An Accidental Blog

Saturday Snapshot -- Summer

2012-01-28T06:42:00.004-05:00

Happy BIrthday

2012-01-27T05:17:00.005-05:00

Twenty years ago, I lived in a warm climate and a spotless house. I was a size six with 18 pounds of basketball belly when I got up early in the morning, about this time, and drove to the hospital an hour away. Four hours later, Grace was born. Eight pounds, eight ounces.
And, obviously, my life has never been the same -- in a good way. Yes, we've had our mother daughter run-ins and temper tantrums (both of us). But when I went to the hospital, I could never have dreamed that I'd be giving birth to one of my best friends.
Sometimes I think that she relies on me too much, but then I realize that I rely on her too. She's always happy to talk about my day and offer advice on how raise her brothers. We laugh together a lot, and I don't think there's much more I could ask for from her. Someone who loves me, who makes me laugh and who I have watched become a beautiful, confident young woman. And that's only the first 20 years.
Happy Birthday, Grace

Making Connections

2012-01-26T12:35:00.003-05:00

It's a funny thing, the difference a button can make.
Last week, Spencer came home from basketball practice with a picture of himself in his basketball uniform posted on a big button. He proudly presented it to me and I attached it to my coat.
When I arrived at work, I told the secretary and the department head that "Yes, I have become one of those people who wears pictures of my children on my coat."
When I got home from work that day, Spence was sitting on the couch and I leaned over to kiss him. "I like your button," he said.
It's good to make him feel proud or happy that I'm wearing a picture of him around the city. However, I've been surprised at the conversations that people strike up based on the button.
People I know comment on it, but people I don't know too.
Like the guy at 7/11, which I never stop at, but had to run into last night on my way to teach a class. I needed a box of spaghetti as a building supply for my class lesson on teamwork. Who would have guessed that 7/11 sells spaghetti, but it does, so I carried the expensive ($2.79) box of spaghetti to the counter and plunked it down. The clerk asked about the boy on the button.
"Is that your son?" he asked in his singsong accent.
When I confirmed, he asked how old he was and where he went to school.
Isn't that strange?
Then at the downtown Columbus library, I was greeted by a librarian who offered to find the books by call numbers that I had written on my Post-it note. I handed over the yellow note and traipsed after him through the stacks. Yes, I can find a library book myself, but it seems rude to turn down his offer. After he found the books, he asked about the button on my coat.
"What school does he go to?" the librarian asked.
I told him and he said his brother teaches science at the school. Believe me, in such a small school district, the odds are rare.
I laughed and told him Tucker has had his brother as a teacher both freshman and sophomore year.
So the button is helping me make connections and making my son feel loved. I guess I'll keep wearing it. At least until he goes away to college.
I'm sure Tucker will have a button to replace the one Spencer gave me.

Basketball Dynasty Upended

2012-01-22T20:21:00.004-05:00

We moved to our school district five years ago when Spencer was in the 8th grade. I had homeschooled the kids til that point and Spencer wanted to go to school, in part, to play basketball.
Every year since 8th grade, they have lost basketball games to a school that is run by a mega church. Now, I could complain about how the mega church recruits players and gives scholarships, while we're a small public school, but last year they had their comeuppance. They were found to be in violation of rules and most of their superior players deserted the school.
Our team travelled to the mega church's gym this weekend and our boys won. Here are four of the players, the three from left to right are seniors, who have been there to see every defeat for the past five years. In the picture, they're watching a teammate shoot foul throws. You can tell from their contemptuous or righteous looks that they were happy to see the end of the era of domination. That's my little boy, Spencer, on the far left. He scored 12 points and had 7 rebounds, all in the second half.

Saturday Snapshot -- Homecoming

2012-01-21T07:00:00.003-05:00

Excuses

2012-01-19T07:14:00.008-05:00

So, I hope that some of you visit my blog regularly enough to notice that I haven't been posting as frequently, or as interestingly, as in the past. This is my excuses post, so you feel bad for me and give me a break. JK.
I am kind of bogged down teaching seven college classes. Add to that basketball season, which means games twice a week, plus breakfasts twice a week for the team. (I'm not sure if it's this way everywhere for high school basketball, but we feed these boys constantly. Breakfast from Panera, dinner after school from a local restaurant, Subway for the bus ride home from the game. On the weekend, we make a "spread" at someone's home and serve them that. This weekend I did waffles with blueberry sauce, cheesy potatoes, fruit, and another parent brought 8 pounds of bacon plus 4 pounds of link sausage! Do they think the parents can't feed them?)
Then Tucker is in high school swim season. We don't feed them as much, but the meets always seem to be far away and last for several hours. On Monday we drove to Marietta. I carried the swimmers' bags in my car so I followed the bus and it took two hours and twenty minutes. Next a three-hour swim meet and then a two-hour drive home.
So if teaching and sports were not all that is going on to keep me away from my blog, Grace is home for one more day. She goes back to school tomorrow.
Sometimes it's hard for me to process the fact that she'll actually be gone.
In spite of deciding that this far away school is the right choice for her, she's feeling very anxious about returning. I have tried to be supportive, saying things like, "Remember how nervous you were before you went the first time" or "This is nothing compared to staying in France for three months alone."
As her anxiety continues to rise, I decided tough love might be better. "Everyone would prefer to lie on the couch and watch America's Next Top Model rather than going to school or working..." or "It's what kids your age do. They go to school. It's not a big deal." Truthfully, if Grace doesn't go away to school, then I have failed at the process of raising her and setting her free. What Mama bird wants to set her baby bird free and the bird decide to stay in the nest?
I know Grace is just nervous because she hates change and because last year at this time she became depressed at school. She can't handle the idea of feeling like that again. I don't want her to feel that either. But she chose to return to this school and so we need to march onward so she can stop anticipating the bad.
So those are my excuses for why I haven't been blogging as much or commenting on other people's blogs.
Forgive me, but I see no respite in sight for another month or so.

Awkward Conversations

2012-01-16T07:00:00.005-05:00

Talking to a grown up nephew is, well, awkward.
I see it on both sides of the family.
The nieces always seem to have a lot to say. I can ask them questions about studies and jobs and life choices. The guys generally answer in monosyllabic grunts of yes or no. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this difficulty because I've seen my adult relatives feel the same awkwardness when trying to talk to my teenage boys. Sometimes I'll jump in the conversation with stories, illustrations. My boys rarely volunteer examples.
Tomorrow, my nephew Michael comes back from Afghanistan. Our family will meet him at the airport. The crowd of well wishers will probably prevent one-on-one conversation, but some time in the week that he's home, I hope to get some time to talk with him. And I need a plan so I can have a real conversation.
Michael was the first child of my siblings, a surprise baby the year my little brother graduated college. I had just finished grad school and taken a job in far away Florida but I immediately fell in love with those big brown eyes and the unruly brown hair of his. My brother and his wife would travel to Florida to stay with me for vacations and I loved spending time with Michael. I gave him his first haircut and cleaned up his puke from too many chocolate donuts.
He was an overactive little guy and found mischief wherever he went -- like the time he stuck the tweezers in the outlet of my makeup mirror blowing the circuit or when he stamped his foot during our visit to the llama herd. He got a sword at Disney World and broke it the next day before making up the saddest song ever about how "Michael breaks his toys..."
It's strange that after sharing an aunt/nephew life with so many good memories, we now have awkward silences.
Michael is 24 now and has been in the Navy for five years. He volunteered for duty in Afghanistan rather than going back on the nuclear sub he has served on in the past. I'm proud of all he's accomplished, but there's not much of a response to "I'm proud of you."
So, any suggestions on conversations with young men who, when they were little, climbed in my lap, and now have nothing much to say?

Graduation is Nearing

2012-01-15T22:28:00.004-05:00

I can hardly believe it's already time to submit baby photos of the seniors to the yearbook. A lot of people go with toddler photos, so I wanted this one:

But Spencer said he preferred this one:

Even though he's holding his Pooh bear in it.
I'm also supposed to send photos of Spencer hanging out with friends in high school. I can't find any except from prom and since he and Claudia are no longer an item, that would be awkward. He doesn't have a Facebook, so no one tags him there. Guess I'll have to keep searching his friends' Facebook pages to see if he appears.

Saturday Snapshot -- Lone, Bare Tree

2012-01-14T06:29:00.003-05:00

Impending Troubles?

2012-01-10T15:15:00.000-05:00

How do you respond to someone's prediction of doom?
I'm not really sure what to do with this. Maybe you can help.
Just this morning, I called Sheila, asking her to review how she handled her 20-year-old son's teenage years. Tucker seems angry whenever he's home. I want things to be better, but I end up getting angry back at him. Sheila and I talked for awhile but, as usual with parenting, we didn't come up with a solution. As I dropped Tucker at school this morning, the slam of the door resounded like an exclamation mark on our relationship.
I've been worried about Spencer the past few days too, since he came home at 9 p.m. Saturday. He hasn't hung out with his friends since then. He claims everything is fine, he's just decided to stay home more. That makes me nervous. He's the most social person I know. Is he fighting with his friends? Is he trying to avoid trouble?
So worry about my boys was nibbling at my brain when I got home and checked my email. One of my former students, Muhanned,a smart man who I trust and stay in contact with, sent me an email. Muhanned was born in Saudi Arabia, grew up in England and the U.S.
His email was titled "I had a dream." I figured he was sending me another video of his baby daughter. But not. He wrote about his dream that "some harm came to your son" and "you were offered $300 million in compensation." He woke up with a feeling of foreboding and wasn't able to shake the feeling for the past few days, so he emailed me.
I felt tears fill my eyes.
Should I go pull both boys out of school and keep them home -- forever -- to keep them safe?
I don't know whether Muhanned has prophetic dreams like his namesake, but the idea of something happening to either of my sons is frightening. And when I thought about it, I realized there is nothing I can do to protect them from the world.
Of course, I analyzed Muhanned's email. I wanted to shoot back questions: Which son? Have you had dreams come true before? Did something happen during the day that made you think of me, which could have spurred the dream and had nothing to do with my future?
And I looked at his carefully chosen words: "some harm." He didn't say "die" but why would I get compensation if said son was still alive? $300 million compensation meant some sort of accident and a big corporation responsible. I brooded on his words. I needed to make sure my boys were safe.
The thing is, there's nothing I can do to make sure my boys aren't involved in an accident if Muhanned's dream is correct or if it isn't. The only thing I can do is to make sure that the boys know how much I love them, to be certain our relationship is fine in case anything should ever happen to them or me -- whether it's related to Muhanned's dream or just to life.
So I asked Tucker to go to lunch, but he turned me down. He wouldn't mind if I gave him his weekly allowance though. So I dropped by the school. Tucker and his buddies filled the car and asked me to drop them at Qdoba. He leaned over and game me a kiss before he got out.
Then I saw Spencer walking with a few friends on their way to lunch on this beautiful, sun-drenched day.
Whatever the future holds, I hope we can all say we didn't waste our time together fighting or complaining.
And I'm thankful to Muhanned's dream for forcing me to go make peace with Tucker and take a few minutes out of my day to remember how much I love my kids.

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- What Came First

2012-01-10T07:00:00.002-05:00

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I'm back to entertaining, escapist books now that I'm teaching full tilt again. I just picked up What Came First by Carol Snow. Here's the first paragraph:

The chickens are getting restless.
It is just past sunrise on a chilly Saturday morning in January, and insomnia kept my brain whirring until after two a.m. Now all I want to do is stay buried under my hypoallergenic faux-down comforter and return to the dream that is already slipping away.
But the chickens have other ideas -- assuming their primitive little brains are capable of anything that can be termed an idea.

Hmmm. The opening doesn't seem to offer much, but I kept going and the book is pretty entertaining. It follows three women who used the same sperm donor to father their children for various reasons.

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Here's my teaser from page 140:

He said good night and turned to go.
I said, "Wait." I was going to ask him if he wanted my phone number. Instead I kissed him. We held each other for a long, long time and then exchanged phone numbers. Later I asked him why he hadn't asked for mine in the first place. Was he just going to walk away and forget about me? He said he'd been planning to find me in the Sears houseware department the next day. He was going to buy some pots and pans and then ask if he could make me dinner. How weird: Eric's most romantic gesture is something he never actually did.

Adapting

2012-01-09T14:21:00.007-05:00

My friend Stephanie teared up on Saturday when she talked about her daughter going back to college. She couldn't think about it, much less bear to watch her leave the house and return to the college two hours away.
It's times like this, that I realize I may be lacking in some basic emotions. It's not like I love my kids any less, I'm just not overly emotional about them heading off to college or France or wherever their lives take them.
I've hypothesized before that I'm less emotional about it because I homeschooled them and I feel like I've spent plenty of hours getting them prepared for life beyond home. But I think something else has helped prepare me too.

Three years ago in March, my husband found out that the newspaper was laying off employees. We found out the next day that Earl wasn't laid off, but he was moved to the evening shift. This left him home during the day. Since I am an adjunct college teacher, I'm sometimes home during the day too. We had to learn how to adapt to new schedules and learned how to enjoy time together while the kids were gone to school.
Sometimes we walk downtown to get coffee, other times we venture out for lunch or ride our bicycles. Sometimes, we just watch sitcom reruns. We've remembered what we enjoyed about each other before the kids came along.
I think this alone time together has helped prepare me for the empty nest that is coming. This year Spencer will graduate and head off to college. Two years later, Tucker will follow suit. Then, unless Grace comes home after college, Earl and I will be home alone throughout the school year.
The idea is certainly different. No basketball games or swim meets or musicals or orthodontist appointments. No big shoes strewn across the kitchen floor. No pile of wet towels waiting to be washed. And no one to stretch up to on tiptoes so I can kiss their stubbly cheeks goodbye as they head out the door for school.
I imagine that if Earl is still working evenings, cooking dinner will go by the wayside. I'll probably settle for a bowl of cereal or a salad.
Even as I strain to hear the back door slam with the approach of oncoming teenage boy feet home from school, I don't feel teary at the idea they'll have moved on.
I'm not a martyr taking a stiff upper lip as they move on, and I'm not so selfish that I can't wait until they go. It just feels right that the kids take up new challenges. They live in a college dorm full of other tall boys and girls who dance and watch Disney films. They are busy carving out their own niches now.
And luckily, I'll still have days filled with my husband and dreams of traveling to exotic places.

