? Is an AP class really a place where students can't expect help?

Apparently so. If YD manages to pass her AP tests, it will be in spite of this odd blind spot on the part of her otherwise talented and dynamic teachers. Succeeding at writing the essays has been key to improving her focus. She doesn't feel quite so hopeless, or helpless, anymore. She can come at the material without all that angst, so she's better at retaining it. I think she's got a shot at passing, and that's a good thing. But I have to ask - how many kids with extraordinary intellectual capabilities fail because no one will help them when they're struggling?

I'm getting a different (and better) computer!

2009-04-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

All it took was saying, "Okay, I think it's time. We should buy another computer." Forty-eight hours later, a new Apple G5 Power PC is winging its way here as I type. We're going to put the new computer in my husband's office and move the Mac mini I'm using right now into my office to replace my ten-year-old iMac. See, I moved my manuscripts to the mini a couple of years ago to make the querying process more convenient. Sadly, I discovered I couldn't go back because the version of Word I use on the mini won't run on my poor little iMac. And that put a big crimp in my writing time.

This should make my weekends more productive, since I won't be competing for time with all the Toms, Dicks, and Harrys who wander through here. Well, actually, there's just the one Tom, but he's been a tough competitor. Nice to discover he's also a talented shopper.

So. It's all good, and getting better.

Update: My husband points out that the computer I'm getting is obviously not new, as it's his current one. He's getting the new one, and for good reason. Whichever computer is mine gets the least rigorous use - I want to write on it, and now I'll be able to get online with it, and that's about it. So, I've updated the title to reflect reality.

Succor

2009-04-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

When I'm upset, I take baths - long, hot baths with lavender-scented bath salts. I read a good book or a magazine. I lie down and run the water until my arms and legs float. I stay there until I feel as if I can face the world again, which can be a surprisingly long time.

Sometimes I eat candied ginger to make myself feel better. It's chewy and sweet and peppery, with a crunchy-sugary crust on the outside. It soothes my stomach, which tends to knot up when things are going badly.

I've been known to take long walks, especially when I'm angry about something. It's a two-fer: I walk off the adrenaline while improving my health. When I get back I'm not only calmer, I'm armored with the self-righteousness of the exercise nut.

Milk chocolate truffles are nice, but the comfort only lasts as long as the candy; a vodka martini on ice with a twist is nice, too, but it lulls me to sleep.

Sometimes I just have to lose myself in a good book. Not 'literature.' A good, pulpy adventure of some sort: scifi or mystery or a thriller.

There are certain movies that always make me feel better: The Shawshank Redemption, Babe, Billy Elliott, The Whale Rider. Or I'll turn on a marathon of some sort: The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars. Project Runway or America's Next Top Model.

Well, that's my list. I've been all over it this week after listening to one too many pundits miss the point entirely on the whole subject of torture and its efficacy and its morality and which administration should be damaged by it. (Hint: the administration which used it to generate fake evidence so it could run amok in the world should be the administration covered in shame. And the media, which can't seem to find an ethical code with both hands and a flashlight, oughta share in that particular limelight.)

The only thing I haven't tried yet is the martini - I'm saving it for dinner. Tomorrow, I suppose, I'll have to start cycling through again.

Last word on the writing contest

2009-04-15T08:26:00.001-07:00

I didn't make the semi-finals, so I'm out.

And that's that.

If you scan the discussion boards at Amazon, and all the various writing venues online where writers gather, you'll see all kinds of happy-talk about not giving up, taking the advice the reviewers offered and making the manuscript even better, sending out queries right away - like getting back in the saddle after the horse throws you.

Honestly? I'd get more satisfaction out of putting a gigantic sign in my front yard that reads: AMAZON ABNA: BITE ME!

It's been a long road, and I'm still on it. But I'm going to step off right here, get out my little hip flask, and apply some liquid comfort. Then I'm going to eat a quarter-pound of milk chocolate (yeah, take that, universe! I'm not going for the healthy dark stuff today!) and maybe I'll follow up with a bag of Cheetos. After that, I'll arrange a bunch of rejection letters on the big bulletin board in the office and throw darts at them. Probably, I'll end my pity-party with a nice slasher film...

And after a couple of days, I'll succumb to temptation and work on one of my books. (Yes, all right, Clara. I'll work on Pearl.) I just hope I can hold off long enough to get my tomato plants in.

The Frog Moves On

2009-04-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

That's right. The frog - called, variously, Whiskey, Buddy, and Frog - has changed residences. After eight years as mother to a South African Clawed Frog, I find myself frogless.

Just to be clear, he's not dead and he's not making his way through the sewer system to a freer life. We gave him away. Our friends Jarred and Whitney and their daughter Cammy have taken over the care and feeding of the frog. Cammy has announced that she will henceforth call him Whisker, although I'll betcha it won't be long before Whitney is saying, "Hi, Buddy," as she feeds him each morning.

Whitney is studying marine biology, so Whisker's life may be improved by this change - or at least his diet may be more exciting. Whitney says she'll feed him blood worms, which he loves but which I withheld because they made the water smell bad. (Now it can be said: changing the frog's water was right up there with cleaning toilets on my list of unfavorite activities.)

Here's a very short history of Whisker's life so far:

He arrived as a birthday gift for Recalcitrant Teen before she was recalcitrant, or teen-aged. He was supposed to be a miniature frog, but he never stopped growing. This was important because the miniature version of these frogs is legal in California, but the full-sized clawed frog is not. Apparently, there's no way to tell the difference in the tadpoles so it was an honest mistake by the lab which supplied him.

He had whisker-like threads growing from his face for a while; hence, the name Whiskey.

We thought he might be lonely, so we sent for a companion. The second frog bounced around the tank like a little rocket ship, earning the name Frisky. Frisky proved to be another full-sized male but Whiskey loved him anyway - yes, biblically. Whiskey would hang onto Frisky for hours, crooning a lovely mating song the whole time. We referred to them as our giant homosexual frogs. Our friend Claudia, assuming their attraction was the result of being held in captivity, called them Joe-Bob and Bubba. (Frisky, poor guy, was always Whiskey's bitch.)

Sadly, we soon learned that we had misinterpreted everything. South African Clawed Frogs are loners and carnivores, so Whiskey eventually dispatched his friend (whose frenetic flights take on a whole new meaning in this light), and returned to his solitary existence.

He sings at night. He tries to bite the tiny spoon I use to measure out his frog-tidbits. He comes to the surface when the top of the tank is opened because he knows it's dinnertime. I think he'll be very happy with his new family, who can expect to get another twenty years or so of enjoyment out of him, and I will put a nice plant on that shelf where he used to sit.

Mom

2009-04-05T09:43:00.000-07:00

My mom was a quirky, gentle, funny soul who loved birds and flowers and rocks and trees. When she died we divvied up the rocks she'd polished so everybody would have a little bowlful to remember her by. We interred her ashes in a beautiful wooden box with an elaborate carving of a tree on the lid, and each of us added something to the grave - a rock, a feather, a flower - so she'd have those things close to her while she slept.

When we were small she liked to cuddle us and kiss the backs of our necks and call us 'Dolly.'

She loved to read to us - in particular, I remember my sisters and I gathered around her, snuffling and sighing as she read us The Yearling, and The Red Pony, and Old Yeller. (Always with the dead pets. She loved a good tear-jerker.)

"Don't wish your life away," she used to say. Good advice.

She loved Red Skelton and Jack Benny - and she was right to. When I see those scratchy black and white clips of them now, I laugh out loud and I probably sound just like her.

She loved mysteries and biographies and science fiction. In fact, she introduced me to the sci-fi/fantasy world, first with The Hobbit, and later with Stranger in a Strange Land.

She taught fourth grade. On her fiftieth birthday, she asked her class how old they thought she was. "One hundred," one kid said.

She liked to make jam, and she wasn't afraid to experiment. One year she decided to use up some vodka that had somehow ended up in her cupboard (the provenance of that vodka is a mystery in itself) by adding it to some strawberry jam. She thought it might give the jam an extra bite, like strawberries in champagne or oranges drizzled with triple sec. What she learned was that the vodka separates and forms a pool on top of the wax used to seal the jar. So, she sat down and drank those little pools off the tops of her jam jars. Cracking herself up the whole time.

Her brothers used to tie her up and make her eat cold gravy. They thought she was too scrawny, which, in fact, she was. When she met my dad, she was 5'3" tall, and weighed 88 pounds. Later, of course, she was diagnosed with a thyroid condition; later still, Type I diabetes. Treating these illnesses allowed her to gain a bit of weight - at one point in her life, she attained the enormous bulk of 125 pounds! The operative word here, obviously, is bit.

The memory of the cold gravy incidents always made her laugh, although not as hard, she said, as she laughed while they were happening. She and her brothers and sisters got up to a certain amount of mischief. Once, she said, they stood at the top of the very steep and narrow staircase which led to the second floor of their farmhouse, and tossed a large cardboard box down the stairs. "Ow, ow, ow," they yelled as the thing banged and thumped its way to the bottom. Poor Grandma came running. "You kids," I can hear her saying. "You kids get on out of here, now."

Mom grew up on a farm in Iowa during the Great Depression. She liked to tell us about the radio Grandpa hooked up to the windmill used to pump water from the well. The kids would gather around to listen to whatever was the radio drama of the day, and it all worked fine until the wind died. They missed the conclusions to many stories.

My parents met in a lecture hall at the University of Iowa - McBride Auditorium. Seating was alphabetical, so Geneva McBride got the seat next to Gordon McCallum. (The fact that my mom and the auditorium shared a name always struck me as equal parts peculiar and cosmic.) Their first date was on St. Patrick's Day. They were married three and a half months later, on July 3rd, 1948. My sisters and I joined them in rapid succession: Steph in June of 1949, me in May of 1950, and Susan in August of 1951. Dave arrived in October of 1953, and Duncan brought up the rear in December of 1961. We were a clan.

My parents were married for just shy of 59 years, and that's a good run by anybody's standards.

Mom died two years ago today. I still miss her; I suppose I always will. But thank goodness she taught me to love literature, birds and flowers, rocks and trees, and that laughter is the best medicine of all. I'll think of her today and pretty soon, I'll be laughing.

Your Nose Knows

2009-03-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I walked into the backyard and thought, It smells like spring! It took me a few minutes to realize that what I was smelling were the blossoms on the macadamia tree. The aroma isn't flowery at all - it's more fresh and green and new. You know: spring.

Which started me thinking about all the smells that put us in mind of something else.

What's that smell we call 'snow?' It's unmistakable, even here in the southland. Whenever I smell it, it snows in the mountains looming over my town so I know it's real. It smells cold and a little wet and...snowy. And it comes in on the wind.

Then there's the scent of rain. That one has a different smell in the city than it does in the country. City-rain smells slightly acrid, like pavement and motor-oil; but it's mixed with a good dose of grass and leaves washed clean. Country-rain smells like wet dirt and chamomile.

Fresh-mown grass is the smell of summer afternoons; star-jasmine is a Southern California summer evening. Eucalyptus and dust are the scents of summer heat, an aroma that sends me to my computer to write feverishly. I've tried simulating that smell with candles to ward off writer's block, but it has to be the real thing.

Carnations: funerals. Chalk-dust: school starting in the fall. Coffee: Sunday mornings and the New York Times crossword puzzle. Pine: mountain roads.

Leaves mulching on a forest floor have a rich, damp, slightly spicy scent which also makes me think of mosquitos. The beach smells like coconut oil, kelp, and the damp salt-air that rolls in with the surf. Barns smell of hay and motor oil and manure. Hospitals - well, we all know about that hospital scent, and most of us find it creepy and unpleasant.

Smells are powerful memory aids, mood setters, data providers. Next time you find yourself sniffing the air, wondering if you need an umbrella, remember to heed what your nose is telling you. Because your nose knows.

Upate on the Writing Contest

2009-03-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Over at the Amazon contest, I made the first cut with my book The Raider's Wife. So that's nice. But frankly, I've been here before and I know it's either a crossroads or the first step into the cul de sac where the dead end is waiting for me.

So. Here are my thoughts on this business:

The first Amazon cut went from 10,000 entries to 500. It was based on a 300-word pitch, and a 5000-word excerpt from the novel. The evaluations began February 8th, and the first cut was announced at 10pm PST on March 16th. The excerpts are now posted at Amazon (link above) with the reviews they received from Amazon in the first round.

It was a long wait, both in days and in hours. On March 16th some contestants began refreshing their Amazon screens at 12:01am. For those who kept it up all night and all day only to learn that they hadn't made the cut, the disappointment must have been crushing. If I had been one of those eliminated in the first cut, I'd have posted one crabbed little message saying, 'Congrats to those of you who made the cut. Good luck.' And then I'd have disappeared off the boards for a while so I could lick my wounds and digest my sour grapes in private. I am blown away by those sunny souls who hang in there, offering their best wishes and their full support to those of us still in the contest, even while they're dealing with the disappointment of having been eliminated. I wish I'd been graced with that sort of disposition.