Saturday Snapshot -- Mild January Day

2012-01-07T09:25:00.004-05:00

Working Blues

2012-01-06T06:59:00.003-05:00

Is it possible to be this tired after working only three days this year?
I feel like such a wimp. (Does anybody use that word anymore?)
I'm sitting at my computer, waiting for Spencer so I can drop him at school before I go teach -- my fourth workday of 2012. My energy is fine right now, but yesterday evening, I was a limp rag, and grumpy. I expect the same results after I work today.
The thing is, I don't even work regular hours like most people do, which gives me even less reason to be so exhausted.
I do have two days this quarter where I work 8 to 12 then come home for the afternoon and work 6 til 10 p.m. That's what I did Wednesday, which probably added to my tiredness. And I could point out that the evening class is north of the city and I have to leave about 5:15 to get there. Still, when you add up all the hours that I'm physically teaching, it's not much compared to the hours most people work.
My husband, always on my side, would point out that I spend a lot of hours at home preparing for class and grading papers. I can't shake the feeling that if I had to work a regular 9 to 5 job, I'd never make it.
Last night, I knew I had to go to the grocery store. We were out of milk and eggs. Tucker needed snacks for a swim team trip this weekend. I sat on the edge of the couch, ready to pull myself up and go to the store -- for an hour and a half before I finally shoved myself out the door.
I patted myself on the back for having prepared dinner every evening after work, but when I walked in from the grocery store and the sink was still full of dishes while my teenagers lounged around the house, I wanted to scream. Well, I might have done a little yelling.
And the teenagers weren't lounging all day. Two went to school, one went to jury duty. Two had sports practices and one volunteered in the high school costume shop for the upcoming musical. Then they lounged.
The scary thing is that I like my job but I'm still feeling over my head trying to keep up.
How about you? Are you exhausted after work or does it just take some adapting to the new year?

First Paragraph and Tuesday Teaser -- The Forgotten Waltz

2012-01-03T11:25:00.002-05:00

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
Anne Enright, who won the Man Booker Prize for The Gathering has a book called The Forgotten Waltz. A lot of times I don't enjoy award-winning books so much, but this one sounded intriguing. Maybe I'll agree with the award committee. Here's the first paragraph:

I met him in my sister's garden in Enniskerry. That is where I saw him first. There was nothing fated about it, though I add in the late summer light and the view. I put him at the bottom of my sister's garden, in the afternoon, at the moment the day begins to turn. Half five maybe. It is half past five on a Wicklow summer Sunday when I see Sean for the first time. There he is, where the end of my sister's garden becomes uncertain. He is about to turn around -- but he doesn't know this yet. He is looking at the view and I am looking at him. The sun is low and lovely. He is standing where the hillside begins its slow run down to the coast, and the light is at his back, and it is just that time of day when all the colours come into their own.

I haven't started this book yet, but I have to say that I'm put off by all the passive sentence constructions, all the wasted words -- the "there was" and "he is" and "he is" -- words I'm working to get out of my writing.
What do you think?

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Here's my teaser from page 41:

"I'm not bothered."
"You take it personally, don't you? The house, the car, the holidays in the sun. You take it personally, because you're Irish. If you were American, you'd let them have it. Because, you know, these people are not connected to you. They bought their nice house and your name didn't even come up. They went to the Bahamas and they didn't even forget to invite you."

Last Day of Lollygagging

2012-01-02T12:01:00.003-05:00

Even as I plan to spend the day watching football games, I know that the rush is coming. I know that tomorrow when school starts again, I'll start with a tiny snowball of activity and quickly be rolled into a giant avalanche.
I spent the end of last week preparing the syllabus and the online components of my classes. Then last night, I started on lesson plans. Sometimes I can re-use lesson plans from previous quarters, but I always need to tweak them. And this quarter I have a class I haven't taught since 2008, so the book has changed. That one took a long time to schedule and will take even more time to plan each week.
I'm teaching 19 hours at one college and 8 hours at the other college. Thus, the coming avalanche. However, I plan to swim steadily forward at the top of the avalanche, until I am forced to tread water and if I am buried by the avalanche, I'll stick up my ski pole so someone can dig me out.
After all, the quarter will end eventually sometime in March, and if I work hard and my students work hard, we could end up avoiding the avalanche. And the money that I make teaching all of these classes will cover my daughter's next semester of college.
How about you? Is the new year going to be a challenge?

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T10:20:00.002-05:00

This morning I fulfilled my husband's new year's wish -- I stayed in bed and slept in until after 10.
See, I'm kind of a morning person. I'm rarely still in bed after 6 a.m. My husband works evenings, so he's rarely in bed before 2 a.m.
I think the mornings are for accomplishing things and he thinks the mornings are for sleeping.
I will have to admit that I woke up and thought of the things I could be getting done -- taking down Christmas decorations, baking cinnamon rolls, preparing for my classes this week, reading a good book, walking to Caribou for coffee. Then I rolled over and did none of those things.
Sometimes the thing to accomplish is to go back to sleep and start the year off cuddled in bed with the one you love.
How about you? Did you sleep in or did you accomplish something this morning?

Saturday Snapshot -- Cat Christmas

2011-12-31T05:32:00.003-05:00

Christmas Gift Snafu

2011-12-26T09:22:00.005-05:00

Consumer Reports magazine has a section at the back called "Selling It" that pokes fun at the warnings or advertising used for products. I should definitely send in this one.
About a month before Christmas, I bought a travel mug as a gift and wrapped it up, looking forward to the day it was unwrapped and admired.

The handsome brown mug has a no-skid bottom and an aluminum insert so the hot beverage doesn't taste like plastic.
Then we opened the mug and saw the instructions.

I'm not sure how helpful this mug will be for drinking coffee or tea when it can't be filled with hot liquids.

Saturday Snapshot -- Holiday Trains

2011-12-24T09:01:00.006-05:00

Our Darkest Hour

2011-12-22T07:02:00.003-05:00

Well, it's our darkest hour, not in the sense of doom and gloom, just in the sense of how much light we have.
Today is officially the winter solstice -- the day we have the fewest hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere. Good thing all those Christmas lights are turned on.
Some people dread the coming months of winter as the holiday season ends and the long, shrill month of January begins. Then February, the shortest month of all, seems to last forever as gray days drag on.
Both those things are true about January and February, but what is also true is that each morning, the sun peeks above the horizon a little earlier, and each evening it lingers in the western sky a few minutes longer -- starting now!
This is the shortest day of the year.
Okay, it's a small hope to hold onto, but if it helps me survive the winter while rejoicing in each extra moment of daylight then so be it.
Enjoy your winter solstice and the coming extra minutes of daylight.

Hope and Charity

2011-12-19T17:08:00.003-05:00

I have to say I've been a little discouraged lately about giving. You may recall that one side of the family decided to give gifts to a needy family rather than exchanging gifts with each other.
For some reason, even though this wasn't my idea, I became the point person to find a family and organize the gift buying for them. The family, with three kids, does not have heat in their apartment. So after the toys were purchased, I suggested we all donate the rest of the money we would spend on each other toward their gas bill to get heat.
Let me just say that none of us spent as much on the family as we would have on each other, but the person who spent the most is probably the one who earns the least. I was feeling discouraged about the goodness of wealthy people. Maybe people who have more, give less.
Then, just this week, I asked the basketball team families if they would be interested in helping a local family who has fallen on hard times. The family with four kids have been living on mac n cheese for 3 months and have only one inexpensive gift for the entire family on Christmas morning. It's a puppy, so the parents hope to maintain some Christmas surprise and excitement. I felt so bad though, and also felt like many of us could slide into this kind of trouble if one spouse lost a job.
So I sent an email to the basketball families and told them that a local family needed their help, without actually naming the family. Many of the basketball families immediately responded that they would donate gift cards for Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers.
Then on Saturday while I was at a swim meet, Grace called me to say a man she didn't know stopped by and dropped off a 100 dollar bill for the family in need. I couldn't believe it. I thought people would donate $25 gift cards to the local grocery stores, not 100 dollar bills. I stared at the 100 dollar bill and imagined how thrilled my friend will be to buy some gifts for her kids.
Then on Sunday, I drove to my brother's house to visit my parents. When I got home, I found a little stocking with a gift card in it. The gift card to Walmart was for $300. $300!!! Someone donated a $300 gift card to the family.
So these basketball families have given me hope that even people with money are generous and want to help those who are in need.

The Other Life -- A Review

2011-12-19T10:49:00.003-05:00

I featured The Other Life by Ellen Meister last Tuesday for First Paragraph and Tuesday Teaser. I finished it this morning before the boys got up for school, and I loved it.
When I first read the premise, the main character has a parallel life that is living with the opposite decisions that she made, I thought, "Oh, I love these kinds of books, like Sliding Doors." I did like that movie, but when I think about alternative lives, I have to consider a movie like It's A Wonderful Life and the book A Christmas Carol by Dickens, both of which I don't like. So my opinion on The Other Life was up in the air. I could love it or hate it.
Quinn lives in a New York City suburb with her husband, son and a baby on the way. She knows her parallel life includes the man she broke up with for her current husband. When she finds out that the baby she is carrying has major birth defects, she is tempted to visit that other life, where the decisions are simpler. Also tempting her is the fact that her mother is still alive in that other life.
This is a book that encourages people to think about the past decisions that led them to this spot in their lives and evaluate if they would do the same things again. It deals with marriage, needy men, mother/daughter relationships, motherhood and friendships.
I highly recommend it.

Saturday Snapshot -- Nature

2011-12-17T08:15:00.004-05:00

Philisophical Thought

2011-12-16T09:43:00.005-05:00

There was a time when I probably enjoyed debating deep philosophical questions. But that time has passed. I'm much more shallow now.
Deep questions make my head hurt, like graphing calculators do.
So you can imagine how concerned I am that Spencer and his friends have embraced the writings of Albert Camus and existentialism. It seems incongruous to me that guys who love to mix it up on the basketball floor and compare the size of their biceps spend hours sitting in a friend's garage discussing existentialism.
I think I can blame the existentialist movement throughout our small town garages on the Senior English teacher who assigned "The Stranger" by Camus. Spencer declared it a good book.
So I racked my brain to remember some of the ideas of existentialism, which was espoused in Europe in the 40s and 50s by people like Jean Paul Sartre. The current existentialist ideas, I think, relate to today's hipsters. Spencer would probably argue this point, but it would make my head hurt and I wouldn't contine after a few minutes.
Spencer described existentialism as the realization that life is absurd. "The themes popularly associated with existentialism—dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment, nothingness, and so on" according to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
I fear that part of embracing this philosophy comes from the fact that one of the boy's older brother's commited suicide this fall. The boys are probably trying to find some answers and excuses for why this happened.
Online, I find a debate about whether hipsters are existentialists, but from my point of view, hipsters are people who are determined to declare everything in life boring and out-of-date.

Spencer is no stranger to philosophy. It was one of the subjects he chose to study when we were homeschooling. And, although he doesn't see it as a good college major, he wouldn't mind minoring in philosophy.
I can picture a day when my son is speaking in terms I don't understand at all. This might be worse than basketball jargon as he talks about picks and triple/doubles.
And I'll probably break down and get him a book by Sartre for Christmas. I just hope he doesn't want to discuss it with me.

Blow-Up Fun

2011-12-15T08:10:00.005-05:00

Okay, enough sadness on my blog.
It's time to celebrate American ridiculousness.
There's a pretty European-style house down the street from me. I don't like the owner because he puts up ridiculous signs warning dogs not to poop in his yard, which I think is tacky.
He's taking tacky an extra step this year.
Here's how his yard looks during the daytime. Deflated:

Then in the evening, when Grace and I walked past on our way to Caribou, we got a picture of the house with the inflatables in full regalia.

The overkill makes me laugh. I'm not overly fond of blow-up yard art anyway, but seeing it deflated during the day makes it look like everything has melted into a big puddle.
Grace decided she liked one of the penguins. This little one with earmuffs, that didn't deflate during the day but stood vigil over her collapsed friends.

How are your neighbors decorating for Christmas?

Rest in Peace

2011-12-14T11:30:00.002-05:00

This morning was Rini's funeral. They held it in the Greek Orthodox church because Columbus doesn't have an Eastern Orthodox church. Rini's family was from Romania a few generations ago.

The Greek Orthodox church is gorgeous, but the funeral was rather dry. If you don't want people to cry at your funeral, it would be the best funeral ever. The priest chants and sings, sometimes in another language, for a good half hour while everyone stands.
The incense is a nice addition though. I wondered if the incense has some special numbing power as the scent drifted throughout the church. Then the priest gave the brief eulogy. He called her Irene, which, to me, means he didn't know her at all, since everyone called her Rini.
So I was dry eyed. At the end, they asked everyone to walk to the casket to pay last respects. I'm not fond of this tradition. I'd rather remember Rini as she was in life, even complaining in a hospital bed.
Then, when her two sons and mother walked up to the casket, I couldn't help it. I realized they would never see their mom again and I just felt so sad.
As I drove home from the funeral, I thought for a minute that I couldn't wait to tell Rini who was at the funeral and who was missing. She would probably laugh when she found out the secretary from two years ago showed up, but the chair of the department didn't. This was some juicy gossip Rini was sure to enjoy. Then I realized I wouldn't be able to tell her.
Her departure leaves a hole in my life too.
Thanks for your friendship, Rini. Rest in Peace.

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- The Other Life

2011-12-13T06:57:00.005-05:00

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
Just this morning I picked up this book and decided to read it now that my teaching break has begun.
The Other Life by Ellen Meister has a teaser line on the cover "What if you could return to the road not taken?"
Here's the beginning of Chapter 1:

Quinn Braverman had two secrets she kept from her husband. One was the real reason she chose him over Eugene, her neurotic, self-loathing, semi-famous ex-boyfriend, was to prove her mother wrong. She could have a relationship with a normal, stable man.
The other was that Quinn knew another life existed in which she had made the other choice. The two lives ran in parallel lines, like highways on opposite sides of a mountain. There, on the other side, the Quinn who had stayed with Eugene was speeding through her high-drama, emotionally exhausting, childless urban life. Here, the Quinn who had married Lewis lived in the suburbs of Long Island, drove a Volvo, and was pregnant with her second child.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Here's my teaser from page 172:

Quinn took her husband's hand from her shoulders and wrapped them around her. I promise to never do it again, she thought, and tried to imagine her guilt as vapor that dissipated into the atmosphere.

Haply I May Remember

2011-12-11T22:31:00.003-05:00

I hate when people get to the end of a vacation and they have to run around to visit everything the last day. The vacation isn't about the last day. It's about the entire experience and all the other days before.
And that's how I have to think about life too.
My friend Rini died on Saturday.
She was 61 and had a son the same age as Grace. We worked together at the same college and lived in the same small town.
She was diabetic and her health has always been fragile. Then she had a stroke Labor Day weekend but was recovering. No one expected her to die.
I went to see her on Wednesday. I didn't think it would be the last time.
Other women in the community are really torn up that they didn't make it to see Rini again, one last time. And that made me think about the last day of vacation.
It isn't about getting that last visit in at the hospital. It's about all the girls' nights out and meeting for coffee and having lunch or simply going for a walk -- together. All of those moments are the ones that add up to make a friendship, and in the end, only one of you will remember the last time that you saw each other.
Rini was my friend because she was caustic and witty. She offered me insights into the small town I moved into. She'd been teaching longer than I had, and we shared complaints as well as the accomplishments of our students.
Another teacher told me that I had been "lovely" to Rini. But our friendship wasn't about me doing things for her. It was mutual.
I enjoyed her company.
She might have needed me a little more lately, as she went through a divorce this summer, and when she needed someone to walk the dog last summer. But I got as good as I gave.
Thanks, Rini, for your friendship. I hope you're at peace now. You will be missed, but all those moments before, will be remembered.
Here's a poem by Christina Rosetti that I think talks about remembering the life, instead of the death.

When I am dead, my dearest

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Saturday Snapshot -- The Prodigal

2011-12-10T05:36:00.007-05:00

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

After three months in France, Grace returned home last night.

And she brought chocolates

Grace is terrified of flying, so as she walked to board the plane, she had tears running down her face. The flight attendant was alarmed and asked what had happened. She told him she was scared.
He took her in to meet the pilot. She got to sit in the co-pilot's chair. He bumped her up to business class. Another flight attendant gave her a phone to use so she could call me before the plan left. They took turns coming back to sit with her during the flight. Apparently a few tears go a long way.
But now she's home.
Post Script: In response to questions and comments about the airline, I should have added that she flew American Airlines. We usually fly AirFrance, but this time American had the better deal and Grace was lucky to be amongst that crew and passengers who all supported her.

Domino Effect

2011-12-08T20:13:00.005-05:00

You know how one thing leads to another.
Nothing is ever simple. I'm learning that lesson all over again tonight.
Grace will be home tomorrow. (Yay!)
That means, I have to clean out her bedroom, a room that her younger brother claimed before her flight left Columbus.
In order to clean out her room, I have to move Tucker. He doesn't want to share a room with Spencer so he'll get the basement rec room futon. He has a dresser there, but no place to hang his hoodies and the button-up shirts he has started wearing.
So before I can move him, I have to figure out where to hang up his clothes.
Then it hit me. I have a coat tree in my room that holds purses, scarves, belts and my robe. I can clean that off and move it downstairs for Tucker's things.
I looked in my closet to figure out where to hang the robe and the scarves. Then I needed to clean the warm weather clothes out of my closet in order to make room for the things hanging on the coat tree, in order to move Tucker's things to the rec room, in order to begin cleaning Grace's room for her 40-day stay at home before she moves off to college and I'll reverse that order.
I have no hopes that her room will be as clean as it was here in June 2009 when I spent three days straightening it, but I know it will be a bit more organized than Grace left it when she went to France and Tucker is leaving it as he moves to the basement bedroom. I'm going to start in there by picking up the dirty socks and the wadded up tissues. Who knows if there's still a nice wood floor under all those discarded bath towels.

The Key to Happiness

2011-12-08T06:44:00.009-05:00

The most exciting email ever arrived last night. It said:
"You've won: Spontaneous Happiness."
Really? I won that? So whenever I want, I can tap into spontaneous happiness? It's mine. I won it.
Turns out, I won a book from Vicki's blog. The book is called Spontaneous Happiness and it's by Andrew Weil. So that's still exciting, although not as exciting as winning happiness.
According to Amazon, the book explains that happiness comes from within, so I guess I'll never be able to win it. But the book does lay out a plan for "attaining and sustaining optimum emotional health."
I'll let you know if this book hands me the key to Spontaneous Happiness.
Then again, I may be too happy to write my blog any more.
Here are some things that make me happy:
Traveling with my husband

My family

Coffee with friends

Running with friends

And cats stuck on screen doors

What makes you happy?

Free Time

2011-12-07T05:49:00.005-05:00

Like a wisp of a breeze on a still day, I feel it.
Like the far away whistle of a train in the night, I hear it.
Like that spot on the horizon that draws closer, I see it.
Freedom is nearly mine.
I give finals today and tomorrow. Then I have to grade the finals for five classes and turn in my grades.

For three weeks, I will not have to go to work. Not until Jan. 3.
I can almost feel my body collapsing in a heap just at the thought.
Now, I know that compared to many people, I don't work that hard. Some people are doing manual labor or standing up all day. They wouldn't complain about sitting in front of a computer answering students' emails or grading a stack of papers while munching on popcorn.
And I am truly grateful for my jobs, which help pay for one kid's college and next year two kids' college tuitions.
The thing is, teaching at two colleges means that their breaks don't coincide. So when one college is on spring break, the other is still having classes. And this summer when the one college took a two week break before summer quarter, the other college took the week after. I eeked out five days and darted down to Florida and back.
So since last Christmas, I haven't had time when I wasn't teaching.
Until now.
If I'm smart, I'll go ahead and prepare for winter courses next week. Then I could have two whole weeks not to think about teaching or work.
And what will I do with that time?
Well, a lot of basketball and swim events, plus Christmas shopping and baking and cleaning. Plus, I plan to read a lot and take many walks to Caribou Coffee.
Sometimes, maybe I will allow myself to collapse in a heap, learning a lesson from the cats.
How about you? Will you have any time to relax during the holidays?

Christmas Miracle

2011-12-05T18:45:00.003-05:00

For awhile now, I've been wishing that we hadn't made Grace's reservations home so late in the month. She was feeling uncomfortable staying with the French teenagers who made her feel like an imposition.
I called the Airlines and they said the change fee was $250-$275 plus whatever the flight difference was.
I called AAA and talked to a travel agent who said she couldn't do anything to help.
Tonight though, Grace and I were both wishing we could be together, and the French teenagers emailed her to ask if she could find another place to stay next week because they have tests coming up. (You can imagine that Grace is a really noisy person who would keep them from studying.) So she messaged me in a slight panic.
I'll fix it, I messaged her.
I would have to bite the bullet and pay the high change fee.
So I called the Airlines again. I got a man with a super deep voice and told him I wanted to find out what it would cost to change my daughter's ticket. He immediately seemed sympathetic.
I asked him for a flight any time between now and Dec. 19 and the cost to change it. He searched for a minute and talked to me about his son in a private college in North Carolina.
"How about Wednesday? Your cost would be $1," he said.
"One dollar plus the $250 change fee?" I asked.
"No, ma'am. One dollar."
Wednesday doesn't work because Grace will be on a train back to Paris, but the helpful deep voiced man found the next available date and said, "That one's going to cost you $26."
"I'll take it!" I said.
And so, Grace will be home by the end of the week.
Now, I just have to figure out how to tell Tucker that he doesn't get a room of his own anymore.

Saturday Snapshot -- Pez Dispensers

2011-12-03T04:28:00.005-05:00

The Virtue Post

2011-12-02T16:03:00.009-05:00

Some people use their blogs, like their Christmas newsletters, to talk about how fantastic they are. I take kind of an opposite tact on my blog, pointing out every flaw and downfall I or my children have. When Earl does something embarrassing, he looks at me and says, "You're going to put that on your blog aren't you?" I like to think of the blog as self deprecating.
Last week when I wrote about my selfishness, that same husband of mine said I was too hard on myself. So I promised to write about a virtue. And here it is: The Virtue Post.
I teach college, so I have a lot of opportunities to influence young minds. I teach at an inner city college, so most of the students have life experiences that I could never dream of. One thing I do is try to convince the students that with education comes responsibility. I give them extra credit if they vote in elections.
This year, using an idea I got from another blogger, Peppermint PhD, who also teaches college, I offered my students extra credit if they brought in two non-perishable items to donate.
This is what I ended up with.

I drove to Mid-Ohio Food Bank today and donated the mostly canned food.

The guy said we turned in 42 pounds of food. I'm not sure if that's a good number or not, but it gives me something to try to beat next time.
The Mid-Ohio Food Bank has a huge warehouse. It's sad to imagine how many needy families need extra food, especially during the holidays when kids can't get meals at school.
I hope you'll consider donating too.

NaNoWriMo Attempt

2011-11-30T05:50:00.004-05:00

Well, today is the last day of November and I have to say that for a big chunk of November, I fell off the writing train.
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's an organized effort to get people to write 50,000 words of a novel. I've done it two times before successfully, and a few other times half-heartedly.
I started out strong, writing the required number of words each day to finish. Then I started getting distracted by work and basketball and swim team.
And somewhere in the middle of the month I slid into a funk. I decided I wasn't a writer any more and just gave up. Maybe it was the holiday blues. Maybe I was missing my daughter Grace who is in France instead of home.
So at 5:53 a.m., I have 24,243 words of my next novel. But yesterday at this time, I only had 18,108 words.
Who knows what can happen in a day?
To be fair to me though, I do have to work then I have a staff meeting and next I have to be at Tucker's swim meet. In between though, I'll write my boney fingers off.
Check in at the bar along the right side to see how far I get today.
And when I'm finished, even if I don't reach 50,000, I'll have a good chunk of a new novel started, because I'm a writer. There's no escaping it.

Packages on Porches

2011-11-29T05:34:00.005-05:00

So after whining about not getting enough presents last week, there it was on my front porch -- a long white package, placed there by the mailman.
I carried it inside and tore open the end without even looking at the addressee or the return address. I just knew it was for me.
And this is what I found.

What could this be, you ask? Look at the gorgeous presentation, the sage colored outer wrapping and the party-atmosphere raffia cords tying it closed.
Then I looked at the card.

Yes! My Provence Rug had arrived, and pretty quick too.
My blogging friend Delana in Aix en Provence and another blogger in North Carolina at An Eye for Detail started a business together -- Provence Rugs. In addition to rugs, they also sell trays and bowls and soap dishes in Provencal materials. (And they're offering 10 percent off through Wednesday.)
Anyway, enough promoting Delana's glorious business, back to me and my mystery package.
So I unrolled it and there I saw the beautiful "Rosehip Red" rug with the little golden cigales along the border.
I placed the rug in front of my door where it immediately received cat approval.

Grand Tour

2011-11-28T05:42:00.006-05:00

When I was in France for three months, more than 25 years ago, I probably talked to my parents three times by phone. We sent regular letters, but my folks had no idea what my daily life was like.
Grace's trip to France has been very different. We text, we email, we Skype. I know her schedule, which is why, on days like today, I'm anxiously hovering around my computer waiting to hear from her.
She went to Rome last Tuesday by night train -- alone, which I think is very brave. She met a friend there and she was supposed to take the night train back to Paris on Saturday. But an Italian train strike caused her to spend an extra night in Rome. She had her ticket for Sunday evening and she should be back in Paris now, which is nearly noon Monday Paris time.
I turn on my computer and check Skype. She isn't online and hasn't left me a message. I look at my email. Nothing from Grace.
Next I look at Facebook to see if there are any updates. No.
Now I'm working myself up.
The last I heard from her was Sunday morning as she sat in a restaurant/bar with WiFi, alone, in Rome. She had dropped her phone into the Mediterranean Sea, so it wasn't working. She planned to venture out to find some tshirts as souvenirs for the boys. She had the rest of the day before she caught her train.
We went to my brother's house near Dayton yesterday and we tried to connect with Grace by Skype there. No luck.
Did she get on the train?
Did the train make it to Paris?
I'm trying to think of other cyber clues I could look for to discover Grace's whereabouts.
I sign onto our bank account and now I can relax a bit.
I see that extra money has been added to her account. She must have stopped at the train station and returned the extra ticket she had to buy because of the train strike.
Now, I can feel more comfortable that Grace has made it back to Paris. I can go on with the other things I need to do, like making lunches for the boys.
I'm not sure which is preferable while having a teenager abroad -- being able to stay in touch and worrying about the little things, or being totally oblivious to the details of her life so assuming the best.
Sometimes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing -- especially for a worrying mother.
Update: Grace contacted me by Skype and she is back in Paris. None the worse for wear, except for falling out of the top bunk on the night train. Don't they have rails?

Thanksgiving Traditions -- Not So Much

2011-11-27T06:57:00.007-05:00

This year was an odd Thanksgiving, so I tried to come up with some new traditions to add for my family. The one thing I hoped to do, bake cookies in the shape of a turkey, did not happen. Why, you may ask? Well, the turkey cookie cutter which I saw on Corey's blog, and which I felt sure I had in my stash of cookie cutters, was not there.
On that Wednesday, after my darling husband had already mixed up the cookie dough and placed it in the refrigerator, I called my mom. "Didn't we have a turkey-shaped cookie cutter?" I asked her.
She thought that we had.
"Did you keep that one?" I asked. She had handed over all the old cookie cutters to me. I didn't figure she'd kept out the turkey for sentimental reasons. So she laughed and said she'd look for it, but since she lives in Florida and I live in Ohio, I had no chance of getting it in time for Thanksgiving even if she found it.
I sent my darling husband in search of a turkey cookie cutter on the day before Thanksgiving. One of the worst days to go to a store, especially a grocery store. He looked at World Market, Kohls and Kroger. No luck.
I pulled out the big bag of cookie cutters. I could do leaves -- those are fine for autumn, and even though this leaf is obviously a holly leaf, it would pass. I could make some orange icing and call it a fall theme.

Then I looked at the cookie cutter that I have called a dove for years. I couldn't decide why it would be with the Christmas cookie cutters if it wasn't a dove, but it looks a bit more like a chicken. Could I somehow make it look like a turkey? I imagined trying to add some bigger tail feathers and some kind of wattle under its chin. That would never work.
So I went to work cutting out leaves, dove/chickens, hearts, some stars (which are universal, right?) and some Christmas trees, because those are the ones I like eating the most.
Once the cookies were all baked, about 45 of them, I mixed up the powdered sugar icing. I was ready to add the food coloring.
"What color?" I asked Earl.
"Red," he suggested.
So I pulled out all of my food coloring boxes and discovered that he must say "red" every year because each box was devoid of red. So I settled for green. Bright green.
I slathered on the icing and asked Earl to decorate with red hots and sprinkles. He must have been channeling Tucker as a small boy, because he loaded up those cookies.