The Amazon contest is nice because all of the eliminations except the last one are done by industry professionals or very experienced amateurs. Even with the high quality of that input, looking at the reviews given the top 500 excerpts, you can't help but be struck by how subjective and even capricious this process is. On my excerpt, the reviews are diametrically opposed - one reviewer loved it and the other hated it. It makes you appreciate how big a factor luck is in this crazy publishing game.

The next cut will occur on April 15th when the 500 are winnowed down to 100 by reviewers for Publisher's Weekly, and sometime in May three of those 100 will be selected as finalists by the staff at Penguin. The winner will be the one novel out of those three which is able to generate the most excitement among Amazon customers.

Or, in other words, the contest at that point will become a literary American Idol. Those contestants will become shameless hussies, doing whatever (and I mean whatever) is necessary to drum up votes for their books. Beg, borrow, steal, kiss up, belt out show tunes, put on bunny costumes and prance around on street corners. It's not pretty.

But I'll cross that bridge if I ever get to it.

Finally, for anyone interested in looking at my excerpt linked above, here's a warning: Amazon makes you buy it for the price of $0.00. Yes, really, they make you give them a credit card number so they can charge nothing to it. It's how they verify that only customers have access. It's embarrassing, but there you have it...

Unrequited love

2009-03-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

That's what the relationship becomes between mothers and kids as the kids grow up. Mothers stay crazy about their kids no matter how old or independent those kids get. Kids, on the other hand, outgrow their mothers.

Sometime during adolescence, kids start tossing clues around that maybe spending Saturday afternoon at the mall with Mom isn't on their list of Top Ten Favorites anymore; and that taking a slow trip up the coast with the parents isn't as charming as it used to be; and that, actually, conversing with Mother over a leisurely dinner isn't especially engaging.

It takes a while for mothers to get it, and then it takes a while longer for mothers to accept it. But accept it we must. Because if we aren't raising our kids to be independent and self-sufficient, then what are we raising them for? Mothering them when they were small was important; letting them go when they're grown is equally important. In fact, it's the point.

There comes a time when spending the day shopping or exploring a museum or seeing a movie with you is fun again. They do crave your company sometimes, and not just when they need advice or a babysitter or a place to stay. But once they're grown you aren't the center of their universe anymore, while they stay at the center of yours forever.

And that's just life.

Marriage

2009-03-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

This is a big topic in California these days, and yes, it's another of those touchy subjects. Despite the knowledge that I will offend someone somewhere, I think I have to take a stand.

The basic economic unit of our civilization is the household, and the first defining feature of a household is the relationship of the people who reside together. Unmarried people have the benefit of pooled resources; married people also get tax, insurance, and inheritance benefits. Marriage, then, is basically an economic decision. We get married so we can improve our financial security and the security of our children.

The question of sex is secondary, and - all fantasy aside - is settled in a variety of ways depending on age, attraction, and compatibility. There is an expectation that marriage will entail a sexual relationship, particularly in the beginning, but in practice the sexual relationship may or may not endure. Every marriage, if it lasts long enough, will see the sexual aspects diminish in importance; the economics never do.

In general, who has sex with whom has been the province of religious institutions, guided by tradition. The state has no real stake in this except where sexual behavior may affect the physical or mental well-being of the community, as in incest, bestiality, or sexual violence. Clearly, where public safety is an issue, the state can and should set prohibitions. Public safety is not threatened, however, by consenting adults engaging in intimate relationships, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual.

I believe that states and governments should preside over civil unions alone, and that these can be defined as between any pair (or even group) of people who apply. Marriage, with its sexual dimensions, should be the province of churches, synagogues, and temples.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Trees

2009-03-02T11:39:00.000-08:00

I love trees, and I can tell tree stories from now until Christmas.

I imagine right about now you're typing a note to self into your Blackberry: don't have a beer with McMama. Settle down, now. It's not as bad as all that.

Tree story #1: (Yes, this one's pure nostalgia. Feel free to skip it if you're allergic.)

We had a maple tree in the front yard of our house in Cedar Rapids, and at some point my dad attached a platform to the lowest branches so we could sit in it. He didn't bother with those stairs you sometimes see screwed into the trunk, so we had to jump and catch the branch with our hands, and then sort of twist up onto the platform. I spent whole summer days sitting out there with my sisters, reading books. Really, that's what we did. No clubs, no playing house, no hiding and jumping on people. We sat in the tree and read. It was lovely, green, cooler than indoors, and (we liked to think) private. In the fall the tree turned gold, and it was lovely in a whole brighter way.

Sadly, the tree house came down when the neighbor decided that he didn't like kids sitting in the tree. He was elderly, cranky, and obsessed with our comings and goings. Mom and Dad, being peacemakers above all, removed the platform. After that we sat on the branches, but it wasn't as easy to read because you had to keep at least a bit of your attention reserved for not falling out. Sometimes I try to understand what it was about kids reading in a tree that might have set the old guy off, but I'll never know. The old guy, the kids, and the tree are long gone.

Tree story #2:

When we moved to the house where we live now, my husband spent quite a lot of time and effort thinning out the trees around the edge of our yard. The guy who lived here before us was enthusiastic about trees - too much so, in fact. Every Christmas he would buy a living tree and plant it randomly in the yard at the end of the season. There were also baby fruit trees which were struggling to survive, having been unceremoniously dumped into holes - again, at random. My husband liked to sit on the balcony and evaluate things on a Friday night, and then haul out a tree or two over the weekend. I remember one day when a friend of mine had stopped by for a chat. We were sitting on the balcony, and after a while she pointed to my husband and said, "Did you want that peach tree? Because he's looking at it."

I mention this because we have the opposite situation now. Starting in 2001, we've lost eleven mature trees from our yard: a bottle brush tree, a eucalyptus, a box elder, a Norfolk Island pine, six Italian cypress, and an Englemann oak. The box elder contracted a fungus, the oak appears to have died from old age and will be removed this summer, and the rest all died from insect pests which have become problems in this area due to drought. Just for the record, I was listening to an interview on NPR one day about climate change, and the climatologist being interviewed was asked what the first sign of climate change was likely to be. "Dead trees," she said.

They've removed over a million dead trees from the Lake Arrowhead area of the San Bernardino Mountains, and that's just a drop in the bucket. Dead trees coat the slopes in places, and burn like nobody's business during the fire season.

Tree story #3:

Back when Youngest Daughter was in elementary school, there was a vacant lot we passed each morning on our way to the school. It was a standard vacant lot - lots of weeds sprinkled with trash - except that at one end there was a grove of some kind of evergreen tree with wonderful spreading branches and gnarled trunks. YD would say, "Someday I'm going to climb those trees," and I would nod and agree that they certainly deserved climbing.

Eventually the lot was sold and a sign went up announcing the upcoming housing development. "Wow," YD and I would say. "How cool to have those great trees to shade your new house." One morning, as we drove past, we saw that there were a couple of backhoes in the lot, clearing the land at the far end away from the trees. We were mildly excited because we thought it would be fun to watch the houses go up. Coming home that afternoon, we looked forward to seeing how much work had been done.

When the lot came into view, we saw that the trees had been torn out of the ground and lay in twisted pieces on the ground, heartwood exposed, crowns drooping but still green. YD gave a strangled cry of pain, and I probably did too. It was so violent! They hadn't cut the trees down, they'd attached chains to them and simply wrenched them apart.

We never took that route again, and I've only seen the finished houses once. They're packed in like sardines, identical little houses painted in pastel colors with white trim. Seven years later, there are no mature trees anywhere in the development, so I'm sure the cooling costs in the summer are astronomical. And I'm still mad.

Breakthrough

2009-02-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

I know I've been remiss in my blogging, but things got a little exciting around here, what with Youngest Daughter developing an allergy to school and all. Well, actually, the allergy is to homework, but she seems to be doing better, so I'm ready to settle back into my life.

We've had a breakthrough. It involves the dog, Roxy, and the cat, Ami - short for Amelie. Ami was already an adult cat when Roxy arrived, and she completely rejected her new housemate. For the last three-and-a-half years, she has refused to come into the house when the dog was home. This has made some things, like getting Ami fed and sheltered at night, fairly complicated.

For a long time, we had to shut Roxy in a room away from the family room so we could open the French doors to the balcony, usher the cat in, and take her to her little home in the garage where we keep her food and water and bed. After a while, Ami began to trust us enough that as long as a human being was holding on to Roxy, she would saunter through, tossing malicious glances over her shoulder until she reached the garage door. Roxy would watch her, positively quivering with curiosity, now and then bouncing up a little until one of us said, NO!

When Roxy wasn't home, as when she went with Eldest Daughter to Lake Arrowhead, Ami had the run of the house. This was okay, but not optimal - she was always a little ticked off when the dog showed up again. A couple of weeks ago, however, ED and Roxy got snowed in at the lake for twelve days. Ami was very pleased, assuming, I'm sure, that her nemesis was dead and good riddance. But early this morning, ED and Roxy came back.

I knew there'd be trouble. Ami had reclaimed her domain, but Roxy had not relinquished it. Somebody was going to get hurt, and I was pretty sure that person would be four-legged, furry, and possessed of a tail.

At breakfast time, while Roxy napped under the table, Ami scratched at the door to be let in. I opened the door and she spotted the dog. She gave me one of those soul-withering looks - How could you? - and walked off to sulk on the roof. An hour later, with Roxy sacked out downstairs in my room, Ami came back and scratched again. I opened the door again. Ami came in very cautiously, looked around, sniffed at things, and finally settled in her favorite spot on the chair in front of YD's computer. She had a nice bath and a little nap, and then we both heard Roxy's tags jingle. Ami streaked outside through the balcony door.

For a while, she disappeared. Then she turned up again, peeking through the pane in the French door. Roxy was lying on the other side of that door, so she sat up and looked interested. Ami gave her the back of her tail -!- and settled under the glider for some thoughtful crotch-licking. Having no idea what would happen, but feeling hopeful, I opened the balcony door. Ami ignored me. Roxy edged over to the door and sniffed a little, and then lay back down. This appeared to be our usual standoff.

I got out my yoga mat, put a yoga tape in the DVD-player, and proceeded to work out for forty-five minutes, undisturbed by cats or dogs. When I finished, I stood up and rolled up my mat. Roxy was sprawled in the roadkill position in front of the door, snoozing. I said, So, you won, did you? She opened one eye, twitched her nose, and went back to sleep.

Poor Ami, I thought. Oh, well, I guess I'll go get the mail. I closed the balcony door, which had stood open all this time, and headed to the front door. In the living room, on the sofa, I found Ami, curled up in a ball, sound asleep! She had walked right past the dog and made herself comfy in the other room; the dog had stayed still and remembered not to chase her without any human intervention whatsoever.

Yowser. It all happened right behind my back! Peace broke out!

Now, if something like this could happen in the Congress, and in the Mideast, we'd have real progress.

Update: Ami continues to assert her ownership rights to the house, and Roxy continues to be a very good girl about the whole thing. She's intrigued, though, and sometimes has to be persuaded to stay away from the cat. She seems more curious than antagonistic - in fact, more than curious. The dog is fascinated with the cat.

ED took Roxy back to the lake on Wednesday morning. Yesterday, when I woke YD up, she said, "Where's my dog?" I said, "Up on the mountain." She said, "I bet she misses the cat." I said, "I bet she does. And I bet the cat hopes she dies up there and never comes back." YD said, "That is definitely some unrequited love."

Services

2009-02-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

I just addressed a couple of get-well cards, one to my father who had surgery on Sunday, and one to a friend who is undergoing chemotherapy right now. I like get-well cards that make you laugh, because I am a firm believer in the healing power of laughter. But as I applied the stamps to these cards, it occurred to me that they might not reach their destinations for several days, because the post office is operating at a deficit, and is looking for ways to cut costs. Have they laid off any employees yet? Maybe they've reduced hours for the employees they have, or they're reducing the amount of mail they air-freight across the country each day. Any of those actions will slow down mail delivery, and if they haven't taken them yet, I'm pretty sure they will. Sooner or later.

Well, I thought. Expecting rapid mail delivery is just a socialistic impulse, right? I mean, why shouldn't I just take care of my mail delivery myself? Why depend on the government?

My youngest daughter is struggling in school right now. This is not because she's impaired; it's because she's a teenager, and being a teenager means sometimes you're going to get yourself into trouble. Being her mother, I'm trying to get her back out of trouble as soon as possible, and for this I need to deal with the counselors at her high school. Today I've called - twice - and sent an email, but no one's gotten back to me yet.

Wow, what a lousy school district, right?

Uh, or maybe it's a school district operating on the shoestring which is all our state has offered it for the last seven years. We've had to cut staff - and when we say staff, we mean administrators and counselors and custodians. We are trying hard not to cut teachers, although with my state's solvency all but gone, teachers are next. This will make it harder to pull my daughter out of the tailspin she's put herself into.