So the finished products were colored perfections.They stayed on the waxed paper drying, until the first handful of boys walked through the kitchen on their way to the "man cave" in the basement.
What I discovered, as waves of boys moved through the kitchen, is that they don't really care what shape the cookies are in. They ate them all, except a few that didn't get iced.
Now I have a year to find a turkey cookie cutter. Unless you think I could somehow pass this dove/chicken off as a turkey. What do you think?

Saturday Snapshot-- Stained Glass Reflection

2011-11-26T05:00:00.004-05:00

Selfish Again

2011-11-25T14:50:00.004-05:00

Okay, but who doesn't like presents?
Really?
Who doesn't like to unwrap a gift and see what is inside?
"For me? You shouldn't have. But thank you."
Ever since I was a kid, I've loved getting presents. I never outgrew it.
I enjoy giving gifts as well, but I've never gotten to the point that I would prefer people buy a cow in Katmandu in my honor instead of giving me a gift.
Can't we do both?
So now that you know another of my character flaws, let me temper it by explaining that for a lot of my married life, as I decided to stay home with my kids, money was tight. We lavished Christmas gifts on the kids, while Earl and I stuck to stocking stuffers for each other. Through that time, my younger brother and family were the only ones who would buy me an actual Christmas gift. My parents resorted to giving checks awhile ago. That much-appreciated money would go into the household fund to pay the gas bill or water bill. It never went to buy something special for me.
A few years ago, as my husband's nieces grew up and took husbands, we decided we'd draw names and each person would get one decent gift to open. We even had a "no gift card" rule so that each person had an actual present to open.
That meant at Christmas I'd get a gift from my brother and one from Earl's family.
Yay! I love presents.
Thanksgiving morning as I mixed up the turkey quiche, I was busy thinking of gift ideas to put beside my name when we drew names.
Then, at our Thanksgiving brunch, my sister-in-law proposed instead of drawing names this year, we find an unfortunate family and buy for them.
"That's a great idea," I said.
Well, really. Who wouldn't say that? Who can argue that they really want a gift instead?
I know that I have everything I need, so I can't be selfish and refuse to give gifts to a needy family.
I did impose one condition that if we are going to buy gifts for a needy family, we have to all go together to buy the items, so we can bond as a family.
And just when I thought the odds of unwrapping a gift had faded, Earl's niece Julie, mother of Caroline, announced on a Skype call to Grace that she's expecting again. A baby in June.
Okay. That will serve as my gift for this Christmas.

Traditions

2011-11-23T11:47:00.003-05:00

Okay, it's time for me to stop kvetching about the fact that I'm never with my extended family on holidays. Instead, I need to start building traditions with my kids so that when they are grown up with families, they'll come home for holidays.
When I think of Thanksgiving as a kid, I remember my mom in the kitchen while I watched the Thanksgiving parade on television. Sometimes we went to my grandmother's house in Kentucky and we'd play with the cousins. Nana always had stackcake, which was my favorite (or maybe I'm confusing that with Christmas).
Right, so back to Thanksgiving traditions. My parents are in Florida, one brother is in Texas and another brother spends every Wednesday before Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Day at his in-laws. That leaves my husband's family. This year, they are doing a run and then going to their in-laws for a 4 p.m. meal We wedged out a tiny block of time for a Thanksgiving brunch.
Then Earl will go to work in the evening. Grace is still in France, so it will be me and two teenage boys at home.
I came up with one possible tradition to add from reading Corey's blog. Corey has an amazingly close-knit family that makes me so jealous. She lives in France, but she is home in California for Thanksgiving. She talked about her mother baking cookies and showed a cookie cutter of a turkey.
Eureka! I have a turkey cookie cutter from my Mom.
So my husband mixed up the dough for the cut out cookies this morning while I was at work. Tomorrow, I can roll and cut out the cookies shaped like turkeys.
The boys and I will probably go to a movie on Thanksgiving, but if Grace was home, she would not go for that. She's very traditional. She would insist on family games probably.
So, any suggestions for Thanksgiving traditions?

Being Unkind

2011-11-20T07:39:00.004-05:00

Being mean to someone is more work than you would think.
It's not something I normally do, so maybe I'm just out of practice.
Here's the story, this summer, Spencer and some of his friends got in trouble. His friend Dakota didn't have any consequences for the actions and the mother told me she had encouraged Dakota to be a better influence on Spencer, which made me crazy, because he was doing the same things that Spencer was, but he lied to his mom about it.
So this summer, when the mom came up to me and put her arm around me, I said that I couldn't talk to her then. I was still mad that she fell for Dakota's BS.
What I discovered through the summer and fall, was that it is kind of nice to not be talking to this mother. She has ADD and talks incessantly. She gossips about all the kids in the high school and she doesn't understand limits. I'm constantly having to say, "You're in my space" when she moves in too close, or "We were in the middle of a conversation" when she walks up and starts talking. So that can get kind of tiring.
The mother of another boy and I had planned to ride to a basketball game together Friday night. I got a message from Dakota's mom saying "Can I ride with you to the game?"
We were leaving in about 20 minutes and I had looked forward to spending time with the other mother. I simply ignored the text.
Well, about half an hour into the game, Dakota's mom arrived and sat by us.
The other mother isn't as good about setting limits. She had even complained that Dakota's mom had ridden with her to most of the soccer games and she tried to leave town early to avoid her, but she couldn't bring herself to say no.
At one point, the other mother and I were talking about her brother who is going to New York for Thanksgiving when Dakota's mom jumped in: "Now who was this? What was happening?" Aaargh. See how annoying that is?
So I left without having made eye contact or talking to Dakota's mom.
I don't think I can keep it up through the whole basketball season though.
So what should I do? Simply accept the fact that she's going to glom onto us throughout the season and put up with it.
Lay out some boundaries, like "you can ride with us to every other away game but not every time."
Point out that she is very annoying the way she talks constantly and interrupts people?
My running friends said I was being too harsh, but she really doesn't get boundaries unless they are clearly stated.

Saturday Snapshot -- Harvest Moon in the Morning Sky

2011-11-19T08:40:00.003-05:00

Some Secrets to a Long, Happy Marriage

2011-11-17T10:25:00.005-05:00

I don't want to pretend to have all the answers. Earl and I have definitely had our challenges in 21 years of marriage, but this week we did two things that, I think, have helped us maintain a relationship where we still enjoy each other.
The other night, on one of Earl's rare nights off, once the boys were safely home, I suggested that Earl and I walk the mile up to Caribou Coffee. Of course, it was dark already, but the temperature hovered in the 50s and a misty rain fell occasionally. We both carried umbrellas and I had my reusable cup so I could get 50 cents off and so I could be ecologically conscious. We held hands as we walked the quiet streets until we got to the brightly lit Caribou. I found a seat and Earl fetched my coffee, which was supposed to be decaf, but considering how wired I was afterward, I'm thinking it might have been regular.
As we sat in the cozy Caribou Coffee, we talked about Earl's plans, which constitute the second step to a happy marriage. He was leaving for a backpacking trip in West Virginia. He would only be gone two days, but sometimes a marriage is stronger with a little distance.
He takes offense at this idea, but sometimes I do need time to myself. So I told him I had arranged to have the day off on Thursday. That way, I could rejuvenate alone.
It's not that Earl bugs me when I'm home. Sometimes he's a little oversolicitous.
"Can I get you anything?"
"What are you working on?"
"Do you want some tea?"
"Want to go for a walk later?"
And these are all perfectly kind questions for my husband to ask me while we're home together and the boys are at school.
Sometimes though, I like to have the place to myself.
This morning, Earl left around 7 and the boys screeched out of the house a little before 8 hoping to make it to school on time.
I had a 45 minute conversation with my friend Ruth in Michigan (who, with 4 kids at home, is very jealous I'm home alone). Then Grace called me on Skype and we talked for a few minutes.
Next, I did 45 minutes of yoga. Usually with yoga, I'm itching to finish, ticking off all the things that I need to do yet. But today, I was calm and the time passed quickly.
Now I'm in front of the computer, ready to do some writing, and I'll probably reward myself with a walk down to Caribou later.
I'm a free woman until the boys get done with school. Then I'll have to do some driving and make some dinner -- maybe chili since the temperature is still in the 30s.
This time alone is rejuvenating for me, And hopefully Earl's hike in the West Virginia mountains will be refreshing for him. Then I'll see him in two days and we'll be ready to move onto 21 more years.

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- Two Towns in Provence

2011-11-15T09:56:00.005-05:00

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.

Continuing my obsession with France in general and Provence in particular, this week I'm beginning the book Two Towns in Provence by M.F.K. Fisher.

So here is the town, founded more than two thousand years ago by the brash Roman invaders, on much older ruins which still stick up their stones and artifacts. I was as brash a newcomer to it, and yet when I first felt the rhythm of its streets and smelled its ancient smells, and listened at night to the music of its many fountains, I said, "Of course," for I was once more in my own place, an invader of what was already mine.

And this first paragraph feels so right for me. Have you ever felt that way about a place?

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Here's a teaser from within Two Towns in Provence.

Far above the stone ribs of the hushed room a small eye of open sky in the cupola looks down upon the empty basin that the first Christians found so conveniently ready for their baptismal rights, after decades of Roman ladies had bathed hopefully there to give themselves children. Perhaps, it is said, St. Maximin himself, one of Christ's disciples, stood beside that pool.

Bringing Provence Home

2011-11-14T15:49:00.008-05:00

My blog friend Delana (pronounced De-lane-uh) just started a new store that sells rugs, trays, soap dishes and fluted bowls all in gorgeous Provencal fabric.
Yippeeee!
Christmas shopping issues solved. Everyone will be getting something from Provence Rugs for Christmas and anyone shopping for me can just take their pick from this website.
Look at these colors and designs. Look at this one called Eclat d'Orange. Yes, it is a burst of orange. And since I'm American, I can tell you the price is $45 because we don't consider it gauche to talk about prices! The rugs come in lovely colors like sky blue and poppy red and spring green. You'll have to visit the website to see.
The website says the rugs are handmade by French weavers.
And the trays are laminated fabric that you'll recognize because it is a traditional Provencal fabric. Can't you see serving sliced baguette in this fluted bowl? Oh, how about M&Ms then? Or tiny French chocolates - bonbons? The bowls are 6 1/2 inches and cost $13.50.
But now I have too much yellow and orange on the blog, so I'll need to break it up with some blue and green photos from Provence Rugs.
Here's a 9 1/2 by 9 1/2 divided tray. It costs $30.

And here's an assortment of the fabrics from the website:

Make sure you take a look.
Christmas is sneaking up sooner than you realize, and wouldn't it be lovely to walk up to your front door and see a lovely colored rug on one of those dreary February days.
Photos are from the website Provence Rugs. Obviously.

And So It Begins...

2011-11-13T11:45:00.005-05:00

Sports practices started officially last week and on Saturday I had my first full day of sporting events.
Spencer had a basketball scrimmage at 10:30

It felt good to be sitting in the gym again, even if only four of us parents showed up to watch our boys. In this photo, Spencer is in the navy shirt with the guy in red pushing him.
Then at 1:30, Tucker had a swim meet.

I sacrificed my afternoon of college football to watch Tucker swim.
But, I need to remember that this is my last year of basketball since Spencer is a senior. And I'll only have two more years of traipsing to swim meets since Tucker is a sophomore.
I vow to not complain, but to enjoy every minute of watching my boys play sports this year.

Saturday Snapshots -- Spices

2011-11-12T08:34:00.004-05:00

Falling Behind

2011-11-11T08:14:00.004-05:00

I started the month with the intention of writing 50,000 words toward a new novel as part of NaNoWriMo. I did so well the first five days, writing 1700 words every day and documenting my progress along the side of my blog.
Then came the weekend when I needed to grade essays from four classes. So those took priority. Then when I had finished those by Tuesday, I had a book from the library that was only a two-week loan. I had two days to finish it, and I really liked the quarter of the novel I had read, so that took precedence.
I still have a bit of the novel to finish (it's a day late now but worth the dime)and I have another class of essays to read, but I'm going to hop back on this writing idea and see how much I can catch up in the next few days.
Technically, at 1700 words per day, I should be at 18,700 words by today. Instead, I'm at 8527 words. Just a little over 10,000 to write.
I'm sitting at Caribou Coffee with a skim berry white mocha and they're playing Christmas music.
I can do this.
Hope bout you?
Are you behind on any projects?

Deep Discussions

2011-11-10T09:47:00.005-05:00

My class this morning started out with a disturbing topic and ended with an equally disturbing topic. I felt like a real downer.
Although I teach college English, I try to bring up topics in the news to see if any college students are paying attention. This one, they were aware of because it connects to football. Coach Joe Paterno from the neighboring Big Ten college, Penn State, was fired last night.
My 8 a.m. class was divided. Some thought he should have been fired, others thought he had done what he needed to legally. Students at Penn State are definitely thinking he should have gotten a pass.
Here's the thing, an assistant coach from the past has been indicted for sexual abuse on boys. Even though he retired in 1999, he continued to use Penn State facilities for a program to help underage boys. A student assistant report to Paterno that he had seen this assistant coach sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in the showers. Paterno reported this incident to his boss then apparently never thought about it again.
I don't know many people who could shrug that off.
I asked my class, "How many of you would do more if you saw a child being sexually assaulted?" They all raised their hands, yet they're giving Coach Paterno a pass for not taking more action.
"Which is more important," I asked, "football or child sexual abuse?"
When framed that way, who would say football?
Coach Paterno left who knows how many boys at risk? How many boys were sexually assaulted because Paterno did not follow up, did not read the riot act to the (alleged) sick pedophile, did not check up on the boy who was lured to the Penn State showers?
That discussion made us all feel a little queasy, but determined to do the right thing. Then we moved on.
Toward the end of class, we began to discuss an essay related to the Columbine shootings. This essay, a speech given in 1999 shortly after the shootings, blames the shooters' actions on living in a soulless suburbs. We watched some videos, sinking deeper into the hopelessness of that day when students hid under desks while two boys slaughtered them with sawed off shotguns and an automatic weapon. Fifteen people died in that school in a suburb of Colorado. No one in my class agreed with the speech that these two boys massacred people because they were raised in a suburb where everything looked alike. The speech blamed the suburb because it is a soulless place without a past or a future.
And I agree that, even though school shootings seem more likely in an affluent suburb or an isolated town, the place is not to blame. Maybe the thing to blame again is the lifestyle that leads us to suburbia.
People who are trying to survive day to day, making sure their family has food and shelter, don't have time to worry about being angry and planning assaults on their fellow classmates or teachers or bosses.
Living a more comfortable lifestyle is a blessing, but new affluent disorders crop up.
The class kind of sat in stunned silence when we got to the end.
"Go out and do something good today," I said.
They laughed and departed.

Up In the Air

2011-11-08T22:00:00.003-05:00

At 9:44 p.m. I was driving home from campus when our local NPR station interrupted the BBC with Governor John Kasich. He was conceding that his side had lost on Issue 2.
Yay, I wanted to cheer. He said the other side had run a good fight and he planned to take a breath and think about his options.
He said Issue 2 was about giving local governments tools to cut costs, but apparently, Ohioans did not like the tools he had given him.
I thought about other tools I knew.
Anyway, he sounded a little desperate and reminded me of a recent picture of the cat.
Gov. Kasich is hanging on by his toenails. I can't wait to see if he can do flips in the air too.

Tales from a First Time Voter

2011-11-08T21:49:00.005-05:00

Spencer turned 18 at the end of October, so we made sure he registered to vote before the deadline.
I didn't even see Spencer today. I left for work before he got up then I got home from work while he was at basketball practice and left for work again at 5:30 before he came home.
I called him.
"Remember to go vote," I told him.
"Okay," he said. I told him what I considered were the important issues for him to vote on. I wasn't worried about raising the age limit for judges or about the local mayoral race.
We've talked enough in our family about Issue 2, so I thought he knew the issues about collective bargaining and agreed about the need for it. Either way, I was telling him to vote our family party line.
"So no on Issue 2?" he asked.
"Yeah." I told him one of the girls from high school was there helping and he could ask her if he needed help voting for the first time.
I felt bad that I couldn't go with him, but I always took the kids along when they were little, shuffling them inside the booth. One time Tucker even leaned against the green button and finished casting my ballot before I had selected someone in every race.
At 7:13, with the polls getting ready to close, I texted him: "Did u go vote yet?"
He replied, "Yep, 2 and 3 no."
Issue 3 was about healthcare reform and for some reason didn't get much attention here.
"Good job," I texted. "Feel like a grown up?"
He replied, "I feel like an American."

I Voted

2011-11-08T16:12:00.003-05:00

Today was voting day. Since it's an odd year, no state or national politicians are on the ballot.
Just some local city council, mayoral and school board member.
Still, the polling places were expected to be busy because Ohio is voting on Issue 2. Issue 2 determines whether the law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor should be overturned. That law takes away unions' rights to collectively bargain. That means workers would not be able to band together and agree together to accept certain wages or vacation time or benefits. That means the firefighters wouldn't be able to negotiate and say they need more firefighters on duty. They'd just have to accept what management gave them.
The people who support Issue 2 say that local governments can save money, but who are they kidding. The local firefighters, teachers, police officers and snow plow drivers are not getting rich.
If Issue 2 remains the law then the average worker has no power against management. The worker can take the deal or quit his job.
Sometimes unions go too far, and everyone can tell a story about a person who didn't have to do any work because the union protected that person's job. Overall, though, unions have protected the working people. They've allowed many of us to move up to a middle class lifestyle that we might not have had.
So I hope tomorrow you'll hear that Issue 2 was defeated and the state workers of Ohio are still allowed to collectively bargain.
There's no excuse if people don't get to the polls. It's gorgeous out there today.

Saturday Snapshot -- Foggy Lake

2011-11-05T07:50:00.003-04:00

Hair Issues

2011-11-04T09:46:00.003-04:00

Some of you know that I've given up straightening my hair. It just became too time consuming and it felt as useless as trying to rebuild beaches along the Florida coast that keep getting washed away by the storms and the waves.
So I went back to keeping it curly, but I continued to straighten my bangs. I just couldn't let the bangs go curly again. Maybe it looks weird with straight bangs and the rest of my hair curling crazily. But I didn't realize how weird until I was flipping channels one night and saw the mother from 19 Kids & Counting.
I stopped, shocked. Her hair looked like mine, and I did not like the way it looked one bit.

Her hair looks kind of pentecostal freaky. And I can say that since I was raised in a pentecostal church.
So now what?
Do I return to straightening my hair, which is my preference, or do I just make sure I never flip past the mom in 19 Kids & Counting again.
Nevermind, I can't possibly get that image out of my mind.
I'm going to have to start getting up at 4:30 a.m. to straighten my hair again.

The Color Purple

2011-11-03T09:52:00.007-04:00

Purple is the color I look best in. I know this because every time I wear purple, and I mean every time, someone says, "That color looks great on you."
They don't say it when I wear red or pink or coral, other colors that I also think complement my coloring.
On Sunday, I was trying on shirts in the dressing room. I don't know about you, but I don't look in the mirror of the dressing room while I'm trying on the clothes. I wait until I get dressed then take a look. I put on a heather purple shirt with a vneck and some details around the v. I turned toward the mirror and my face seemed lit up. Wow. That color looks great on me, I thought.
I tried the exact same shirt on in a heather red and it didn't do anything for me. So I bought the purple.
Maybe I notice that people say I look good in purple because they don't see me wear it that often.
Now you're thinking, "Wait, if purple looks good on you, why don't you wear it very often?" It's because my mom co-opted the color purple when I was a sophomore in high school.
It seemed a small thing to give up.
When I was a sophomore, I was just coming out of my really bratty middle school phase. I began to enjoy being with my mother again. I'm not sure why I remember this so specifically, but we were walking in the Towne Mall in Middletown, Ohio, and we were probably shopping at Paul Harris. (Does anyone else remember that store?) We also frequented The Limited. And, at one of those places, we bought a wool skirt in three colors of purple, plus a solid purple cotton sweater for me.
My mom loved that outfit, and slowly, purple began to creep into her wardrobe too.
Now, many, many years after my sophomore year of high school, my mom wears purple everyday. Most everything in her closet is purple or goes with purple. She was known as the lady who wears purple long before it became the popular color for retired women to wear.
I never take any purple clothes with me when I go to visit my mom in Florida. If I were to wear purple, her friends would definitely comment on the fact that I'm just like my mother. So I avoid purple most of the time, but sometimes it creeps into my wardrobe, and I don't mind at all when people say I look just like my mother, whether I wear purple or not.

Nanowrimo -- Again

2011-11-01T22:23:00.000-04:00

November is National Novel Writing Month aka Nanowrimo
The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month.
I'll be trying to write at least 1700 words per day in a sequel to my previous, as yet unsold novel, The Summer of France.
The working title for this one is Autumn in Aix only because of the alliteration. I'm sure I'll think of a better title later.
If you're doing Nanowrimo this month, make me a buddy. My writing name is PaulitaKincer (original, I know)

Day 1 -- 1782 words

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- falling together

2011-11-01T06:26:00.005-04:00

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
The new book by Marisa de los Santos came in for me and I'm so happy, even though I have very little time to read. She's one of my favorite authors and has written Love Walked In and Belong to Me. This new one is called falling together. Three college friends parted way six years before but are called back together for a college reunion, and, as the book explains "But instead of a happy reconciliation, what awaits is a collision of past and present"
Here's the first paragraph:

Pen would not use the word summoned when she told Jamie about the e-mail later that night. Additionally, she would not say that the e-mail dropped like a bowling ball into the pit of her stomach, and at the same time fell over her like a shining wave, sending arcs of sea spray up to flash in the sun, even though that is precisely how it felt.

I know what you're thinking: that's a lot of analogies in one paragraph, but I'm going to defend her because I think she is just trying to show the wash of emotion that the main character Pen is feeling.

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"Augusta was born. I got busy, and also" -- Pen gave a nervous laugh -- "I was on the verge of becoming a stalker. I wanted my daughter to have a mother with a little more dignity than that."

I'm on page 42, and so far, I really enjoy her writing.
What do you think from these little snippets?

Pumpkin Bread

2011-10-31T05:11:00.000-04:00

Is there anything better on a crisp day than the first slice of pumpkin bread?
The knife tip pierces the bread and a puff of steam rises up, smelling of moist pumpkins, cinnamon and cloves.
I should wait, but the smell convinces me to grab a piece and put just a dab of butter on it. It melts on contact. I can see the golden raisins all plumped up.
And now I know that the only thing better than the smell of that pumpkin break is the way it melts on my tongue.
Yum.

I hope that your Halloween has some yummy treats in store for you.
The recipe I use is from the Southern Living cookbook.

Moi?

2011-10-30T16:21:00.006-04:00

I'm a little self-centered and sometimes I need to be reminded of that. My friend Ruth is only too happy to oblige.
We were talking on the phone recently and I was listing my husband's charity work.
For years now he has been driving about an hour and a half to clear a trail for the Nature Conservancy.
Recently, he has added weekly volunteer work at a child welfare agency that helps underprivileged and developmentally delayed kids. He had to have fingerprinting and background checks twice, recommendations from three people who aren't family and a physical before he was cleared to volunteer there.
Then last week, he announced that on his only day off, he was going to work at Habitat for Humanity.
He took Tucker with him, who seems to be following in his father's volunteering footsteps.
Of course, I think it's great for both of them to help others. I'm proud of them. But their activities make me start taking an account of my own actions.
I organized the refreshments for the school's musical evening. That took at least an hour of emailing. I'm on the board of the swim team and we meet at least once a year along with answering emails and texts from the coach. No, my volunteer hours don't seem to compare.
So I was feeling a little guilty as Earl and Tucker traipsed off on a cold, rainy night to build a house for the poor.
"Do you think he's only doing it to make me feel guilty?" I asked Ruth as we talked on the phone.
"I think," she said, "that it's not about you."
"Oh."
That gave me something to think about.

Saturday Snapshot -- American-sized Donuts

2011-10-29T08:10:00.003-04:00

Slacker Parenting

2011-10-27T07:06:00.006-04:00

I know what you're going to say, I worry about parenting too much to consider myself a slacker parent. But, the thing is that I spend time thinking of ways that I'm not putting in the effort that I used to.
That's why I was so relieved to see a commercial the other night that said the first five years are the most important. I was a good, engaged parent during my kids' early years.
My kids didn't watch TV. We were outside exploring the natural world. We had in-depth conversations and played make believe. I homeschooled them for nine years, continuing to set the rules and make sure they followed them. When they went to school, that's when I started to slack.
So I was thrilled when I found an article last night that talks about ways to make your child a genius.
I did most of these things. Okay, my kids haven't shown outward signs of being geniuses, but I know they've had the preparation, so they may find a way to be geniuses in their own fields.
One way to make a genius, don't let them have a television in their rooms and don't let them watch too much television. "59 percent of under-twos watch two hours of TV every day." See, I can feel slightly smug. They may watch a ton of television now, but they didn't when they were young.
Next thing I did right to make a genius, breastfed babies score 5 percent higher than non-breastfed. I think it has been established that I might still be breastfeeding my children had my friend Michelle not forced me to go to Paris for 10 days when Tucker was 3.

The next sign is playing the piano or a stringed instrument. Both of my boys played violin and Grace played piano. I'm just whizzing along on this. I'd better check my kids' test scores. They should be much higher.
I'm not sure about whether my kids are able to delay gratification, which is the next sign. They tested kids by giving them a cookie and telling them if they waited 15 minutes to eat it, they could have two. I know Grace would have passed this one, because she used to eat a bit of a candy bar and save the rest for later. I wondered if she might have been switched at the hospital.
Children raised in a home with more than 500 books are 36 percent more likely to graduate high school and 19 percent more likely to graduate from college. (But less likely to have the money for college tuition because their parents spent all the money on books!) Okay, check on that one.
Women who used cocaine don't get geniuses, and I did not, once again saving my children from a life of mediocrity. Overweight children score lower on reading and I pretty much had stick children.
"Aerobic exercise increase executive functioning by 100 percent!" Give my swimmers and basketball player and soccer players a corner office then. We were constantly running and jumping and playing.
Children who attend preschool are more likely to graduate high school. Two of my kids went to preschool. Spencer hated it and by the time I got to Tucker, we were homeschooling so he never went. Hope he stays in high school in spite of my choice not to send him to preschool.
I also messed up in picking an older father for my kids. Children born to 20-year-old fathers have higher IQs that children of 40 year olds. Sorry guys, but your dad has made up for it in other ways.
Juggling apparently increases brain capacity too and I never enforced that particular trait.
Children in poorer families have fewer conversations and hear fewer words than children of professional families. I don't think my children ever suffered from a lack of conversation. They might think I went overboard on that.

Kids who studied foreign languages do better on the SAT. I started teaching my kids French when they were little and they have all studied languages in school, so we're good in that category.
Students who spend more than two hours a day on computers or video games score lower on tests. I think I've already established that I limited their screen time, although their tests scores may be lower now because of it. We didn't even have a game system until Spencer was in 8th grade.
Children whose mother were exposed to pesticides had lower IQs. That's something I managed to avoid too.
So many of the signs of genius are planted in my children. Now I just have to sit back and wait for the seeds to grow. That, and try to keep them out of teenage trouble.
How about you? Did you raise a genius?

The Joys of Adulthood

2011-10-26T09:08:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, as we sat waiting for the doctor so Spencer could have his yearly physical, we realized the walls in the office were rather thin. We could hear our doctor discussing a girl's ADD through the walls and her need to become physically active.
Embarrassed to overhear, Spencer and I decided to have a conversation. Spence lounged on the plastic doctor's table, the white paper covering it crinkled when he moved. "So what can I do when I'm 18 that I can't do at 17?"
He turns 18 soon.
"Well, you can vote," I said, excited that we've already registered him and he gets to vote in the November election.
"You could get a tattoo," I said, knowing he hasn't expressed an interest in tattoos thus far.
"You get to come to the doctor by yourself," I said. "Oh, and you have to register so you can be drafted if the United States ever starts drafting men again."
Hmmm. None of these options seemed to be thrilling him as the bottom half of his legs hung off the table, his clunky black shoes resting on the step he'd pulled out.
Still waiting for the doctor, I texted our friend Bethany who turned 18 about six months ago and was determined to make the most of her new adulthood. Bethany is now in Los Angeles modeling.