Socialistic impulse again. What right do I have to expect free public schools? I could teach her myself, and if I don't feel up to the task, I have the right to scrape up enough money to put her in a private school. Maybe it won't be a fancy, high-falutin' school, but she could go to one of the cheapies. The teachers in those won't be any more accredited than I am, but at least they're willing to do the job. And surely some of them will know the difference beween a scientific theory and a wild-ass guess.

Last night there was some kind of major emergency. I could hear sirens howling for over an hour, and when we drove over to a friend's for dinner, we saw that several streets were blocked off by emergency vehicles, and we moved aside to let an ambulance pass. I'm still not sure what happened, but I'm really (secretly) happy about our socialistic fire- and police departments. Don't tell anybody, but I wouldn't want to do without them, even though they are totally financed by taxpayer dollars.

If the government can't find a way to remain solvent, my husband could lose his job. He's a NASA employee, after all, which means he depends on the largesse of the taxpayers. His job has, in the recent past, produced a lot of good solid data which helps in weather prediction. But who really needs to know where droughts or floods are likely to strike next, or where hurricanes are heading, or now many supercells have formed in tornado alley this season? Weather prediction is just a nicety, right?

Of course, if he does lose his job, we'll lose our healthcare, because we won't be able to afford COBRA coverage without an income, and private health insurance doesn't really exist for people our age. But that's the most socialistic impulse of all - government-sponsored health care. Yikes. No way do the voters of this country want to have to pay taxes towards health coverage, even if it means they spend fewer total dollars for better, more comprehensive health care, because...

Well, just because.

So. Goodbye, services. Hello, freedom. And hello, isolation, ignorance, suffering, and death - we welcome you because socialism - in the form of pooling our tax dollars to provide services we can't otherwise provide for ourselves - is just too great an evil to be borne.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

and all that hooey. Valentine's Day has never been a big deal to me. Heck, you get a card, maybe some chocolates you don't need, occasionally some flowers which are nice. And that's about it. I'm not one of those people who ever counted Valentine's Days when I was single - I really didn't care. Of course, I've been married most of my adult life, but still. It's more a pain in the ass than a holiday.

Where exactly did this feeling come from? Maybe years and years of scrambling around to buy those boxes of Valentine's cards at the grocery store so my kids - who were all born in different decades - could take them to school. Argh, I hated that.

Or maybe it's from being in a marriage which can best be described as 'bedrock.' Not bubbly, not zesty. Bedrock. And that's how I like it. Much more solid and dependable than wind beneath my wings - this is my foundation and it's good and strong and stable. Candy and flowers seem superfluous. (Especially since I tend to buy flowers whenever I want some, and I really, really don't need any more chocolate in this house.)

Or maybe it's a leftover from being a kid in a school where there was no rule about having to bring enough to go around. The teachers would set up decorated boxes, and kids would drop their cards in, and before we went home the box would be opened and everybody's Valentines would be presented right then and there. And there'd be kids who didn't get any. Not one. It would make me feel bad not just because I'd feel sorry for whoever it was, but because I'd also realize that I hadn't given that kid a card, either.

Kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.

But have a happy one anyway. I'm fixing dinner for the family and I bought cupcakes to thrill my granddaughter. My husband said, Why are we buying these cupcakes? And I said, for Valentine's Day. And he said, Oh. I see.

Food

2009-02-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

Last night my daughter gave me an essay written by her aunt, my ex-sister-in-law. It was about the foods of her childhood, and it was wonderfully written. It brought back memories of my former-mother-in-law and her prodigious cooking skills: the Christmas goose she prepared one year, and the goose-fat cookies we ate in January; the sauerkraut soup I tried so hard not to be invited over for, only to discover that it was simply delicious; the home-made hamburger buns which were my favorite of all her home-baked breads.

The essay got me to thinking about my childhood foods, so I'm going to piggyback (shamelessly) on Linda's idea and write my own essay on food. With apologies and love to my sweet friend, here's what I remember best:

Potato scones. These were small, rather flat biscuits made of mashed potatoes and flour, cooked in a hot, dry, cast-iron skillet and served with butter and jam. We kids loved them, and rejoiced whenever we found my mother rolling them out. A few years ago I told my mother that all I remembered about those meals were the scones. "What did we have with them?" I asked. "Nothing," she answered. "Scones were what we had when the groceries and the money ran out at the same time."

Oh. Sometimes I suspect that the childhood I remember and the childhood I lived are two different things.

Applesauce. My mother made the best applesauce in the world. She cooked the apples down with cranberries and lots of cinnamon, and used a food mill to remove the peels and puree the sauce. One year she had a serious insulin reaction while we were in the process of making the applesauce and had to be carted off to spend the night in the hospital. While she was gone, my sisters and I - aged ten, eleven, and twelve - finished canning the applesauce. I still remember the look on her face when she saw the jars lined up on the kitchen table. "Did they seal? Did you count the pops?" she asked. "We did, Mom. They all sealed," we assured her.

Autumn soup. This was a soup she made with ground beef, onions, celery, carrots, and potatoes. It was delicious and very satisfying. We liked to line the bottoms of our bowls with saltines and ladle the soup on top, turning the crackers into a delicious mush which still makes my mouth water. I wonder if I have any ground beef in the freezer?

Minced meat. Another ground beef dish, made by browning the meat with onions and then adding water and salt and pepper, and letting the resulting mixture simmer until the water had become a rich broth. It was always served with mashed potatoes and green peas. We stacked the potatoes and peas and spooned the minced meat over the top. My kids love this dish as much as I do, and if I should happen to find ground beef in my freezer, they would expect me to make minced meat and not waste my efforts on autumn soup!

Meat loaf. She made it with ground beef and soda crackers and onions and eggs and lots of catsup, and she always served it with acorn squash and baked potatoes. It was my favorite cold-night supper.

Poached eggs. This was something we got when we were sick with a cold. She poached the eggs in milk, and then poured the eggs and milk over toast, and seasoned the resulting mishmash with salt and lots of black pepper. I've never warmed up to eggs poached in water, but I must have my poached eggs in milk whenever I'm feeling under the weather.

Banana bread. It was moist and dark and sweet as cake. She used to make several loaves, wrap them in foil, and mail them to us when we were away at college. Banana bread was the ultimate cure for homesickness.

I guess the best part of remembering the meals of childhood is remembering the faces and smells and the Saturday-Evening-Post quality of our dinner table. Thanks for sending me on this journey, Linda.

I got nuthin'

2009-02-06T17:36:00.000-08:00

So that's what you're getting, too. A big fat nuthin'. Have a nice weekend, get some sleep, read a book, see a movie. That's what I'm planning.

Time to do some whittling

2009-02-04T11:15:00.000-08:00

What we've gotten out of mega-corporations:

Lower prices - unless you're talking about petroleum. Not that I think gas should be cheaper. Just sayin'.
Shrinking newspapers.
Lousy reporting.
A whole host of mindless talking heads, spewing mindless talking points.
The auctioning off of the formerly public airwaves to media conglomerates.
Giant gas-hogs with rotten repair records.
Out-of-control medical costs.
The end of pensions. The rise of 401K plans which depend on the stock market.
Stock market crashes, minimum of one per decade. See bullet point above.
Failed banks.
Sub-prime mortgages and home foreclosures.
Endless war for the sake of a) oil, and b) defense contractor profits.
(Crappy) blockbuster books in lieu of literature.
Air, water, and soil pollution resulting from the burning of fossil fuels, unsustainable agri-business farming methods, and mega-tons of waste resulting from an economy based on overconsumption.
Obesity at astronomical levels.
Unsafe food and drugs.
More stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting at the moment.

Aren't you glad we've loosened the regulations regarding monopolies? Isn't our world just so much better this way?

Where I've been, and notes on being an unpublished author

2009-02-02T11:13:00.000-08:00

Last week I disappeared into the black hole of editing a novel I was entering in a writing contest. Each morning I told myself that by the end of the day I'd post a note here, explaining why I wasn't blogging. Each night I shut down the computer, vowing to post the note in the morning.

Last night I completed the entry process, and now I'll be in limbo until March 16th. So here's your note. And here's a shiny new blog post.

I've been an unpublished author for a decade now. I have a funny feeling that this is and will always be my reality: brown hair, blue eyes, size 6 1/2 M shoes, unpublished author. I have no idea whether this is ok with me or not. I used to think it was a temporary state, like carrying around ten extra pounds. Now I know that my hair color is more temporary than my authorial status. And the ten extra pounds? We're not even going to go there.

So what's it like? Embarrassing. That's the first word that leaps to my mind. It's just damn embarrassing to be hawking your life's work like some kind of snake oil salesman. Writing query letters, wondering which tone to strike: blustery confidence, or abject humility? Straightforward has proved useless, and the old businesslike model I used to print up on expensive paper and send out via snail-mail now strikes me as heartbreakingly naive.

But writing queries is easy compared to the task of summarizing a four-hundred page novel in four paragraphs, while trying to obey the standard exhortations: use your very best writing! If you can't write a compelling synopsis, who's going to read your book? Make it shine!

Probably the hardest thing of all is the pitch: define your audience and explain why your story is relevant. Generally, an audience is defined this way: "Readers of Famous Bestselling Author will be interested in this book."

Me and Margaret Atwood, man. We're peas in a pod. (As to relevance, my question is: Why? Can't it just be fun?)

And how about that bio? They assure you that it's fine to write about your life, but at writers' conferences, they admit that all they really care about are your publishing credits. If you've got some, they'll give you a second look. If you don't, be prepared to wax poetic on the great handicaps you've overcome to produce this life-changing novel.

See? Embarrassing.

Then there's the constant rejection. I'm a connoisseur of rejection letters. There are the form letters: Due to the volume of requests we receive, we are unable to answer your query personally. We have read your submission with interest, but we feel that it does not meet our needs at this time. Blah blah blah ba-blah. There are the nice ones with the handwritten notes at the bottom: I really think you're almost there! Keep working! There are the unintentionally cruel ones: Have you considered self-publishing? There are agents who don't bother to respond at all, and some whose response is incomprehensible: the rejection letter received in reply to a request for submission guidelines, for example. That was a good one. (Huh? You won't even tell me how to submit?)

Some things I've been spared. I knew a writer who received, in lieu of a letter, the first page of his manuscript back with the word NO! written in red ink, and little red holes where the reader had stabbed the page with his pen. That hasn't happened to me. Yet.

Would I like to be published? Sure. I'd like to feel validated. I'd like to think those hours of midnight oil weren't wasted. I'd like to cash a check.

But then again, maybe not. Setting up book-signings sounds like a whole new ball-park in the experience of humiliation. (Hello, I'm Local Author, and I'd like to sign copies of my book at your store. Yes, Local Author. Yes, that's my name. What do you mean, you aren't stocking my book? Oh, I see. Well, thanks for your time.) And what if the reviews are horrible? Or worse - what if no one is interested in writing a review? What if it's reviewed as humor? Lord, that last one gives me palpitations.

Still. I entered the contest. I'll let you know how well I do. Don't expect good news, though. I'm the unpublished author, and I'm guessing I'll be lugging that label around for a long time. It weighs about ten pounds.

Balm

2009-01-26T09:46:00.000-08:00

That's what we mothers are when our kids are small - balm for every scrape, bump, and bruise. But then the kids grow up and our former balminess loses its effectiveness, even going so far as to become an active irritant. What's a mother to do?

I wish I knew. I hate seeing my kids struggle, but they don't want to sit on my lap anymore and have their backs rubbed. My attempts to advise come off as evidence of a deep and irreversible character flaw on my part - and, let's face it, maybe that's what it is. I can make all kinds of excuses for myself but, in fact, don't my efforts represent an attempt to exert some control over their futures?

This is the essence of parenting - just when you think you've cleared the rapids, you round a bend and find more white water.

Tantrums

2009-01-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

Here's my favorite temper-tantrum memory:

The toddler in question was Youngest Daughter. I had taken her to the mall, along with Middle Kid, who would have been thirteen or maybe even fourteen by the time this happened. Eldest Daughter was working at the mall back then, and if memory serves, we were there to see her during her break.

ED and MK took off to do some shopping together, and I stayed in the center of the mall with YD. There was a fountain there and YD loved to sit on the edge of it and dangle her toes in the water. That day, unfortunately, toes weren't enough. She wanted the whole-body experience. I said, No. She said, Yes. I said, No. She flung herself on the floor and began to issue blood-curdling screams which bounced off a thousand hard surfaces to create an incredible, ear-splitting, soul-shriveling racket.

I stood beside her and waited for her to tire out. She was young and lusty, though, and kept it up long enough that a crowd began to gather. I didn't notice; I was fully occupied with watching my precious bundle of joy spew out gigantic doses of toddler rage. I didn't say anything at all, just stood, watching, waiting for the tell-tale hiccup which would presage a collapse into baby-sized sobs, and permit me to gather her up for a calming cuddle.