Here's a test shot of her by Lotus Josephine.
I remember that Bethany went to buy a lottery ticket on her 18th birthday. I wondered what else she'd gotten up to. So I asked.
"What can Spencer do when he's 18 that he can't do now?"
Then I waited for her response.
"Cigarettes and porn," she replied.
Actually, she texted "Cigarettes and pron" but then followed it up with a correction, "porn."
Great. My 18-year-old can buy cigarettes, porn, get a tattoo and seek medical advice without me.
I'm hoping he decides to ignore his 18th birthday and look ahead to his 21st.

The Problem with Headlamps

2011-10-24T07:19:00.005-04:00

Now this may not be a problem that everyone has to deal with, but I'm probably starting a petition and I expect all of you to sign in support of me.
Headlamps are a problem for runners -- not the runners who have them but the runners who don't.
We run at 6 a.m. on Saturdays and most of the year it is fairly dark.
The trail meanders along the Scioto River, but roads are nearby and street lamps or porch lights provide peripheral light. Then don't forget the ghostly moon and the sparkling stars. We can usually see the dark strip of asphalt in front of us well enough.
Until a runner comes along with a headlamp.
I'm sure you've all seen them, those obnoxious lights that glare out of people's heads like a cyclops eye. The problems are two-fold: Number one if I'm running toward someone with a headlamp, I'm blinded.. I can't see a thing. The runner could be a Mack truck coming toward me. I think the headlamp would be a great idea for someone lurking waiting to abduct someone because it would blind the person being abducted.
The second problem is that the bright light lingers after the headlamp wearer has passed on. My eyes need to adjust again to the dark as I search out the trial, which was perfectly visible before I was blinded by the headlamp wearer.
My friend Pam was the first one to complain about the headlamp wearers.
We tried shunning them, refusing to say hello to headlamp wearers when we ran. We'd even look away to try to save our vision.
Then Saturday, in the dark and the swirling fog, Pam showed up wearing a headlamp.
"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," she said.
So we ran a bit with the headlamp like a spotlight in front of us.
I decided that whoever had a story to tell should run in front in the spotlight, but that took too much effort.
Then I tried jumping into the spotlight and singing:

"Don't tell me not to live, just sit and putter
Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter
Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade"

But it's surprising how much breath it takes to sing and run at the same time.
Then Naj suggested Pam turn off the light. So she did. And we could see fine.
We ran the rest of the way complaining about those people with their headlamps.

Why Saturday Was a Good Day

2011-10-23T07:27:00.004-04:00

Not to discount the 10 miles we ran in the fog on Saturday morning, but the day took a turn for the fabulous around 11:45 when I sat down at a quasi-French restaurant with my husband.

He got the bread; I got the mimosa.
Then we ordered just an appetizer, but, oh, what an appetizer.

Brie fondue with apples, broccoli, carrots and chunks of hard bread to dip. My favorites are the apples. Or maybe the broccoli.
I scraped the bottom of the crock and blew out the little candle so it didn't char the remnants of cheese.
We've tried to make brie fondue at home but it is never as good as the fondue at Bon Vie. (Yes, the French teacher rails at the name. Couldn't they have spelled it Bonne Vie?)
I finished with a tiny cup of espresso then walked outside to this sparkling day where the fog had blown away.

It looks fake, as these "hometown" mall developments are supposed to. Rather Disneyesque, but sometimes it's okay to suspend belief, to enjoy a brie fondue and mimosa, and make believe I'm not in central Ohio.

Saturday Snapshot -- Paris Sky

2011-10-22T05:40:00.004-04:00

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My

2011-10-19T07:07:00.005-04:00

This morning I woke up in a Carl Hiaasen novel.
Hiaasen writes novels set in Florida where seemingly unbelievable things happen, but they always do actually happen in Florida. Today, Ohio has an exotic animal escapade to rival Florida's best adventures.
The basics of the story is that an exotic animal owner in southeastern Ohio was found dead with all of the animal cages open. When the sheriff arrived, the “four, aggressive” animals were apparently eating the dead owner. The other animals were roaming the Ohio countryside.

The owner kept camels and giraffes, along with lions, tigers, bears, cheetahs, and wolves. 48 animals in all that are now hiding in Ohio. The sheriff's office, of course, shot to kill the loose animals. So far they've tracked down about 30 animals. The Columbus Zoo sent people to help, hoping to tranquilize the animals rather than kill them. Schools down there are cancelled today as people crouch in their homes looking out the window.
So I wondered, how did the guy die? The animals couldn't have opened all the cages. My first thought is suicide. He decided to open the cages and let the animals attack him, plus, he got the last laugh on the officials who kept citing him for violating the exotic animal codes.
And I would have gone with that theory if not for the end of the news article which explained that another exotic animal owner near Cleveland, Ohio had been in trouble too. That owner was found dead this summer, tied up and wearing a mask.
Now the Hiaasen plot kicks in. Obviously, someone is going around Ohio killing exotic animal owners and creating havoc. Why would someone do this?
Ohio has one of the weakest exotic animal laws apparently. So the obvious answer is that it must be some Ohio legislator who wants to strengthen the exotic animal law. He can't get the needed votes or attention. That's why he starts killing exotic animal owners and letting the animals roam loose.
Now he has people's attention.
What do you think? Too far fetched? Has Hiaasen already written this novel?

A 19-year-old's Adventures in France

2011-10-19T05:14:00.008-04:00

I can't believe that Grace left for France a month ago.
The time has flown past for me, here in Ohio.
At first, I was afraid that this was going to be one of those experiences that Grace could look back on and appreciate, rather than enjoying it now. She was tired and frustrated with the language. She panicked when it came time for Earl to come home without her.
I got texts, I got Skype calls. Her eyes were wide and darting around as if searching for the exit.
I talked to my friend Michelle and was surprised to learn that her daughter had felt similar despair while in France the previous year. She suggested I go with the 10-day plan.
"Let's give it 10 days," I told Grace.

And after a few days, when she seemed about to sink into the mire again, unable to negotiate the big city in a foreign language, I read her the riot act.
"Get out of your room. Go get a Metro pass. Make a plan to do something."
And she did.
She's captured days like this where the sky was incredibly blue and no one could be sad or lonely.

Not every moment has been happy since then. She caught a cold and spent a weekend sniffling in bed. But she has embraced the idea of traveling and exploring.
Most everyday she ventures around the city and discovers some small joy.
Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready to leave for work, she messaged me on Skype:

oh my gosh!!! best day for the early part of today, cant wait to tell you about it

That made my heart soar.
Later I found out that she discovered a market and explored it. The little adventures are adding up.
I'm so glad that she can enjoy these moments and know that she'll be able to look back on them with pleasure too.

First Paragraph Tuesdays

2011-10-18T07:04:00.002-04:00

On Tuesdays, I usually participate in the meme by Diane at Bibliophile by the sea.

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.

Last week, I added the meme for Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I love learning about new books as I read everyone else's responses too.
This Tuesday though, I'm not opening a new book.
My friend Howard gave me his manuscript to read about a month ago and I gave him mine. I've only read the first few pages of Howard's book and I'm feeling pretty guilty about it. After all, he trusted me to read and give him an honest opinion. He put hours and days and months and years into this manuscript and I laid it aside, grabbing books that are sure things.
I'm no better than the guy who decides he'll text his girl back later, after the football game, after the drinking with the guys, basically, when he has nothing better to do.
And that's not what a friend would do. So I'm making Howard's book a priority, before any of those other books calling to me from my shelf.
Here's a teaser from Howard's book titled A Deliberate Exercise of Love.

As I listened to Burton, I could picture Erin at her old house because of the way Burton described her. The scream elicited by this discovery of whatever it was must have torn the soft membranes of Erin's throat as she slipped into some kind of dark, prehistoric confusion. All logic, all memories, were gone, vanished with the rest of civilization. She probably looked around with large eyes upon an unfamiliar world and screamed a scream that cut through the atmosphere of other dimensions. Maybe she fell, crawling along the floor like a sluggish, dying anmial, or maybe she saw the sunlit face of someone dear to her in one last yellow burst of memory. She must have felt her bones turn black and watched the wood of the furniture and the blankets on the couch swirl around has as she collapsed.

Who knows, maybe someday, Howard's book will be a choice on my bookshelf too.
Can't wait to see what everyone else is reading.

Java Addiction

2011-10-18T05:37:00.003-04:00

I'm pretty sure this is a bad sign.

My Starbucks gold card came in the mail yesterday.
I didn't even know they had gold cards.
I may have an addiction.
And Starbucks doesn't even know that I'm getting my other fixes at Caribou Coffee.
Oh, what a world.

Adolescent Brains

2011-10-16T00:33:00.005-04:00

It's 12:30 in the morning and I desperately need chocolate, but I'm not willing to go out in search of it.
I guess, I shouldn't have expected that raising teenage boys wouldn't result in one of those midnight conversations that "I'm almost 18 and I'll do what I want to do and if you have to call the police so be it."
I guess I'd seen Spencer's anger building this past weekend, but I always think my kids are rational enough that they can think logically. I forget about the adolescent brain and the fact that it doesn't fully form until their mid 20s. After nearly an hour of yelling by Spencer about my choice for him to come home rather than staying at a friend's house, after covering past choices and decisions good and bad, I conceded defeat and said I would drive him back to the friend's house.
He stood kind of stunned for a minute. I sat on the couch, wrung out like a dishrag, wondering if there is any way to keep my kids totally safe. I know there isn't. I told him that next year when he goes away to college he'll get to make decisions, good or bad, on his own.
He speaks in extremes -- life is all or nothing. It is the best time or it sucks. No happy mediums in this adolescent brain.
If I could, I would step back 10 years to the time when he played pretend in the backyard, grasping a plastic hockey stick like Davy Crockett's rifle.
I wish I could wrap him up and keep him from making stupid choices or at least buffer them. Give him a do over card in case he messes up.
All I can do though, is let him know that I love him and keep encouraging him to talk to me.
That and keep some chocolate in the house for times like this.

Saturday Snapshot -- Cat, Crackle Pop

2011-10-15T05:08:00.000-04:00

Culinary Adventures

2011-10-14T07:27:00.003-04:00

While I have been busy lamenting the fact that my husband came home from France without sufficient chocolate supplies, I almost overlooked something important he brought home.
A tiny package wrapped in white paper with two small wheels of goat cheese -- chevre.
Somehow, just unwrapping that package and smelling the pungent cheese made up for the lack of chocolate.
What to do with the precious French cheese?
On Wednesday night, I cut a butternut squash in half, dribbled it with olive oil, salt and pepper then stuffed some sage leaves in the cavities. I put them face down in a baking pan for an hour then scooped out the insides. Pureed squash with goat cheese crumbled into it. That was good.
Last night, I cut thin slices of Italian bread and topped them with tomato slices, fresh basil, goat cheese and olive oil. I baked them in the oven for about 10 minutes. More yum.
This trip to France just keeps on giving. And we haven't even cracked open the wine yet.

Review -- Best Staged Plans

2011-10-13T04:54:00.004-04:00

Teaching seven English composition courses in college sucks up my time like a giant vacuum. I'm either preparing for class or grading essays. So the minutes when I can read for pleasure are stolen gems. Yesterday, I picked up Claire Cook's Best Staged Plans and never looked back, gulping it down like an ice-cold Coke on a sweltering summer day. Afterwards, I felt happy and satisfied, ready to return to my laboriously written English compositions.
The main character, Sandy, wants to get her house ready to put on the market, so she and her husband can pay off the bills of kids in college and a daughter's wedding. Sandy's a home stager, so she's meticulous about preparing the house. She's a little bit like me in that she's frenetic and demanding, glaring at each tree rather than enjoying the walk in the forest. Her husband and adult son aren't helping out the way they should and she's had enough. A trip to Atlanta to stage a boutique hotel helps give her some perspective on life.
A lot happens in this 238-page book as Sandy attempts to corral her life into order when no one seems to be following her directions, not her daughter, her new southern son-in-law who calls her "Mo'am," her best friend or even the guy at the post office. Sandy's time in Atlanta helps her look at the big picture and realize the value of family.
The author also has a link on her website that encourages her readers to donate reading glasses because "Not having reading glasses is the biggest obstacle to disadvantaged people over forty re-entering the workplace."
Pick up this book for the story and it will give you plenty to think about when you're finished.

Early Thanksgiving

2011-10-12T05:52:00.006-04:00

It seems like all of my posts have been fairly negative lately, so I thought I should stop and be thankful instead.
So, here, the Wednesday after Canadian Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for: My husband who, although he came home with only one chocolate bar from France two weeks ago, has worked everyday with only one day off. Sleep in today, honey. You deserve it. And take a second day off this week.
My unswollen, though still flaking, face. I'm on the last leg of the steroids the doctor gave me to combat my reaction to the Aveda moisturizer. With steroids, the medicine steps down. So I started taking six pills a day over a week ago, and now I'm down to three. Before you know it, I'll stop feeling all jittery and need more than four hours of sleep each night. I am accomplishing a lot since I don't need sleep. When you get up at 3:30 a.m., you can get an amazing amount done by 6. It's like the day's half over.
A second car. We've been a one car family since Labor Day Weekend when Spencer drove in front of a truck and, basically, had the front end of his Honda Accord taken off. No one was hurt, but for over a month now, we've had one car. That means I've just driven everyone where they need to go rather than Spencer or Earl (or Grace while she was still home) taking a car. Somedays, I never sat down in my house, just walked in the door after work and drove people around all evening. But now we have a second car. That the boys can drive to school or Earl can take to Home Depot. It's an Explorer, but, since two of my children have totaled cars and I have one more learning to drive now, I wanted something big enough to keep him (and the rest of them) safe -- just in case.
I'm also thankful that two of the college classes I'm teaching will end next week and I'll have a mini vacation, teaching only five course through Christmas.
Other things, yes, the weather has been gorgeous. The cats took a nap outside in the hammock with me yesterday. Well, I napped. They kind of clung to the hammock.
And when Tucker was hanging outside with me and the cats, he asked to take a picture of Tupi's fat hanging through the hammock. Not mine.
See, lots of things to be thankful for.
How about you? Are you thankful for something?

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- 13 rue Therese

2011-10-11T04:45:00.007-04:00

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
Continuing my obsession with all things French, I have the book 13 rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro. I picked this book up at the beginning of summer, thinking Grace might want to read it before she headed off to France, but she didn't. Last night I picked it up and thought it looked intriguing. An American professor arrives in Paris and finds a box of artifacts that tell the life of a woman who lived through both World Wars. He becomes consumed with the story and the gaps between. Here's the first paragraph:

Josianne's gift is a simple square box, its sides about as long as her forearm. It is about as deep as her hand is wide. The white plastic lid has a quaint red crosshatch pattern on it, like the sort you might see on a tablecloth in a small family-owned restaurant. The box is nothing extraordinary, though its contents have been known to induce fevers. At least, that is one of the effects it had on Josianne when it first came to her -- perhaps she decided to pass on her gift as much from a need to get it away from herself as to share it with another. At least, the box let her think she decided.

What do you think? Would you keep reading? Just in case you haven't decided, take a look at this Tuesday Teaser.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Here's my teaser from a random page:

She wants to laugh at this, but at the same time, she wants to curl up, wrapped in sadness. The fire of this overwrought feeling -- this constant feeling of the animal self caged and unable to run free -- she thought that this feeling would wane after the end of the war, after the first flame of her youth faded. It is not so.

~p. 128, 13 rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro
To keep reading or not, that is the question?

Football Funk

2011-10-10T11:47:00.000-04:00

I love football, especially college football, as I've written before.
Saturday night, instead of meeting friends and going to antoher friend's stage production, I stayed home to watch football. I felt a little sheepish admitting to my friend Linda that I was obsessed with watching college-age men run the football up and down the field. Of course, I also had papers to grade, so I could fall back on that, but the real reason was that I wanted to watch.
What I am learning is that football is not nearly as much fun if my favorite team is losing. So that's been a double whammy for me this year.
Living in Columbus, I root for Ohio State, and that has served me well the entire 13 years we've been here. They've been a good team. A top 25 team.
Not this year.
Saturday night, I felt my mood rising as a totally new Ohio State team took a commanding lead. Where were these guys the previous 5 weeks, I wondered. I was happy. I texted Spencer to update him on the score since he was working.
Then halfway through the third quarter, with a 27 to 6 lead, the quarterback got hurt and suddenly the entire team fell apart. They ended up losing.
Zoom. My mood plummeted.
The second whammy is that my favorite professional team, the Pittsburgh Steelers have also been off to a slow start. I didn't even bother to watch them on Sunday. I was surprised to find they won!
So, what I learned is that I love football, but mostly, I love winning football.
Guess I'm the fair weather fan after all.

School, Education and Intelligence

2011-10-09T19:31:00.007-04:00

The longer my kids are in the school system, the less I think school, education and intelligence go together.
This lesson came back to me last week when Spencer, who is a senior, won the school chess tournament. He named the boys he played and shrugged it off, even though one of the boys is the valedictorian of their class.
I imagined how this really smart boy must have felt to know that my mediocre student could beat him in chess. The problem is that the intelligence to win in chess, or even on the basketball court, are different from the skills needed to succeed in school.
As many of you know, I homeschooled my kids until the oldest was a sophomore in high school and the youngest in 6th grade. They then opted to attend school. Yet none of them seem to have bought into the school system's game. I tell them that having chosen the playing field (the school) they must now play by those rules, which means achieve high grades.
None of them seem motivated to do the little bit of extra work it would take to achieve an A when they can do very little work and get a B. After all those years preaching about the love of learning, I have a hard time enforcing the "A" standard.
Spencer probably struggles the most with grades. If we'd sent him to grade school, he probably would have been diagnosed with ADD. But we didn't, and he has adapted with decent grades.
To me, Spencer will always be that little kid with the round glasses and the blonde bowl haircut sitting on the floor, one knee pulled up to his chest, the other under his bottom staring at the chess board.
He learned to play chess in 1st grade. We were at Borders bookstore and he requested a beginning chess set that came with a book to explain how to move the pieces. I went through the book with him and he started playing with his friends. I began to get an inkling he thought differently than I do when we were leaving a friend's house one day.
"Wrap it up, Spence. Time to go," I called as he stared at the chess board.
"Hold on. Two more moves and I've got him in checkmate," he said.
"What? How can you tell that?" I asked. I figured the number of moves were infintesimal and he couldn't predict what his friend Michael might do. But it was true. He could figure out the available moves and how to trap his opponent. It's what a good chess player does.
Once he started school in 8th grade, he gave up on the private chess lesson, the trips to national chess tournaments. He worked hard to be a normal jock with B grades.
This year, as college forms should be filled out, I told him he needed to add another activity. Back to chess, I told him. And so he did.

Spencer holding the flag is not with the chess club in this photo.

On Tuesdays at lunch, he goes to chess club. And he's succeeding. Which reminds me why school and education and intelligence just don't always go together.
Getting good grades, in my opinion, requires the will to please other people and a good memory. Those skills will make the 4.0 plus student in my kids' high school.
Grace and Tucker both have those steel trap memories like I do, so they have the ability to excel at school, if they only had the other part, that urge to please people.
The problem with not having a good memory, is that school can feel like a beat down everyday. Those other people with good memories just stride through it. Maybe chess will help Spencer remember that there's a light at the end of the school tunnel. Maybe he'll find a career where he can excel because he can see the spatial relationship like those between the pieces on the chess board or between those players on the basketball court.
And maybe someday there will be a school where kids who have a wide variety of intelligences, not just good memories for the things they see or hear, can feel like they're succeeding too.

Saturday Snapshot -- Water and Sun

2011-10-08T05:33:00.001-04:00

A Grandma by Any Other Name

2011-10-07T07:29:00.006-04:00

I'm not sure why I started thinking about this. Maybe it was when Tucker, the 15-year-old, started talking about getting a P tattooed on his shoulder in honor of his great-grandmother Pauline, and I choked on my coffee. But I started wondering about names that kids call their grandparents. The grandparents I knew were Nana and Granddad. Because my mom's parents died, I don't even know what the 25 other grandkids called them before I came along.
My parents decided to avoid the grandma and grandpa tradition. My dad became Gran and my mom became Nena. I'm not sure if Nena is an offshoot of Nana, but it works.
Then my dad's sister became Nonni. I have no idea where that came from.

Earl's sister has a grandbaby who will be two this week, and she calls her grandparents Memaw and Pop. I don't think I'd want to be Memaw.
Hopefully, this is a question I will, personally, not have to deal with for a long time, but what weird grandparent names have you heard of? What did you call your grandparents?

Foggy Run

2011-10-05T06:23:00.004-04:00

This morning, for the first time since my face broke out into a rash, swelled then started to peel, I was able to go for a run without intense itching. I checked the temperature, 46 degrees, cold for this time of year.
When I stepped out the door though, I was surprised by the fog.

The fog wraps the streets like a blanket, muffling the noise. It feels eerie, and the person lumbering down the street could be your neighbor or ... anyone. But, it's usually the same people that I see on my runs when it's not foggy.

First Paragraph Tuesday -- Best Staged Plans

2011-10-04T04:49:00.003-04:00

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
Teaching seven college courses right now, I barely have time to breathe, much less read anything other than essays, so I picked up what I hope will be a quick, breezy read. Claire Cook's Best Staged Plans. She's the author of Must Love Dogs. The main character Sandy is a stager whose daughter recently married and moved to Atlanta, while Sandy's son finished college and moved back home. Sandy goes to Atlanta to stage a hotel, hoping she'll have time with her daughter, but instead getting to know her new son-in-law. Here's the first graph:

Okay, so I accidentally wrapped my reading glasses in one of the packages I mailed.
"It could have happened to anyone," I said to my daughter Shannon.
"Wow, that's pretty lame. Even for you, Mom." The all-knowingness of her three and a half months of marriage reverberated through the phone line.
I ignored it. "If you get them, just mail them back, okay, honey?"
The minute life starts getting easier, your eyes go. So the time you once spent looking after your kids is now spent looking for you reading glasses. I hated that.

The eye doctor just told me that I need reading glasses when I have my contacts in, but I do hate the idea of everyone at the restaurant pulling out their glasses to see the menu.
What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Still Itching

2011-10-02T17:30:00.003-04:00

Ugh.
I know that I'm much more conscious of the rash and swelling on my face than anyone else is, but even the teenage sons have begun to comment on it.
"Maybe you should stop using it," Tucker suggested.
Yeah, I thought of that and stopped using the moisturizer as soon as I felt the rash beginning on my neck. This all began when I tried a new moisturizer from Aveda. Now five days later, the rash and swelling are worse.
"Your eye's swollen," Spencer said when he leaned over to let me kiss him on the cheek before he ran out the door.
The left side of my face is very swollen now and the skin is very dry. Yesterday, I tried taking it easy and swallowing Benadryl every 6 hours to reduce the itch and swelling. I also tried applying hydrocortisone cream, but I felt nervous about rubbing it on my face.
Today, the left side of my face has definite jowls and the swelling under my eye interferes with my line of vision.
I searched online for a doctor on Sunday and ended up going to a CVS Minute Clinic where a nurse practitioner seemed afraid to touch me, as if the scaly, swollen skin would spread.
She ended up giving me a prescription for prednisone because, by now, the allergic reaction must by "systemic," she said.
I just hope that I look a little better by tomorrow when I have to work one-on-one with students.
Now I just have to figure out what is causing the back pain -- is it some of the medicine I've been taking, the allergic reaction, or the lack of running since my face flamed up from that "all natural" moisturizer.
And that will be my next step, to try to find out what is in the moisturizer that set my face on fire. I definitely want to avoid it in the future.

Saturday Snapshot -- Mont St. Michel

2011-10-01T07:59:00.005-04:00

Harper Valley Football

2011-09-30T21:41:00.002-04:00

Perhaps I made a crucial mistake when I was a freshman in high school and appeared as an extra in the movie Harper Valley PTA. It could be that I doomed myself to a lifetime of drama.
I rode my bike in the cold to our high school football game tonight. My boys don't play football and aren't in the band, but the team is doing really well this year. The whole town turns out for the games. Spencer paints his body each week and Tucker died his hair pink for the breast cancer recognition tonight.
During the band's halftime show, a mother holding a camera walked up to me, leaned over and said, "Before you go saying things about my daughter, you'd better take a look at your own kids."
Then she was gone, down the steps of the bleachers.
I sat stunned.
I knew the mom because Tucker had dated her daughter in 8th grade, two years ago.
"I just had a hit and run," I said to my friend Jane who sat next to me with a cast on her foot. "What should I do?"
Jane said she didn't know because she'd never had a mother accuse her of something. Jane is very polite and would never gossip about kids or adults. I am not always polite, but I knew I hadn't been talking about Courtney.
I decided to go confront the mom rather than simply avoiding her.
"Carrie, I don't know what you've heard, but I haven't even thought about Courtney in two years," I said.
She told me she had heard this rumor directly from a parent, and she asked if I swore I hadn't said anything about her daughter.
"I didn't," I said. "And next time ask me."
"I thought we had put this all behind us long ago," she said.
And I agreed.
Then I went in search of Tucker.
"What's this rumor I'm supposed to be spreading?" I asked him, relaying the football game ambush by the other mother.
Tucker, of course, had heard the rumor, just didn't bother to share it with me. A dad, who I knew of, but who I felt sure did not know who I was, was saying I'd made claims about Tucker and Courtney.
Now I needed to take the next step: find the dad and confront him.
Lucky for him, I didn't see him at the game, so I'll need to go to the soccer game on Saturday to look for him and put an end to the rumors.
It's just like the song and the movie: "Cause this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites."
The joys of living in a small town.
Do you gossip? Would you have confronted the mother? Would you search out the dad? Some people would rather avoid. How about you?

France Travails

2011-09-30T08:27:00.005-04:00

Grace's travels in France, and the accompanying angst is making me re-remember some of my own journeys. When I think back to those three months in France, I look at the entire experience and how it changed my life. I don't remember the daily struggles.
But first, Delana asked if I had a picture of myself in the pink fishnet anklets with the pink skirt. Indeed, I do and here it is:

So Grace is feeling frustrated about not understanding a language that she has studied and she is feeling shy about speaking French. I get that. The first two weeks I was with the French families, I hardly spoke at all. And they talked about me, right in front of me for a few weeks until I started to understand what they were saying. I promise Grace every time that we talk that it will get easier.
When I went to France, it was a last minute thing. I was 22 years old, working as a reporter at a daily newspaper in Middletown, Ohio, and dating a photographer. The photographer had a sister who was married to a Frenchman, Jose. (That J is pronounced zh instead of the Spanish way.) They had two little girls, Brigid and Claire, whie the wife was pregnant with her third child. The tickets to fly to France had already been purchased when the wife started to have complications. Someone needed to go with the girls to France and stay at their grandparents' house with them. That's where I came in.
I had only a few days to prepare so I didn't have time to panic. I filled a very, very big suitcase and went.
The father, who is a doctor, came along at the beginning for a medical conference. We flew into Paris and stayed at the grandparents' apartment in Viroflay, outside Paris in the direction of Versailles. The grandparents weren't there at the time, so when Jose left that morning for his medical conference, the girls and I were alone in France.
Maybe there's something about being responsible for other people that made me step up to the plate and take action. When the phone rang in the apartment that morning, I didn't answer it though. No way was I attempting to speak French on the phone. Brigid, 4, answered and it was her uncle Vincent, who spoke very good English.
After Jose had gone to the conference, I was responsible for getting the girls ready and meeting him at Luxembourg Gardens for lunch.
I dressed the girls in matching yellow overalls because, as a 22-year-old, I thought that was so cute. But their long sleeve shirts quickly became too warm on our outing so they ended up wearing the overalls without shirts underneath which looked a little white trash.
I have no idea how we made it onto the RER and got the train into Paris then switched to the Metro to meet Jose at Luxembourg Gardens. Somehow we did. The trips I took alone with the girls all run together, so I'm not sure if it was that day or another day that I went through the gate at the metro, with my one little ticket, pushing the girls in front of me since they were free, and they got stuck on the other side of the gate. There I was on the outside; the 3 and 4-year-olds were on the other side. The gate was closed. I panicked.
"Wait right there," I said. I imagined that I needed to run back to the window to buy another ticket to get through. Luckily, a woman behind me, who was wheeling a suitcase, took pity on me and let me go through on her ticket so I didn't have to desert too little girls in the Metro station.
When we met Jose at the Luxembourg Gardens, we had ham sandwiches with butter for lunch. I can still taste them. We fed the extra bread to the fish in the pond.
Then Jose went off to his meeting and he told me to take the girls by bus to his grandmother's apartment. Well, apparently, we got on the bus going in the wrong direction. The entire hot afternoon was spent climbing on and off buses going farther and farther away from Jose's grandmother's apartment. At one point, we got off the bus and I herded the girls to a cafe for a Coke. We all needed to raise our blood sugar a bit.
The cafe was chic and the people around us were very polite. They admired the girls and they asked about our trip. But when I asked them about taking the bus, they all shrugged. None of them were bus users.
I admonished Claire to be careful not to spill her drink then I promptly spilled my Coke and it flowed off the edge of the glass table.
Could the day get any worse?
Somehow, some way, we eventually got to Jose's grandmother's apartment, which is where I met Marguerite, who is still my friend today.
So, although I may tell Grace that my travels in France were the best times of my life, the individual days were a challenge. Maybe I didn't appreciate them until I came back, and maybe she won't either.
Until then, I'm encouraging her to find one good thing everyday to appreciate. I'll do the same here in Ohio.