Suddenly ED and MK pushed through the crowd to get to my side. I glanced around, noticing for the first time all the people watching us, and then shrugged a little sheepishly at my older kids. What's wrong with her? asked ED. She's having trouble with the concept of 'no', I said. She'll be all right in a minute. Okay, said ED. We'll just shop a little more, then. She and MK walked away, the crowd dispersed, and the episode ended happily enough with the expected cuddling. YD gave up on tantrums after that, apparently deciding that a tantrum was too much effort to expend if all it garnered was a standard-issue cuddle instead of a dip in the fountain.

Teenagers have tantrums, too, but theirs are harder to handle. For one thing, the rightness and wrongness of a particular position aren't as immediately obvious as whether or not it's okay to swim in the fountain at the mall. Although tantrums tend to be about self-determination, regardless of the age of the tantrum-thrower, teenagers frequently have a point. They're at an age when they need more power over their own lives, and the question tends to be, how much are they ready for? It's a delicate thing. They shouldn't have to be ready to march entirely to Mom's or Dad's tunes - maybe they're never going to be tidy; maybe they really don't like tennis; maybe they'd rather watch baseball than play it. At the same time, parents shouldn't turn their backs on their kids' futures - maybe you'll want to go to college after all, so let's keep those grades up; maybe you'll want to use those eardrums later, so let's turn the music down; maybe you'd like your teeth to stay aligned, so let's sleep with the retainer in.

Handling teenage tantrums - or, more properly, rebellion - takes honesty, insight, and love. It's the hardest part of parenting, and the most important. We all get it wrong a lot of the time, and sometimes we get it right without realizing we've succeeded until years later. It's so hard not to get drawn into the emotions of the moment, to react out of hurt or surprise or anger. I guess the only thing we can do is to try to give ourselves and our teenagers a break. Nobody's perfect here, but everybody's trying, and hopefully love will win the day.

I get a great big smile on my face

2009-01-22T20:04:00.000-08:00

every time I hear one of those guys on the news say, "President Obama..."

And that's all I've got for today. A big smile.

Only Minutes, Now

2009-01-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

Here I am, doing what I said I wouldn't during the inauguration - blogging.

We're down to minutes, now, and then the Bush era will be over. I am three parts hopeful and one part scared that it's all a dream and I'm going to wake up to find out that it's 2006 and we have two more years to go.

I can't wait to hear Obama's speech. I heard some numbskull on the radio this morning saying Obama would have a big challenge in giving this speech. I thought, Huh? I believe the days of difficult speechifying are over.

Mrs. Obama looks very glamorous. Neither of the First Ladies is wearing a scarf, though, and I'm feeling their lack. Come on, ladies. It's cold outside.

Hail to the Chief - for the last time, being played for Bush. As incongruous now as it was the first time.

Here comes Biden, leading a bunch of Democrats. Scarves a-plenty. Biden doesn't have one, but his overcoat looks sturdy.

Am I obsessing over the temperature? Probably so.

Here comes Obama. Hm. No scarf. Oh, dear, my eyes are filling up already. Picture me in my beat-up jeans and Obama tee-shirt, bed-head, wet cheeks, great big smile, applauding vigorously to the extreme concern of my very confused dog.

Feinstein's giving a nice speech.

Here comes Warren. I believe Obama's selection of him was a message to the country that no voice will be shut out, even when it's a voice that may be disagreeable to one side or the other. Oh, my goodness. He's praying to Jesus - the media will have a field day.

Oh, yaaaayyyy - Aretha Franklin! Oh, my. How do those people on the podium (like the new President, for example) stay so composed? I'm a basket case...in a good way, of course. So prescient of me to set this box of tissues here.

John Paul Stevens is up. Biden's taking the oath of office. Kisses all around. Well, Stevens and Obama got handshakes, but most of the rest of 'em got kisses.

Itzhak Perlman, Yo-yo Ma. Wow, this is a great piece. Yo-yo Ma's got a big smile on his face. Perlman's concentrating on the music. The clarinetist - is that a clarinet? I think so - lets a little smile out now and then, in spite of the mouthpiece which should technically prevent smiles. The pianist smiles and concentrates and smiles again.

It's past noon in D.C. Lehrer says that means Obama's already President! Taking the oath now. Obama and Roberts are both having trouble with the words. Ha, they've got it now...

YAAAAYYYY! Clap clap clap! Sniff. Yaaaayyyy! Blubber, blubber. YAAAYYY!

Oh, thanks be. The Bush presidency is over. The Obama Era begins!

Now the speech. 'The time has come to put aside childish things.' Excellent. '...pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin the task of remaking America...'

'Dignified retirement' - yes, please.

Malia's taking pictures of her Dad. I think she's a small version of Michelle.

'We are ready to lead once more.'

'Success is measured in what you build, not what you destroy.'

'...a new era of responsibility...we have duties to our nation and the world...this is the price of citizenship...'

'Let it be said that we did not falter...we carried the great gift of freedom forward...' Ah, very good speech. Are you happy, radio-talking-head-guy?

Lady reciting an excellent poem. Very down to earth. Not too flowery, but nice imagery. Repairing of uniforms, I like that.

Now Lowery is giving the benediction.

Sea Chanters singing the anthem - very nice. Very official.

The Obamas escort the Bushes out. Heh. Don't let the door hit you on your way out, Mr. Bush.

All rightie, then. I'm feeling good. I believe I can walk my dog now, secure in the knowledge that intelligence and thoughtfulness are back in vogue.

Updated to add the 's' after the word 'mean' in my comment about Lehrer. Hee. Pretty amusing typo - completely changed the meaning of the comment. To clarify, Lehrer did not say Obama is mean.

Black experience

2009-01-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

Recently I've read several books by black-American authors, among them The Known World by Edward P. Jones, The Bondswoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan, several of Walter Mosley's LA-noir mysteries, and, currently, One Drop by Bliss Broyard. Each of these books offered me glimpses into a black America I was not ordinarily privy to, but the most instructive has been One Drop.

Ms. Broyard's claim to the designation 'black writer' is tenuous at best. She's a white girl raised in the ultra-homogenous society of Connecticut's upper-crust who learned when her father was dying that, by the 'one-drop' rule, she was a black girl from Connecticut. This revelation sent her off on a seven-year journey to trace her Broyard roots, both the black and the white. It's a fascinating story, but what I appreciate the most is her attention to the last three hundred years of American history as seen from a black perspective. She's very good about providing the details which are glossed over, never understood, or simply forgotten by the white world, probably because the absences, once pointed out, are glaring.

To cut to the chase, what I've learned is this: the black experience is not the same as the white experience. And the inauguration of a black president is, for many black citizens of this country, a miracle. My vote for Barack Obama did not come because he was black; in a world turned upside down and inside out by the gobsmackingly incompetent Bush administration, Obama's ideas and speeches and brilliant campaign management were all I needed. This is not say I didn't notice he was black - that's the kind of silly thing people say to cover up the fact that they can't stop noticing. But it wasn't important to me, except to the extent that I worried about the mythical Bradley effect turning out to be real.

It really didn't occur to me how meaningful this would be to black America until I saw the scene in Chicago when Obama claimed victory, and became the president-elect. Jessie Jackson was crying, for God's sake. Jessie Jackson, who'd been caught on tape a few weeks earlier uttering a profanity because he felt Obama wasn't presenting a unified front with the rest of the black community, listened to Obama's victory speech with tears running down his cheeks. I saw that and was struck with wonder. Oh, my God, I think I said. We've elected the first black president. Oh, my God.

I've got it now. This is huge. It doesn't wipe out our history, nor does it mean that the black experience and the white experience will from this point on be the same. But it does validate black society in a way in which it had not been validated before, and for that I'm pleased and grateful and more than a little excited.

Random thoughts

2009-01-17T12:08:00.000-08:00

Items which have occupied my mind this morning:

There are fewer than 70 hours left in George W. Bush's presidency. The relief in my house is palpable.
Rod Blagojevich must be taking heart from the news of Orange County sheriff Mike Carona's acquittal on five of six felony charges yesterday. The rest of us? - not so much.
Words will never hurt you?
The good news: Battlestar Galactica is back. The bad news: it's the last season, and judging from last night's episode, they're going to end it for good by wiping out the entire cast, character by character.
I need to get a whole lot more sleep .
Finally, I won't be blogging during the inauguration. I'll be sitting on my sofa in my jammies with a pot of coffee, a box of tissues, and a great big grin on my face. Enjoying.

Musings on the afterlife

2009-01-15T09:01:00.000-08:00

I have no idea what death means to the dead. Yes, yes - whole religions are based on people's beliefs regarding this very subject, but that doesn't mean anyone actually knows what happens. All the theories amount to leaps of faith - belief without corroborating evidence. I happen to believe that we all emerge from a pool of whatever you want to call the essence of life, and that when we die we go back to that pool. And I submit that my expertise in this area matches that of every (living) religious theoretician in the world, since our experience of it is precisely the same.

So, when I speak of the afterlife, I mean my life after somebody close to me dies.

Put in theoretical terms, it sucks. You never stop missing them. The best you can hope for is to get used to missing them. It helps to remember good things about them, especially things that make you laugh; but, frankly, there will be moments even years later when something reminds you of them, and you just ache to see them again.

The bright side of all this is that your memories keep them alive in some small way. Although my friend Wayne has been dead nearly eight years now, I still remember the last joke he told me. (Referring to his cancer diagnosis, he said, "Nobody in my family has ever had cancer, as far back as I've been able to trace the family tree. You know what this means, don't you? It's just as I feared - I'm adopted, and those bastards never told me!") Since my mother's death nearly two years ago, I have become hypersensitive to birds and flowers. It's as if she's in my head somewhere, using my eyes to catch glimpses of her favorite things.

The upshot is that it's important to share good things with the people you love - make good memories, include a solid dose of silliness, and laugh as often and as hard as you can. All that stuff will be important some day for carrying survivors through the afterlife.

Still can't do it

2009-01-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

Even with eight days left in his presidency, I still can't make it through an entire Bush press conference. I tried, I really did. I thought, poor thing, let him go out with dignity. Listen to him, just this once.

He lost me at, 'I don't know why some people were so angry but I didn't let them affect my decisions.'

Yeah, dip-stick, we noticed. There we were, yelling, "HEY, WATCH OUT! THAT ICE IS REALLY, REALLY THIN!" Did you let that kind of negative, unhelpful criticism slow you down? Of course not! You had made up your mind, being the decider and all, and you waltzed right out there onto that pond. It didn't seem to occur to you that, since we were tied to you, when the ice broke we'd all go into the drink. And only the most deranged Bush-haters would be so mean-spirited as to mention that we're drowning out here.

Oh, for the love of God. Spare us. Just. Go. Away.

Happy Birthday, Youngest Daughter!

2009-01-09T09:02:00.000-08:00

Your birth changed all our lives, and in a good way. Thanks for coming along, even if your coming was a bit more exciting than I'd have liked.

Memories of that day: I'd been hospitalized for two weeks at that point, the goal being to put off your birthday long enough for your lungs to mature. That morning the doctor performed another amnio to check your progress. Having an amnio involves some extensive sonogramming, and when you turned towards the beam, the doctor and I got a clear view of your face. (This is commonplace now, but seventeen years ago, not so much.) We both started squealing (she was, besides being the doctor, a pregnant woman), and our racket apparently startled you so that you immediately wriggled away. But for a minute there we saw you, and you were gorgeous.

I'd always had the idea that in a c-section, the baby popped right out through the incision, sort of like a grape popping out of a skin. Ha. This was so wrong - and particularly in your case. I believe there were at least three sets of hands fishing around in my belly trying to get a grip on you. You, independent from the start, did such a good job of burrowing away from them that they finally had to use a suction cup on your head to pull you out.

In person, you were just as gorgeous, although I didn't see it right away. When I first saw you, I thought, 'Huh. It's just another baby.' When people told me you were pretty, I assumed they were being polite. After all, has anybody, anywhere, ever said, 'Well, that baby doesn't look like anything special,' to the child's mother? It wasn't until you were about a week old, and we were having lunch at Chili's, and the waitress burst out, 'Oh, wow! What a beautiful baby! You must be so grateful!' that I began to wonder if you might actually be pretty cute. I asked your dad if that was so - 'Is she pretty?' - and he said, 'She's beautiful!' And he was right.

You looked like the Gerber baby, eyelashes and all.

In my defense, my reaction was pretty typical for a new mother who really never expected to see her baby alive. Mothers caught in complicated pregnancies often disconnect a bit. Then, if the baby actually lives, they need a few more days to bond than usual. But we did bond, and pretty soon I was a typical, 'Look, she's more perfect than any other baby in the world!' kinda mom.

Last memory: this one I had to get second hand, because I was drowsing in the recovery room while this was going on. You had been whisked off to the nursery. Eldest Daughter and Middle Kid were waiting outside the nursery window to see you, and the nurse (who was the mother of one of MK's school friends) obligingly showed you off to them. Then she did all the usual stuff that newborns need and put you in an incubator to warm you up. She had other babies to tend to, so she moved off to check on the others, and you started squawling at the top of your lungs. ED was outraged that you'd been left alone, and naked! She began tapping on the window, shouting so she could be heard through the glass: 'My sister is naked! She doesn't like it! Put a diaper on her!'