Wrinkles Be Gone

2011-09-29T06:07:00.004-04:00

My husband is so lucky that I woke up with a swollen face this morning. Otherwise, I was going to write about the fact that he came home from France with one chocolate bar. One. That's right. No other chocolate. Three bottles of wine, some croissants and ONE chocolate bar.
Instead of giving him a hard time, I am a little woozy from Benadryl and drinking an espresso to counteract the sleepy qualities.
It all started on Sunday when I bought a new moisturizer. I went to the Aveda store, which I love. Almost all of my "beauty" products are Aveda. And I've been using my travel store of moisturizer since we had the driveway redone in August.
I went to buy my usual tourmaline moisturizer and inquired about eye cream. They didn't have any except the kind I had an allergic reaction to. However, the saleslady continued, I could try the "Embrightenment" moisturizer which would have a similar effect around my eyes. It was 20 dollars more, but if it could work as moisturizer and eye cream, I was really coming out ahead, right?
So I brought it home and used it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Yesterday afternoon, I could feel a slight sandpaper type rash on my neck. As the evening progressed, my skin was itchy and I could feel the rash along my jawline. This morning in bed with my husband, who came home from a week in France and brought only one pre-wrapped chocolate bar, I could feel that sand papery feel over all of my face. And my face felt really tight.
That's when I got up and looked in the mirror.
Yikes!
My whole face was swollen and my eyes had a definite Asian slant to them.
Oh! So that's how the moisturizer works. It gets rid of wrinkles by making your face puff out. I have no wrinkles, but the space between my eyelids is definitely smaller since my eyes are swollen too.
So, I took a Benadryl and I'm drinking the coffee since I have to teach starting at 8.
Then I'll have to head back to the Aveda store to see if they'll replace the rash-causing moisturizer with my old standby.
What I can't understand is that Aveda said it is replacing products to make them more natural. Apparently, my face cannot handle more natural. Bring me some synthetic products!

Anti-Aging Secret Revealed

2011-09-28T07:13:00.007-04:00

Okay, it's settled. I have to go to France again to find out the secret of youth. Somehow, they apparently know how to look young at a very advanced age.
Is there some fountain of youth? Some beauty cream? Some food that they eat?
I am determined to figure it out.
How do I know this antiaging secret exists?
Here's a picture of Earl with our friend Marguerite when they went out to dinner along the Rue Mouffetard the other night:

Should I tell you how old she is or should I let you guess?
I'll let you guess for now.
What do you think?
Age Revealed: Thanks to everyone who guessed. Marguerite is 85.

Ah, One Night in Paris

2011-09-27T20:25:00.000-04:00

Tonight, my husband is alone in Paris, and I'm a little worried.
Oh, I'm not worried that he might find a sweet French woman to entertain him; I'm worried about him finding his way alone in Paris without someone who speaks French, even as poorly as Grace and I do.
I think every time he has ever been to France, from the first time with me in 1991 through his current trip with Grace, he has always been accompanied by someone who speaks a little French. Don't get me wrong, he can make hand motions and say "allons-y" with the best of them. He can order tea or wine, and he can read the Metro signs. Still, I worry that, having left Grace at her host home and having consumed much wine, he'll wonder over for one last look at the Eiffel Tower. And, without me there to protect him, he'll be in danger of falling for the sad faces of the gypsies holding tightly wrapped babies. Or maybe he'll decide to buy some tiny Eiffel Tower replicas from the African hawkers. How many places will he wander before he returns to the hotel I found for him in the 1st arrondisement?
Perhaps I wouldn't think anything about it, if long ago, on my way home from three months in France, I hadn't run into an American guy who cut short his trip to Paris. I met the guy in the airport in New York. I sat, wearing a pink cotton skirt with a very high waistband, pink fishnet ankle socks and white kitten heels, and read a book, until a guy's tales of woe reached my ears. He had been in Paris for the first time. He'd been in the Champs de Mars near the Eiffel Tower when he was robbed of all his money and his passport. As soon as he could, he hightailed it home. He hated Paris.
I was dumbstruck. How could that be? I had traipsed about the city alone, flirting with Argentenian sailors and ignoring the propositions of men along the street, even ducking into a church during mass one day to avoid a very persistent man.
I've always felt safe in France, and maybe the fact that I never considered being in danger has always kept me safe.
But tonight, while Earl is alone. Well, I'll have to trust that he can take care of himself, for just this one night.
And tomorrow, I'll see him at the airport and he'll be home.

Earl and Grace self portrait in Paris -- 26 hours after leaving home.

First Paragraph Tuesday -- Going Underground

2011-09-27T09:32:00.004-04:00

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I just started this book, Going Underground by Susan Vaught. This writer is on one of my Yahoo writers' groups and she sent a message yesterday about discussion of turning her book into a movie, which is very cool.
The story is about a 17-year-old boy who digs graves because he can't get another job or go to college after he got in trouble as a 14-year-old. What'd he do? His girlfriend sexted him a picture of herself.
When I got the book, I didn't realize that it was a young adult novel, but I'll probably keep reading for awhile to see if it catches me. Here are the opening two paragraphs:

Dead zones are places without life, without feeling, without air. I've seen them in pictures of polluted oceans and read about them in descriptions of the cold void of space. Sometimes I think parts of my body have turned silent and dark like those pictures and descriptions. Sometimes I think I've become a dead zone.
I mop sweat off my forehead with a dirty handkerchief, reposition the earbuds, and adjust the iPod in my pocket, then pick up my shovel. It's hot, and it's late afternoon, and this is a graveyard. It's a quiet place down a long country road and sort of in the middle of nowhere, like graveyards people write about in horror stories -- only this cemetery isn't creepy, at least, not to me. The graveyard is not huge, but it's big enough and full of headstones and plots. My job is to dig the graves, then close them up again, and it's time to move dirt from one spot to another to bury a body that really, truly has become a dead zone. I'm glad for the pine box that hides the sewn eyes and the blank face. Some things just don't need to see the light of day again.

What do you think?
Just found out two days later: I just found out that this book, Going Underground, is not the same book as the Going Underground on my Yahoo group list. That book Going Underground is by Suzie Tullett and sounds much more my style. "A laugh out loud, feel good novel with Brit flick flair." It's also the one that may get made into a movie. So I can throw aside this Going Underground and get the other one. As I told the author last night in an email, I was reading this gravedigging book and wondering when the Brit Flick was going to start...

State of Wonder -- Review

2011-09-26T05:48:00.003-04:00

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett definitely lived up to its hype.
What? You haven't heard the hype?
Well, Ann Patchett weaves a wonderful spell with her words beginning in Minnestoa where Marina works in a pharmaceutical lab and finds out her lab partner who traveled to South America is dead. Amid complications of an affair with her boss and a mentoring relationship with the scientist who is working in the Amazon, Marina travels to South America to get answers about her dead friend and the miracle drug that can allow women to bear children into their 70s.
Funny that this is the second book I've read in a month about a scientist working on a miracle drug and someone needing to track the scientist down. (Hector and the Secrets of Love)
Patchett's picture of the Amazon as both wondrous and miserable had me feeling the heat and itching from the bug bites. Her characters are marvelously alive. Some of them unlikeable and others, like Easter, the deaf boy from a neighboring tribe, are so loveable that I wanted to sneak him home with me.
My favorite line in the book was about Easter. As Marina is falling in love with the little boy, she thinks, "So he had been a cannibal once, if only in another lifetime. In light of all that had happened it was hardly worth mentioning."
The book was not one to undertake in one long gulp. I spread it throughout the week and felt gratitude in the end, although some questions remained unanswered.
I definitely recommend it.

Studentwriting

2011-09-25T08:54:00.003-04:00

Here it is, the beginning of another quarter at college.
I teach an online class, and everybody who forgot to register sends me an email asking if they can get in my online class. If there are openings, I let them join -- first come, first served.
Luckily, all the spots were gone when I got this email:

Good afternoot my name is jennifer mxxxx, iam interesten in taking your web class and iam asked for a signature from you please let me know what i need to do next.
thanks in advance

I emailed Jennifer back to tell her that I already had a class full of students, and suggested that some of the other teachers had openings. She should ask them.
Then I added a P.S. to her email.
"You may want to correct your spelling and punctuation before you ask another teacher."
Today I heard back from her, "thanks"
No punctuation. No capitalization.
I hope she gets in a class.

Saturday Snapshot -- Guitar Reflections

2011-09-24T05:06:00.000-04:00

France Blog

2011-09-23T14:45:00.002-04:00

Yay! Grace is blogging again. This time, about her trip to France.
Take a look to see France through the eyes of a brave, yet frightened, 19-year-old American.
Grace's Blog: Life Allons-y!

On Their Way

2011-09-21T21:30:00.005-04:00

As I write this, Earl and Grace are winging their way across the Atlantic Ocean.
The preparations were exhausting. I spent the past few weeks helping Grace find every possible item she might need while she stays in France.

Her wardrobe is filled with black basics. She has some kickin black boots and some adorable, comfortable black wedges.
She has a phone that works overseas, after I spent more hours on the phone with Verizon than I've spent alone with my husband in months.
We had a last favorite meal before Grace left -- brown rice pasta with goat cheese.
Grace got a haircut and gave horsie rides to her little cousin Caroline who will grow up a ton in three months. Just like Grace will.
I got some gift ideas from my blogging friends Linda and Corey, and spent yesterday searching for Polo shirts to give the French kids and coffee table books that feature the beauty of Ohio? Well, at least the United States.
I wrapped gifts in tissue paper last night while Grace, Bethany and Anna finished packing her bags.
This morning, I had to leave for work before Earl and Grace went to the airport. The hug Grace gave me bruised my ribs, and she left tear stains on my shoulder. Going away for three months is a tough step for Grace.
While I was teaching this morning, I received a call from Earl.
"Someone needs you," he said.
I spoke with a crying Grace until the plane was ready to take off.
We spoke again when they got to New York. The next time I hear from them, they will be standing on French soil and sending me a text.
"Bonjour from France."

First Paragraph Tuesday -- The Ninth Wife

2011-09-20T08:10:00.003-04:00

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
This week I have picked up The Ninth Wife by Amy Stolls. I'm not sure where I heard about this book, but I've been waiting awhile to read it. The blurb on the back says that 35-year-old Bess meets a charming Irishman and learns that he has been married 8 times before. She decides to travel across the country and meet this Irishman's previous wives before she is willing to become wife number nine.
Here's the first paragraph:

"Pick a partner," says Bess's karate teacher, "and get a tombstone." As Bess learned nine months ago when she began her schooling in Tae Kwon Do, a tombstone is a black rectangular punching bag that you hold against your torso as a target for someone to kick you repeatedly in the stomach. Or, ideally, your solar plexus, your myung chi, the soft spot at the top of the rib cage that if kicked directly with a powerful eap chagi, say, by a one-hundred-ninety-pound software engineer from Bethesda, can knock the breath out of you and send you flying across the room into a pile of smelly sparring gear. Tombstones, Bess has come to realize, are a good thing. Tombstones can save lives.

The first paragraph without the blurb probably wouldn't grab me, but I'll keep reading to see if it pans out.
What about you? Would you keep reading?

Entrepreneur

2011-09-18T06:21:00.004-04:00

Sometimes my boys come up with crazy ideas that just make me shake my head and laugh.
This week, it was Spencer who admitted that he had started a home-based business. Well, not so much home-based as locker-based business.
Spencer and three friends noticed the effect that Michelle Obama had on the snacks in the school. As seniors, they were used to pop machines and unhealthy snacks in the cafeteria. When our schools phased those out this year responding to calls for healthier food, Spencer and his friends decided to fill the niche for junk food.
They went to the store and bought $40 worth of candy, chips, Honey Buns, Pop Tarts and pop. They sell it from their locker.

This week, they made $60 so they got a 50 percent return on their investment.
"Wait a minute!" I said. "Is this against the rules?"
I mean, he wasn't selling anything illegal or even convincing students to take supplements that would make them stronger or smarter.
One of the teachers said she didn't think it was a big deal, so Spencer considers that carte blanche.
I drove five sophomores, Tucker and friends, to an away football game last night, and they were talking about Spencer's business.
"Oh, yeah. I bought a Reese cup from him for 25 cents," Josh said.
"That's a rip off," Tucker said, determined to find fault with his brother.
I pointed out that a two-pack of Reese cups costs around $1 at the grocery store.
"Dude, he's gotta have a profit margin," Josh said.
Keenan added that the pops are $1.
"They used to be 65 cents in the pop machines," Tucker said.
Well, the pop machines are gone.
Maybe I should just be proud that Spencer is showing some entrepreneurial spirit and not worry about the repercussions. Like him, I do believe that the kids, who are allowed to leave school for lunch, will probably eat all the junk food they want whether the school supplies it or not.
Maybe I should see it as a sign that he's ready to leave school and start his real life, which is what he'll be doing at the end of this year.
Maybe, I should realize that he has great ideas, like me, but apparently he is willing to follow through on them.
I just hope he can stay out of trouble for the rest of his senior year.

Bird Watching

2011-09-17T07:35:00.004-04:00

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

On a run this week, I saw a friend out looking for his escaped cat. I told him I would look as I ran. That's when I saw this black cat sitting and staring into a tree. I thought maybe he had the other cat cornered so I turned around to see what he was staring at.
This is what I saw.

Someone had conveniently placed a birdhouse in the crook of a tree and the cat was ready the minute the birds thought about emerging.
I laughed when I realized what the cat was doing. I tried to lure him away.
He gave me a look of disgust.

Then went back to his birdwatching.