I heard this story many times over, from your Dad, ED, MK, and from the nurse, who liked to tell it when we were at school functions and she had a large and appreciative audience for the tale.

So. Happy seventeenth, baby girl.

Tomato sauce

2009-01-08T09:58:00.000-08:00

Yup. Another recipe. Fresh tomato sauce is the best thing ever. It will cure you of any attachment you might have to bottled pasta sauces.

1 onion, diced
enough olive oil to generously coat the bottom of your saucepan
1 large or 2 medium garlic cloves
8 cups roma tomatoes (about a dozen of the little buggers), cored and quartered
1 cup white wine
2 tablespoons (or more, if you're trying to stretch) organic tomato paste
1 teaspoon kosher salt
fresh ground pepper to taste
1/8 to 1/4 cup fresh basil, shredded

(Preliminary: if you have a food mill - those sauce-pan-shaped thingies with a blade on a crank used to smash soft foods through a sieved plate in the bottom, ignore this part. If not, boil some water, pour it over your tomatoes, let them sit for one minute, drain, and peel them before you quarter them. This doesn't take as long as it sounds like it will, but food mills are preferable. The peels won't go through the sieve, so you're spared the trouble of removing them yourself. And I think the sauce tastes richer when the tomatoes are unpeeled during the initial cooking process.)

Okay, now that you've dashed off to the store to buy a food mill - or peeled your tomatoes - you can start.

Saute the onions over medium heat in the olive oil in a large saucepan or chef's pan, until the onions are golden. This will take about five minutes. (You're looking for translucent onions which have turned a sort of golden yellow color. If they're browning, your fire is too hot. If turning them golden takes a lot longer than five minutes, your fire isn't hot enough.)

Press the garlic cloves into the pan (or mince them finely if you don't have a garlic press) and cook for one minute, stirring gently. Pour in the tomatoes and stir to coat with the onion, oil, and garlic stuff. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat for fifteen to twenty minutes, until the tomatoes are soft and mushy and the skins are peeling off.

Spoon the tomatoes into any large container with a lip for pouring. Set up the food mill over your pan, and puree the tomato mixture back into it. This sounds work intensive, but it takes as long as - oh, ten minutes, maybe? Not long. (If you don't have a mill, you can puree your tomato mixture in a blender. Don't make it too smooth - it should have texture. Some people - well, okay, one guy and I haven't seen him in decades, but he exists - use a potato masher to squash their tomatoes for a very chunky texture, instead of pureeing. Suit yourself.)

Add the white wine, tomato paste, salt, and pepper to the tomato mixture. Bring the sauce back to a brisk simmer and let it thicken a bit - this will take up to half an hour, depending on the phase of the moon and a host of political factors. In other words, keep an eye on it, and turn it off when it looks thick enough to make you happy. Stir in the shredded basil a minute or two before you remove the sauce from the heat.

Now it's time to use your imagination. You can use this sauce as is, or stretch it with more tomato paste, or add meat to it. You can add some fresh oregano if you plan to serve it with beef, or crushed red pepper for some bite, or - if you're looking for a very intense flavor - add a couple of tablespoons of pesto to it. You can pour it in jars and freeze it (leaving plenty of head space so the jars don't break) or you can keep it in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. In the last month, we've used it 1) as is over fresh cheese tortellini from the grocery store, 2) baked with gnocci, spinach, and cubed mozzarella, 3) pumped up with tomato paste and meatballs, and 4) as a seasoning in carbonara (that is, adding about a half-cup to a bacon, egg, and cheese sauce.)

Gaza

2009-01-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

Yes, indeedy, this is a sensitive subject, but I have strong feelings about it so I guess I'll wade right in.

My support for the continued existence of Israel is unswerving, not least because Israel has the potential to provide a moderating cultural influence on a region known for cultural extremes. Israel does not treat its women as chattel, it does not demand barbaric and bloody public spectacles to punish criminals, and it has a rich tradition of intellectualism, creativity, and humor.

That said, the people of Palestine have as legitimate a claim to a homeland as do the people of Israel. They also have a rich tradition, emphasizing personal responsibility, generosity, and devotion to family and God. They have been subjected to increasingly brutal treatment by the government of Israel, and they have been deprived of any true voice in the world at large.

The killing and the siege in Gaza must stop. Israel's response to the continuing rocket fire from Gaza is disproportionate and deeply immoral. In this instance, Israel is wrong.

This is a failure of both Israeli and Palestinian leadership; and the dreadful policies of the Bush Administration have contributed mightily. I can only hope and pray that the incoming Obama Administration can effect positive changes in the region.

There you have it. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

UnChristmas

2009-01-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

As I may have mentioned, I love Christmas. I love it so much that I deck out my house with box after box of kitschy junk - every kind of nutcracker, including a vampire, a pirate, and a ballerina; a tiny farmyard with a house, a barn, a pond, skaters, and trees which light up; numerous Santa, elf, snowman, and angel figurines; a Jesus-Mary-Joseph figurine; various large and small wreaths; and multiple Christmas trees ranging from a 6-inch table topper to a 10-foot behemoth which takes over my living room. Oh, and candles. Lots and lots of candles.

I put it all in place as early as I can because I love having it out. But then the season ends, and I have to undecorate. Naturally, putting the stuff away nearly always requires some closet cleaning and repacking because somehow (unbelievably) the collection grows every year.

So, that's what I'm doing instead of blogging. I'm cleaning out two closets, a cupboard, and my hutch so that I can put Christmas away for another year. It's the unChristmas time.

Another list: under-reported current events

2009-01-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

1. Food riots - erupting in locations throughout the world as food prices soar.

2. Palestinian and Israeli casualty figures - cutting to the chase, here's an estimate by Physicians for Human Rights and quoted by the BBC: since September 29, 2000, 4,897 Palestinians and 1,062 Israelis have died. The Palestinian figure is considered conservative.
Corollary to 2: The Israeli military operation on November 4th to destroy a tunnel from which a rocket attack could be launched, which precipitated rocket attacks by Hamas, which precipitated bombing strikes by Israel... And yes, I realize there musta been something which precipitated the November 4th operation. How far back do you want to go?

3. Children imprisoned in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo by the Bush Administration - some estimates run in the thousands. The low thousands, Don Rumsfeld would say by way of reassurance.

4. Peak oil - the time at which oil extraction peaks, followed by a relentless and irreversible decline in production. Some folks (like Sadad al Husseini, formerly of Saudi Aramco; and Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens) say that we're there. Now.

5. The number of times the Republican minority in the Senate used filibuster, or the threat of filibuster, to block passage of legislation. It's a lot. Because, despite repeated failures to clarify this by the mainstream media, the number of votes needed to pass a bill in the Senate is 51, not 60. 60 is the number needed to cut off debate on a bill - it's called cloture, and failing to reach cloture is the definition of a filibuster.

6. The number of tornadoes in the US during 2008. There were a lot of them. Statistics show a gradual trend towards more tornadoes over the last 50 years or so, but 2008 was a biggie: 16oo+ of the little buggers through October (with reports for the last two months of the year not yet available). The next biggest year in recent memory was 2004, when we had 1800+. That was also under-reported.
Corollary to 6: Frequency of floods isn't getting as much ink as it should, either. Some folks (like Eugene Takle and Elwynn Taylor of Iowa State University) say that megafloods, like the one that wiped out big chunks of my hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa in June, are on the rise.

Update: Yeah, already. No sooner had I clicked on the Publish button when I remembered something I'm still waiting to hear about: the extent of the damage to Galveston by Hurricane Ike in September. How many dead? How many missing? How much property damage? Where's the reporting?

Anything to add? Put it in the comments.

Lists

2009-01-01T10:35:00.001-08:00

In honor of the New Year, let's have some lists:

Some Movies I liked in 2008

The Dark Knight - although I was grief-stricken halfway through because Heath Ledger will never appear in another movie.
Wall-E - because it showed us where we're going if we don't turn off our tv sets pretty damn soon.
Iron Man - because it was so deliciously tongue-in-cheek.
Twilight - because it recalled those tangled teenaged emotions so accurately.
There Will Be Blood - because Daniel Day Lewis is stunningly good.
Traitor - because Don Cheadle is stunningly good.
The Duchess - because it does a wonderful job of laying out the case for women's rights, and by extension for the rights of every disenfranchised group.

Some Books I Read in 2008 - which were not necessarily published in 2008

Wuthering Heights, E. Bronte - I was finally ready to enjoy this, after three aborted attempts.
World War Z, M. Brooks - to please my daughter, and I'm glad she insisted. This is a very compelling book, and yes, it's about zombies.
Grendel, J. Gardner - again, to please my daughter, and again, I'm glad. This book is a treasure.
The Worst Hard Times, T. Egan - wow. This makes the Great Depression personal and accessible for those of us (most of us, now) who missed it. The parallels to current events are inescapable.
Careless in Red, E. George - once a Lynley fan, always a Lynley fan. (As in Inspector Lynley. You know, mysteries?)

Favorite Political Moments of 2008

The election of Barack Obama to be our 44th President - and his acceptance speech. Wow.
The shoe incident - and the truly bizarre expression of delight on the (so-called) president's face as he received the deepest insult the Arab world knows how to deliver, proving once again that he is an unreconstructed doofus.
The arrest of Rod Blagojevich - the man's been an embarrassment for years.
The defeats of William Jefferson of Louisiana and Ted Stevens of Alaska - two more embarrassments. To the showers, you two. You're done.
Sarah Palin's Thanksgiving interview with turkeys being slaughtered in the background - another doofus, and thanks be that this one remains on the fringe where she belongs.
The resurgence of intelligence - as Obama announces cabinet members and advisors for the new administration, all of whom are smart. Hurray.

Things I Hope to See in 2009

Peace.
Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in the docket, and George Bush exiled to whatever country is willing to take him.
A thoughtful energy policy put in place, which takes into account both the importance of energy independence, and the climate change crisis.
Thoughtful health care reform legislation signed into law.
The restoration of our right to privacy. And, yes, I mean no more tapping of phones and reading of emails without proper court supervision.
The end of the global gag rule. In the midst of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, this rule has restricted access to birth control. One hopes this was an unintended result. One is not certain, though.
The end of the laughable (and yet not funny) policy regarding liquids on airplanes. Puh-leeze.
The end of the No Fly list. Ted Kennedy? Countless children? Eighty-year-old ladies? Give us a break, please.
The repeal of No Child Left Behind - one of the stoopidest laws ever passed.
The economy healing, the unemployment rate dropping, and hope reigning supreme.
My children all happy, healthy, and thriving. And yours, too.

Palm Springs

2008-12-29T09:53:00.000-08:00

is gorgeous this time around. My husband and I have been here in 116-degree heat, and in snow flurries. This trip the weather has delivered sun and mild temperatures, with breathtaking views of snow-capped mountains ringing the Coachella Valley.

Yesterday we rambled around in Palm Springs, where the 50's are forever preserved. Today we'll visit the Living Desert and hike a bit. Tomorrow we'll go home, stopping at either the Palm Springs Air Museum or the Art Museum on our way out of town. Wednesday I'll be back to bugging my teenager when I'm not blogging, and on Thursday we'll mark our thirty-second wedding anniversary, most likely by watching the Rose Parade on tv, and napping in the afternoon.

So, happy week-between-the-holidays to you all!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T22:14:00.000-08:00

I wish you all joyful giving (and receiving), happy feasting, and some deeply satisfying lounging between the two.

(And to my dear friend Linda, your good news was all the gift I needed. It's a Merry Christmas indeed.)

I'll be back after the big day.

Rain

2008-12-22T09:26:00.000-08:00

Yes. It's raining again. We parched inhabitants of Southern California consider this good weather, so we're all sparkly and smiley and full of holiday cheer.

Today's rain is the excellent kind, slow and steady and nourishing, the kind the Navajos call a female rain. We can walk our dogs in it without getting soaked to the skin, and we can shop in it without risking the integrity of our purchases. Instead of knocking down hillsides, it helps the native wildflowers germinate, which keeps the soil in place. This rain doesn't create a mad rush down the arroyos to get to the ocean. It sinks into the soil and makes itself at home. We don't get white Christmases here, SoCal being semi-arid and all, but this year we're getting the next best thing - a green one!

Now that I've painted this inviting picture of our winter weather, I think I'll go walk the dog in the rain, and then I'll do some last minute shopping. And then, because it's chilly, I think I'll make soup.

Happy Rainy Monday to you all.

Origins

2008-12-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I attended a Bar Mitzvah, my first ever. For this fallen-away-Catholic girl, the experience was more than interesting; it was thought-provoking, moving, and weirdly familiar.

Yeah, that's right. Familiar. To my surprise, I discovered strong parallels between the Catholic Mass of my childhood and the Jewish service I attended yesterday. Both services employ a liturgy. Both make ample use of an ancient language. There's sitting and standing, and an ark which is opened to remove a sacred object central to the service. There are even chapel veils for the women - little lacy hats. And - in the ultimate parallel - in recent years, the use of ladies' chapel veils has become voluntary in both venues!

There are clear differences, of course. The men are required to wear their own version of the chapel veil, kippehs, to synagogue, while in the Catholic church men have always had to bare their heads as a sign of respect. The use of Latin in the Mass has become rare. There isn't much kneeling in synagogue, but there's clapping, which you won't find in Catholic churches. The ark in synagogue is much larger than the little one set on the altar in Catholic churches, and what comes out of the Catholic ark are tiny edible wafers as opposed to the large (and wonderfully ancient-looking) Torah scroll. And, yowser, those readings - we covered Onanism, duplicity, harlotry, single-motherhood! Youngest Daughter and I, sharing the prayerbook, kept reading ahead in the translation because, let's face it, it was wa-aa-ay more interesting than any letter Paul ever wrote to anybody!

The differences seemed just details, though. I had never felt so strongly the shared origins of Judasim, Christianity, and Islam (with its own liturgy complete with risings and kneelings and traditional head-coverings) as I did yesterday.

Most striking, in the end, was the feeling of community, of ancient roots, of the ritual binding of families and friends together in the presence of an Almighty Being. I don't go to Mass anymore for reasons I've thought through and embraced. But attending yesterday's service reminded me of how much I will always enjoy a good, mysterious, religious rite.

My Favorite Christmas Memory

2008-12-19T16:51:00.000-08:00

I wish I had a video tape of this.

Middle Kid was two. I had to do some Christmas shopping and was at a gift shop in Sierra Madre, California. Sierra Madre is quaint and as out-of-the way as a town can get in the San Gabriel Valley, meaning it doesn't have a freeway, Route 66, Foothill Avenue, Huntington Drive, or Mission Boulevard running through it. It's packed right up against the foothills and is famous for its quaintness, its community-built Rose Parade entry, its search and rescue team, and its volunteer fire department. Firemen get the call in Sierra Madre via a horn that is the loudest quacker you ever heard in your life.

So. MK and I left the little gift shop. I had bought a lot of stuff, much of it breakable, and when we left my arms were so stacked with packages that I was having trouble just keeping it all balanced. Of course I didn't have a hand free to hold onto MK, but the car was only about a block away so I didn't anticipate a problem.

Mistake. Sensing his advantage, MK began walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction from the car.

I called him. He ignored me. I called him again. He half-glanced at me over his shoulder and continued on his way. I yelled at him. He kept going. I started following him down the sidewalk, cajoling (okay, in a not-very-friendly voice), urging, pleading, threatening. Now and then he'd stop and look at me, but he would not come. I turned around and marched towards the car. He kept going in the wrong direction. I stopped and stared after him. I was tired. The packages were heavy. I needed divine intervention.

And I got it. The fire horn, which was situated on top of a poll right smack between us, started blasting out that horrible quacking sound, BRAAAAAGHHHHH BRAAAAAGHHHHH BRAAAAGHHHHH, so loud it was like an explosion inside our heads. MK stiffened, his mouth formed a perfect O, his arms flew out, and he danced around like he was being electrocuted. As soon as the noise stopped he ran to me and flung his arms and legs around my shin.

A delicious calm descended over me. My son was quaking against me, but did I show him pity? I did not. I said, "That's what you get." And then I limped to the car with my arms still full of packages and MK stuck on my leg like a monkey.

I don't think this experience scarred him. I know it did me a world of good. For that one moment, I believed utterly that all was right with the universe, and isn't that what Christmas is about? So, Merry Christmas. Yo.

Forgiveness

2008-12-18T15:19:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, when Tom Vilsack's name turned up as Secretary of Agriculture in Obama's administration, and then Ken Salazar got picked for Interior, a light bulb went on in my head. Ah-ha, I thought. Obama's idea of a big tent holds not just a variety of races, genders, and parties. He's accepting different points of view, too.

Today, defending his choice of Rick Warren as invocator-in-chief at the inauguration, he said so. We can disagree without being disagreeable, he said.

Hoo-boy. I suppose he thinks we should forgive the trespasses of the wingnuts on the right over the last eight years, and learn to live with those toads.

My first reaction is resentment. Why us? Why do the Democrats always have to make nice while the crazy wingnuts get away with bad-faith negotiating and vicious double dealing? Couldn't we slap them silly for a while, and then, when we feel a little better, start down that forgiveness path?

My second reaction is this: that's why we're Democrats. We believe in making nice, in being grownups, in for...for....(deep breath)...forgiveness. If that moronic crackpot in the White House had been a little less moronic and a little more mature - if he'd been accountable to everybody, and not just to the ultra-rich - we might not be in a world of hurt now. And continuing along the trail he blazed and then expecting to end up somewhere different is the definition of insanity.

Besides, we voted for change.

This is going be to a mind-expanding (character-building?) exercise. But okay. I'm ready. On with the show.

(Not giving up my Fox News voodoo dolls, though. Forgiveness can only take a person so far.)

Random thoughts on Christmas

2008-12-15T09:42:00.000-08:00

I've been Christmas shopping in the rain. It's not white, but at least it feels like a season other than summer...

Every time I hit a Christmas milestone, like hosting twelve for dinner last Saturday night, I think, OK, that's done. Now I can coast. Then I remember the next milestone. Like shopping and cards, which I've ignored until now.

One of my favorite things about Christmas is visiting (fill in the blank) Museum with my granddaughter and whoever else wants to come along on Christmas Eve. This year it'll be the Natural History Museum of LA County - same as last year because we love it so much. On Christmas Eve you have the place to yourself, and they serve a darn good lunch. Sooo much fun.

Another of my favorite things is getting Christmas cards - particularly if they're fat with (oft-maligned) Christmas letters inside. I'm a total sucker for those letters.

I love Christmas music. Especially churchy Christmas music - Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel. The Hallelujah Chorus. O Come, All Ye Faithful. Silent Night. We Three Kings. Anything instrumental and flutey. (Hate hate hate Jingle Bell Rock. Argh.)

I love Christmas decorations with sparkly stuff - gold paint and glitter and that sort of thing. It's gotta stay inside, though - I'm not big on ostentatious yard displays; and plastic blow-up stuff? Puh-leeze. A simple strand of lights along the roof line is about all I want to see.

I love peppermint bark. 'Nuff said.

My son makes the most incredible eggnog. I was not sold on the idea the first time around - he puts the liquor and (raw) eggs together in the cupboard for some ungodly amount of time (countable in weeks!), which sounds like a recipe for a Christmas Day spent running to the bathroom, if not actual death. It doesn't turn out that way, though. Apparently the liquor renders the eggs harmless as well as delicious. He adds the cream at the very end because liquor doesn't work the same magic on milk products. Anyway, it tastes stupendous.

I'm pretty sure there are other things I like, having to do with hope and brotherhood and new beginnings. But those border on the maudlin so I won't get into it them now. I'll leave it at this: Christmas is the best anticipatory event of the year.

Update: In rereading this today, I find that I was a little hard on yard displays. I like lights in trees and bushes outside - especially the tiny multicolored ones that my neighbor has scattered over the rosemary growing under his tree in the front yard. Also, I'm partial to those deer shapes with the white lights, and I like wooden cutouts like the moose and deer I see here and there. I really don't like plastic blow-up santas, though, and I don't think I ever will.

Soup

2008-12-12T09:54:00.000-08:00

I love soup. Here's a recipe for one of my favorites:

Dice an onion. In a large saucepan, saute it in some olive oil over medium heat until it turns golden. This should take at least five minutes.

Meanwhile, peel and chunk up about six medium potatoes. Clean and chunk up half of a head of cauliflower. When the onion is ready, add the potatoes and cauliflower and six cups of broth or water or a combination of both to the pot. Add a teaspoon of salt and coarse ground pepper to taste. Bring the mix to a boil, cover it, and simmer for awhile, until the veggies are a little mushy. (This could be done in twenty minutes or so, but if you want to let it go a little longer while you watch the news, feel free.)

At some point, grate a cup or two of cheddar cheese. (I like mild for this, but I'm sure some people would prefer a sharper cheese flavor. Suit yourself.)

Just before you're ready to eat, puree the soup mixture in a blender - you'll probably need to do this in three batches - and pour the puree into a tureen or very large bowl. Now, quick, while it's still really hot, stir the cheese in and keep stirring until it has melted and is incorporated in the puree. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Eat with crusty bread and a green salad. You don't need anything else. The soup will make you full in a scarily short amount of time.

I mailed the gifts

2008-12-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

that go to the Midwest this morning. This used to be a big accomplishment, but today I walked into the post office carrying only three small boxes containing, in all, six gifts. Wow. What a difference a decade-and-a-half makes.

I used to buy gifts for a whole slew of people. I'd get out my luggage carrier and strap a tower of boxes into it for the annual trip to the post office. But a few years ago we discontinued the practice of drawing names amongst the siblings, my mom died, my dad decided he didn't want gifts anymore, and the nieces and nephews grew up.

Is it easier? Sure. But it's not nearly as much fun. No more wandering the aisles at specialty shops and bookstores, no more keeping track (or trying to, anyway) of nieces' and nephews' changing interests, no more satisfaction at finding the perfect - and perfectly odd - item for so-and-so. I miss it. Not to wax too mundanely sentimental, but I've always enjoyed the giving more than the getting.

Ah well. There's still the Christmas letter to be written. I'm a long way from giving that practice up, no matter what the Grinches (those sad souls who find Christmas letters a massive irritation) say.

Oh, damn it!

2008-12-10T08:03:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post on something all sweet and Christmasy, like my memory of the year Middle Kid had the flu on Christmas, slept on and off throughout the day, and was delighted during the following week to discover gifts he had unwrapped in a daze. "Is this mine?" he'd ask. "Cool."

Or, how about Youngest's first Christmas, when I wanted to get a picture of her with Santa? She was terrified of him, so I persuaded then-13-year-old Middle and recent-college-graduate and mall-store-manager Eldest to be in the picture with her, resulting in a fabulous portrait of my three kids which I display to this day.

Or how about the year Eldest was working at the checkout counter at her store, and moved from shopper one to shopper two with a cheery, "Hi, there! Merry Christmas." At this point shopper one-and-a-half, a seriously height-challenged lady, waved her hands and yelled, "Hey! What am I, chopped liver?"

But I'm too annoyed to blog about good stuff like that. Here's the thing: the punditry seems to be falling all over itself looking for a link between President Obama (screw the 'elect' part - I've moved on) and comically corrupt Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. Now, it's one thing for them to be curious. It's another entirely for the country to be subjected to an endless string of breathless pronouncements that begin with, "What if..."

Geez. It's like they're panting for something rotten to report about the new president. Maybe they don't feel relevant anymore - and maybe they aren't. As a class, they screwed up every major story for the last eight years, beginning with the one they failed to report on the complete incompetency of that idiot they were so helpful in foisting upon us.

Look, all you talking ass-heads. We're tired of you. Sit down and shut up. (Thank you, Helen Philpot, for my new favorite phrase.)

I love Christmas

2008-12-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

but this year it's kicking my ass. So much to do, so little time. How on earth did I manage to bake all those cookies when I was a young working mother? I don't bake anything at all anymore, and I can't seem to find the chunk of time that should be freed up by my new (Spartan) regime. This is a question for Einstein, I think: does time being relative mean that as we age our days are actually shorter, and not just seemingly so?

Good-bye, Sam Zell

2008-12-08T11:05:00.000-08:00

Talking Points Memo is reporting that the Tribune Company has filed for bankruptcy protection. I hope this will ultimately translate to deep personal anguish for Sam Zell, who has made it his business over the last many months to destroy one of the best, most vital newspapers in the nation - the Los Angeles Times.

Go to hell, Sam, you fatuous prick.

Call me crazy

2008-12-06T10:46:00.000-08:00

but the jobs numbers released yesterday are starting to make sense.

I know, I know, I suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome and I'm paranoid as a coot. But this is what my tiny mind has noticed: for years now, the Bush Administration has released certain economic indicators only to quietly revise them a few weeks later. Now this isn't unusual, nor is it unusual for an administration to put a positive spin on information it makes public. But what was notable about the BA was that the first numbers were almost always better than the later numbers. A jobs report might show that 100,000 jobs had been created (which wasn't actually a great number, but the spinners would applaud like crazy and the public would say, Oh, good.) Then a few weeks later, on page 23 there'd be an announcement that that number had been revised downward to maybe 65,000. It seemed obvious to me that the BA was using the rosy numbers to push legislation or to make certain rule changes more palatable.

Then came this week's jobs report, and it was astonishingly, shockingly, awe-inspiringly bad. Scary bad. What-the-hell-is-going-on bad.

I thought, wow. They've really checked out. Or they've lost their mojo so completely that they can't influence their own bean counters anymore. Or 500,000 jobs lost is the rosy version. Or they've suddenly discovered a deep-seated desire to level with the public. (Snort.)

Then I heard the news on NPR. In light of the dreadful jobs report, Congress is close to agreeing with the White House to dip into the money set aside to develop fuel efficient vehicles in order to bail out the automobile industry.

Oh. Dang, they're good. (That would be the Orwellian good, of course.)

Funereal musings

2008-12-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, we really have to think about these things. Lives end, funerals happen. It's cruel to leave all the decisions to your survivors, who may be in shock (if your end comes unexpectedly) and will certainly be grieving. In that spirit, I offer the following account of my husband's final plans:

(It should be noted here that my relationship with my late Mother-in-Law was difficult. My husband's relationship with her was complicated.)

MiL and my hus are sitting at the kitchen table during this discussion. Eldest Daughter and I are sitting together in the family room, just a few feet away.

MiL: I've decided to be cremated when I die. Does that bother you?
Hus: No.
MiL: I think it might bother some of the others.
Hus: Really? It doesn't bother me at all.
MiL: Are you sure? Because, you know, there won't be any remains to be viewed.
Hus: I'm fine with it, Mother. Viewing remains isn't my favorite thing.
MiL: But some people like to be able to see the deceased at the funeral.
Hus: Well, you know, we could have a viewing before the cremation if it made people feel better.
MiL: So, you're sure about this? I don't want anybody to be upset.
Hus (wearying of the discussion): You know, Mother, I've been making some plans for my own funeral. McMama doesn't know this, but when I die I want to be placed on a funeral pyre on a raft and floated out into the Long Beach Harbor in flames. Sort of a heroic end, you see what I mean?
MiL: But...can you do that?
Hus: I think so. McMama will find a way.
McMama and ED (burying faces in hands): Mfffff, fff, fff. Hee, hee, mffff, mm, mm.
MiL (suspiciously): Are you serious about this?
Hus: Uh.
McMama and ED: Choke, gasp, hee-hee-hee-hee-hee. Hee. Hah. Mfffff. Mm, mm, mm.
MiL: Do you want to go out to eat tomorrow night?
Hus: Sure. What do you have in mind?
...

Night terrors

2008-12-04T12:12:00.000-08:00

I'm talking the motherhood variety, not the screaming-child type. My mother told me there's no age limit for this disorder and it turns out she's right. No matter how old your kids get, you still wake up at night worrying about them.

I've worried about some stunningly silly things during my 3am-wake-up calls. Suppose Youngest's date doesn't show up at the appointed meeting place, and she finds herself all alone at the ball - can she be persuaded to take along a warm coat so she doesn't freeze to death while she waits for me to rescue her?

Suppose Eldest keeps on smoking forever. Will she end up with a haggard smoker's face?

After a decade of higher education, have Middle's student loans grown so big that paying them back will affect his ability to buy a new car when he finishes his Ph.D.?

Oh, all right. I've worried about the real stuff, too. I suspect the silliness is a defense mechanism, my mind's attempt to knock the real worry down to size so I can go back to sleep.

But the point is that as a parent you'll never stop worrying. It doesn't end when they get big enough to cross the street alone, or to drive themselves to work, or to enroll their own kids in elementary school. It's as permanent as the designation, parent. It sucks, but there it is.

Not much to say today

2008-12-03T17:55:00.000-08:00

But Bitchphd took care of me just fine. Go here and watch this. You'll be glad you did.

Update, December 4th: This video's being linked all over the place today. I just want you to remember, I did it before The Huffington Post or Crooks or Liars. So there.

Three decades, three kids

2008-11-30T23:00:00.000-08:00

That's been my life.

Eldest Daughter was my seventies kid. I was young - just twenty, in college, still a bit of a hippie and joyfully idealistic. Young parents, driven partly by inexperience and partly by all the vagaries of youth, lean towards unrealistic expectations and insensitivity masquerading as cleverness. Poor ED was the victim of all that, as are most first children to varying degrees. Nevertheless, she was a sunny, cooperative, happy child, and I was confident her sweet disposition was due to me and my impressive mothering skills.

Middle Kid was a child of the eighties. I was almost thirty when he was born - a yuppie living in SoCal, working as a software engineer for a major aerospace company, and a bit smug. Having a second child would be easy, I figured. Look at my first - she was a great kid! I had this down cold.

I reckoned without an eight-month-long bout of colic followed by asthma set off by practically everything. Yikes. This wasn't as easy as I remembered. MK was nothing like ED.

Youngest Daughter was my nineties baby. She was as complete a surprise as a package can be, a change-of-life, medically complicated, other-worldly blast who exploded into my life just as I was turning forty-two. By that time I was sick of workplace politics, sick of the rat-race, sick of being tired, and definitely not up to another decade or so of arranging childcare. What's more, I finally knew that I didn't know what I was doing, motherhood-wise. I retired from my job and became a stay-at-home mom.

ED was a typical 'first,' eager to please, concerned with being correct, extroverted, a good student and a social butterfly. Her early years were sometimes chaotic: she had to deal with my divorce from her father, with having a single mother for a year and a half, and then with being a stepchild. She went to four different elementary schools in three states before we got settled in our new hometown.

MK was an introvert, uncommonly bright, and not nearly as anxious about pleasing me as he was about pleasing himself. His early childhood was spent in daycare and then in a private elementary school with after-school-care because both his parents worked. We moved once when he was an infant and again when he was a toddler, but otherwise his early years were remarkably stable compared to ED's.

YD is also an introvert, has a stay-at-home mom, displays amazing talent in both graphic arts and in creative writing, and is so far out of the box that her father says if we could just get her to see it off in the distance, he'd be satisfied. She still lives in the house we lived in when she was born, has never changed school districts, and has never attended a school where I wasn't a volunteer.

I didn't mother any two of these children in the same way. They were different, I was different, the circumstances were different for each of my kids. It was a gift to have had them spaced so far apart. They each had the luxury of being only children, at least for a while, and I had the luxury of getting to know them as individuals.

And you know what? It makes our family gatherings lively - nobody remembers anything the same way, because nobody had the same childhood.

It's Sunday, so let's have a passage from the Bible

2008-11-30T21:15:00.000-08:00

Youngest Daughter discovered this passage via Uncle Tom's Cabin, which she read this weekend for her American history class:

"Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you." - John 14:1-2

In Uncle Tom's Cabin, it occurs in a shortened version: "Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you."

She preferred the second version to the first. True to the church-deficient nature of her upbringing, she's not comfortable with exhortations to belief; but the idea of preparing a place for a loved one in God's mansion appealed to her mightily.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-29T10:54:00.001-08:00

I have a contentious relationship with time. It's always leaving me behind, and I'm always playing catch-up with it. In that spirit, I'm finally ready to write my Thanksgiving post.

Yes, I know Thanksgiving was two days ago. It was noisy, crowded, complicated, emotional, hectic, and highly aromatic. It was also delicious. We brined the turkey using Alton Brown's recipe, with amazing results, though my husband and I have already decided on the ways in which we'll alter the recipe for next year. (To us, a recipe is more than a set of directions. It's the beginning of a journey.)

Because our extended family is in the Midwest, we've had to create our Thanksgiving crowd by supplementing our meager numbers with friends. After decades of doing this, we've come up with a multi-family, multi-racial, multi-ethnic feast which begins with every single feaster having the floor to give their own special thanks. This can take as long as fifteen minutes, but this year there was a short, sweet consensus view: we are thankful for Barack Obama! (There was a minor contingent which was also grateful for turkey, dressing, pie, and Australian white wines.)

So. Here's hoping everyone in America had a happy, or at least a hopeful, Thanksgiving. We did.

Family lexicons

2008-11-28T22:06:00.001-08:00

All families have them. Ours is sprinkled with made-up words from when the kids were small, and phrases of mysterious origin. Here are a few of my favorites:

Creamo: whipped cream. This refers to real whipped cream and not Cool-Whip, which should always be called Cool-Whip, obviously. (Does anybody want creamo on their pie?)

Stander: any stool or other object called into service as a makeshift stool. If you stand on the kitchen table to remove a splatter of spaghetti sauce from the ceiling, the kitchen table is your stander. (I can't reach that without a stander.)

Fuzzy pigs: dogs and cats. Left over from a childhood spent on and about hog farms filled to capacity with pigs and fuzzy pigs. (Has anybody fed the fuzzy pigs?)

A suzy: the act of walking in front of someone repeatedly, the way our calico cat Suzy used to do. (If you keep that suzy up, I'm going to trip over you.)

Rebel scum: teenagers. (Quiet, rebel scum!)

Blank's on the roof: means someone or something is near death/ruin/failure. (At the moment, my washer's on the roof.)

Darth: the black refrigerator in the kitchen, as distinct from the white refrigerator in the family room. (Darth has no beer!)

Booze, rump, pie, bacon: terms of endearment. (Move over, bacon.)

The big room: a large bonus room my husband added to our house around the time Youngest Kid was born, and which now serves as a combination office, art room, television theater, and playroom. For a long time we called it The Woom, but we got over that.

Home Despot: Home Depot. It rules us.

YD reminds me in the comments to include caticated: the state of being trapped in a comfortable chair by the cat in your lap. (I can't get the phone. I'm caticated.)

DiL left me a phone message yesterday, reminding me of another biggie - minie: a favorite blanket. (Your minie's in the dryer.)

Family lexicons are funny, uniquely descriptive, and intimate in the way they keep memories alive long after they might otherwise have faded. They're like mini-family-histories. Here are a few of the families whose lexicons I'd really like to hear about: the Obamas, the (Ted) Kennedys, the Schwartzeneggers, the (Jon) Stewarts, the Cheneys, the Scalias, the Olbermans, the Moyers. Really, don't you just wonder if any of them ever say stuff like, "Booze, I think Darth's on the roof?"

Enough of the warm and fuzzy

2008-11-26T10:07:00.000-08:00

I need to talk politics today. But because it's the day before Thanksgiving, and I have a million things to do, and the election's over, and I have dear friends and family members who subscribe to the conservative view, I'll keep it to a minimum. Here's my question: why do so many conservatives obsess over imaginary dangers while ignoring the shit that's actually killing us?

Case in point: according to Juliet Eilperin writing in the Washington Post today, the White House has issued an email urging mayors across the country to oppose mandatory limits on greenhouse gases.

The e-mail notes in bold, underlined text that the comment period for the rulemaking "closes on November 28" and provides a link to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce blog post that warns that a federal cap on greenhouse gases "will operate as a de facto moratorium on major construction and infrastructure projects."

Ooooh, scary. Next thing you know, our recession will become a depression because we can't fund infrastructure projects, and then we'll all be standing in soup lines! And the soup will be cold, because of the federal greenhouse gas cap!

Compare and contrast with actual, verifiable global warming, which is killing people all over the world right now, as we speak. Global warming is characterized by dead trees, forest fires, melting glaciers, extreme weather phenomena, famine, and massive species extinctions.

We're a species, people. And if we aren't very, very careful, we could be an extinct species.

Dogs

2008-11-25T07:58:00.000-08:00

I came to dog ownership late in life - three years ago, to be exact, when we were adopted by a seven-month-old, escape-artist chocolate lab with a beguiling smile. The cats hated her on sight. My husband was both charmed and determined not to take her in. The kids adored her.

It all came about as my GrandDaughter and I were getting ready to go shopping. I had the car doors open (can't remember why they were all open, but they were...) and I was buckling GD into her booster seat when this gorgeous chocolate lab hopped into the car and sat down right next to her, tail thumping, tongue flapping, just pleased as punch to be going somewhere.

GD let out a scream I will never forget. She was terrified. Terrified.

The dog gave her a little tiny lick on the cheek.

This was not helpful. Also not helpful, I suppose, was the fact that I was whooping with laughter. My husband, who was working in the yard, got the dog out of the car. The rest of the family poured out of the house and surrounded the dog adoringly. Somebody said, "She's got a tag. We better call the owners." GD continued to wail.

GD and I left. The shopping calmed her down, but when we got back the dog was still there, still surrounded by worshipers, still thumping that tail. When the owners finally arrived they asked if we'd like to keep her; circumstances were making it very difficult for them to give her the attention she needed, and they wanted her to have a good home.

Here are some things I've learned:

Dogs will eat anything. And then they'll either throw it all back up or they'll crap it out in nasty puddles all over the yard.

Dogs are psychic. I don't mean they can read our minds (although they can). I mean they can make us read their minds. When Roxy wants something, she plants herself as close to me as she can get and gives me a meaningful stare. And I get up and let her out, or I fill her water bowl, or I get the leash off the hook and we go for a walk. My husband will see her staring at me while I'm trying to watch The News Hour, or Heroes, or some damn thing, and he'll say, "What does she want?" And I'll look at her for a minute and say, "She's thirsty." It's weird.

Dogs are really good at meeting people, and forcing their owners to meet people. I have a whole crew of friends who became my friends because of Roxy. My husband calls them the dog people. We have potlucks and go to football games and meet twice a week so our dogs can play.

You can't teach an old cat to like a young dog, but eventually the cat's sense of outrage will win out and the cat will reassert its property rights.

Dogs don't carry grudges. Lock them on the deck for hours while you're having the carpets cleaned, and they're thrilled when you let them back in the house. Same with leaving them at the vet's and the groomer's. Same with dropping them off at the kennel for a weekend. It's embarrassing. "Show some pride," I say to Roxy. "Hold me accountable." She wags her tail agreeably, which can be interpreted to mean, "Sure. Whatever you say."

Awkward introductions aside, grandchildren love dogs. Dogs love grandchildren. Dogs love to be trained by grandchildren because there are treats involved. Grandchildren love to train dogs because there are commands to be given. It's a match made in heaven.

Dogs know who will drop the most food at the dinner table, and they position themselves under that person's chair. That person's chair is never my husband's.

Dogs need to be walked every day, preferably twice, which results in improved behavior and health for the dogs and weight loss, lowered cholesterol, and lowered blood pressure for their owners. It's an all-around good deal.

Dogs can be taught to air kiss. Mwah, mwah. Good girl, aren't you clever?

Dogs can be shared. Eldest Daughter owns a house in the mountains near us, and Roxy lives there with her most weekends. She does not seem to find this confusing in the least. When she's on the mountain, she makes ED read her mind. When she's here, it's up to me.

A man can claim to be unhappy about owning a dog, but it won't keep him from playing with said dog at all hours of the day and night. The man might even be observed throwing balls for the dog in the house. Actions definitely speak louder than words when it comes to men and dogs.

There is no moral to this post, unless it's this: I was always a cat person. Now I'm a cat and dog person. It could happen to you, too, so don't be judgmental.

Memories can be tricky

2008-11-24T07:48:00.000-08:00

My sisters tell me that I once fell off the plank bridge Grandpa laid across the creek. The creek was high with the spring melt, and I would have been swept away but my cousin Tom grabbed one of my hands as I fell and was able to drag me back out. I lost a shoe.

They love to tell this story. I have no memory of it at all. My mother didn't remember it, either, but Mom's memory of our early childhood was extremely spotty. She was overwhelmed by our sheer numbers and blocked most of it out.

My parents-in-law used to park their motor home in the street in front of our house, plug into our electrical service, and stay for months. This was a problem for us. It's exhausting to have guests week after week, whether they sleep in the guest room or at the curb. One year my husband took his mother aside and told her that we simply couldn't host them for such a long time. This provoked a painful argument between them which left my husband tight-lipped and pale.

Some years later, after both of my in-laws had passed away, I mentioned that argument to my husband. He had no memory of it. None. He was certain it had never happened.

My Younger Sister remembers my Older Sister and me going to extreme lengths to scare the bejesus out of her when we were all small and shared a bedroom. OS and I remember how frightened YS was of the dark but we don't think we ever intentionally provoked her. When she was scared she'd leap from her little bed (not wanting her feet to touch the floor, where a snake was likely waiting to bite her) into the big iron bed that OS and I shared, which made sleeping difficult for all of us.

When my second husband (then boyfriend) graduated from college he moved to SoCal to take a job he considered his dream-job. My whole family lived in the Midwest and I had no intention of ever leaving, so when I graduated six months later I took a job in Minnesota. Eventually my husband moved to Minnesota to be with me. Curiously, he never looked for a job while we lived there, but I was frantically busy with work and wedding plans and didn't have time to think about the implications of that. I nagged him a bit (a lot?) and let it go.

At some point, he admitted that he hadn't actually quit his job in SoCal. He was on a leave of absence and had to be back there a month after our wedding. This came as a terrific shock to me, one which rippled through the early years of our marriage and eventually forced us to seek marriage counseling. But here's the tricky part: for years I told that story as though he made his confession after the wedding. One day I got to thinking about it, and it occurred to me that he might have told me before the wedding. I asked him which way he remembered it and he doesn't. Remember it, I mean. He doesn't know when he told me.

You see how perfidious a thing memory is, don't you?

As I get older, I trust my memories less and less. The broad strokes are clear enough, but the details get fuzzy. If you had asked me a week ago how many lines I had in "The Man Who Came to Dinner" when we performed it at my high school, I'd have said five or six. Watching the play this weekend (as performed by The Shoestring Players at Youngest Daughter's high school), I was shocked to discover that I had four scenes with several lines apiece. Huh. How about that?

I always thought my grandmother lived with us for at least a year in the C Avenue house which we occupied from the summer of 1956 to the summer of 1958. Looking through old documents, I discover it couldn't have been more than a few months. A month is a long time to an eight-year-old, so a few months could easily translate to a whole year half-a-century down the road. And a small role in a high school drama could shrink to a tiny one. But what's up with that other stuff?

Was I so traumatized by falling in the creek that I buried the whole thing deep? Or maybe I just slipped a bit and lost a shoe, and in my sisters' memories a close thing became a near tragedy. Maybe my husband told me about his leave of absence much sooner than I remember, and the decision I had to make was whether or not to cancel the wedding and not whether or not I wanted to be twice-divorced.

I'm not as worried about what I've forgotten as I am about what I remember. Time, emotions, and other people's retellings of shared events have an effect on our memories. How do we reconcile our varied versions? Silly question. We settle things in our favor. We prefer our own lying eyes to anybody else's.

So, what's the upshot? Well, memory is unreliable. Perspective matters. And, damn it, reality turns out to be highly subjective.

How Barack Obama is changing my life

2008-11-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

I can write again. The news is no longer unbearable. I am working wholeheartedly to clean up my filthy mouth.

Most importantly, I can sleep again. And when something does wake me up, it's the problem of how to seat 18 people in my dining room made for 10, on Thanksgiving Day.

Fall

2008-11-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

Oh, boy. I can't believe I've just titled a blog post 'Fall.' But I did. Must be a habit left over from twelve years of essays assigned by the Sisters of Mercy somewhere between the first day of school and Thanksgiving week.

I like fall. When I was a kid, fall meant school. I was one of those dorky types who actually liked school, or at least never questioned it as a necessary experience. Fall meant new classes, new possibilities, new pencils and books and the smell of chalk. (Maybe kids today would like school better if they still had chalk. It was so much a part of the ambiance - not just the smell, but the dust and the scritching noise and the occasional tooth-shattering squeal of it.)

I remember crunching through piles of flame-red maple leaves, my cat's-eye glasses sliding on my nose, lunch in a brown paper bag being squashed between my green-plaid-adorned chest and the books piled in my arms. I remember the little butterfly-wriggle of excitement when I entered my new classroom, took my seat, and began assessing the new teacher.

Other good stuff: burning the leaves after we raked them, Halloween and its accompanying stomach-ache, Thanksgiving dinner with the forty or so members of the family who would make the trek to my uncle's farm. Buying sweaters and eating Jonathan apples. Watching The Twilight Zone on Friday nights. Listening to my father's voice floating out the window on Saturday afternoons: Hell's bells, he'd holler when the Chicago Bears failed to score. And somewhere in there, before Christmas came and winter smacked us down, was the first snowfall of the season.

Fall is a different experience now. Partly this is due to my living in SoCal, where the seasons are less in-your-face than in the Midwest; partly it's because I don't go to school anymore, except to tutor children wearing clothes which would have sent the Sisters into cardiac arrest, who have to be reminded to turn their cell phones off during class, and who have never smelled chalk. No one burns leaves, and my uncle's farm was sold off a couple of decades ago. Even so, fall still has its moments. In SoCal, the avocados and lemons ripen, the liquid amber trees put on a show in time for Thanksgiving, and the temperatures can be described as moderate on most days.

McMama: Do you know why they call it fall?
Granddaughter: No.
McMama: Because everything falls.
GD, skeptically: Everything?
McMama: Well, everything that's supposed to fall. Leaves, nuts, pine cones, avocados.

(An acorn smacks onto the roof and bounces to the floor of the deck where we're sitting on the porch swing.)

GD: I think you're kind of nutty.
McMama: Takes one to know one.

Speaking of age...

2008-11-20T15:26:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday, Middle Kid!

Eldest says you don't know any of the lore about that day. Here it is, in a nutshell: you were one of the first babies born in Huntington Hospital's new birthing center. This meant the room was equipped with a brass bed and nice wallpaper, and we never left to go to the delivery room. The brass bed, as it turned out, had a break-away bottom that turned it into something analygous to a delivery table, but softer.

You were born in the late afternoon - 5:30ish, I think, after a very short labor. I was deeply into natural stuff, so we were unmedicated. Dad, who is never squeamish about such things, cut the cord. Eldest was staying with friends, and they brought her over right after dinner to meet you. I believe we left the hospital the next morning, so we weren't there even twenty-four hours.

You were, naturally, cute as a bug.

And, although this is your last twenty-something year, you're still very young. Rest assured. You won't be developing jowls for decades yet.

Aging

2008-11-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

Getting old (as somebody once said) ain't for sissies. Reading this post made me sad. Because, you know, it's the way life is. One minute you're young and pretty, but oh so insecure about it. And the next minute you're not young anymore and pretty is in your past, and you're oh so insecure about it. So when, exactly, do you get to relax and enjoy?

There's way too much to be said - and quite a lot already has been said - about the exalted place appearance holds in our Western culture.

Even so, I don't know anyone my age who would go back and look the way we did at twenty, if it meant we had to give up what we've learned in the ensuing decades.

So there. It's not all bad.

To my kids

2008-11-19T14:13:00.000-08:00

in case you discover this blog. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. And some of the dialog will be fictionalized, because frankly I don't always remember exactly what you said. I'm reporting the gist of the thing, okay? Try to just roll with it. After all, you don't have to admit you know me.

Love, Mom

Learning Curve

2008-11-17T16:14:00.000-08:00

It's big and it's endless. You're never finished learning how to parent. The job is impossibly complex, and constantly shifting. Your instincts regarding your two-year-old are quite different from the instincts brought out by your teen-ager. And they're different for each child. Some children prove to be sturdy and capable; others are fragile, or creative, or ethereal. Or brilliant. They're all unique. Lessons learned from one rarely apply to the next.

In light of all that, I don't intend to offer advice. What I mean to do is simply to show you which doors I picked, which boxes I opened, which paths I trod; and how it turned out. Sometimes I was right. Sometimes - well, mistakes were made.

I refer, of course, to the Jesus incident.

Eldest Kid (at about the age of 20): I have to ask you something.
McMama: Okay.
EK: Don't laugh.
McMama: I won't.
EK: Was Jesus a Jew?
McMama: Er.
McMama: Uh.
McMama: Are you saying I never told you anything about Jesus? Nothing at all?
EK: Pretty much.
McMama: Well, to answer your question. Yes, he was a Jew.

A couple of weeks later, in consideration of above conversation:

Middle Kid (about 10 years): This is stupid.
McMama: What's stupid?
MK, holding up copy of illustrated Bible stories for children: This book.
McMama: Why do you say that?
MK: It says Adam and Eve were the first people.
McMama: Mm-hm.
MK: And they had two kids...
McMama: Right.
MK: ...and Cain killed Abel.
McMama: Right.
MK: ...and then he ran away to a far land and married some lady. But where did the lady come from if there was only Adam and Eve and him?
McMama: Er...
(Difficult conversation follows regarding literal and figurative readings.)

Many years pass.

Youngest Kid (aged about 10): Do you think we should go to church?
McMama: I don't know. Do you want to?
YK: Maybe. But not Camilla's.
McMama: Why not Camilla's? I thought you liked it when she invited you to go along.
YK: Not really. It makes me feel bad.
McMama: ???
YK: They always tell us that if we want to be saved, we have to love the Lord. But I don't even know him.
McMama: Ah.
YK: Do you love the Lord?
McMama: Do you mean Jesus?
YK: Yeah.
McMama: I admire him very much. He brought a difficult and necessary message to the world, and it's a message that would heal all our troubles if we paid attention to it. He said we should love each other and not get all caught up in revenge when somebody does something bad to us.
YK: Like not suing people and stuff.
McMama: Um. Yeah. I guess not suing people might be a good place to start.

More years pass:

Granddaughter (aged about 5): Yaya, did you ever go to church?
McMama: I did. Many times, when I was small.
GD: Do you think I should go?
McMama (cravenly): That's a question you should ask your parents.

In which I introduce myself

2008-11-17T13:01:00.000-08:00

I'm a mother-blogger, but the purpose of this blog is not to share kid-whimsy; it's to blaze a trail through the wilderness on the other side of the cute stories - the land of grown-up kids, kids-in-law, and grandkids.

In that spirit, let me introduce the cast of characters:

McMama - me, AKA Mom, Ma, Yaya, Mo-therrr!

Dad - my husband of 30+ years, also called Papa for the purposes of this blog.

Eldest Kid (EK) - a thirty-something single daughter, product of my first marriage.

Middle Kid (MK) - a twenty-something married son.

Youngest Kid (YK) - a teen-aged daughter. Single. Of course.

Daughter-in-Law(DiL) - wife of Middle Kid. European, specifically (and typically) Irish.

Granddaughter (GD) - child of DiL and MK. Typical second-grader, will provide cuteness when required.

All rightie, then. On with the show.