Brain vs. Braun

I read in the paper today about a crazy biathalon that involves playing chess and boxing.
Sorry to break it to these organizers, but my son and a friend invented this sport years ago when my then 8-year-old had his first, and so far as I know, only fist fight over a chess set. He was a slender boy with long eyelashes and gold hair down to his shoulders and he played chess every Wednesday at the library. He and an older friend wandered out the back door of the library to watch for me when one of two curly haired twins snatched away the queeen of his chess set.
When threats didn't work, either my son or his friend threw a punch and the chess set was complete again. We always joked about what a dangerous sport chess was after that. Now, I can see that someone is cashing in on it.

Raspberries - My One Wish

That's when I'll know I've made it, when I can eat as many raspberries as I want. Right now, when I go to the grocery, I buy the square flat box of raspberries. What is it a pint, a half-pint? Then I bring it home and gently wash them, hoping I won't find any mold. I separate the raspberries into four tiny glass bowls (my husband doesn't like them luckily) and we sprinkle them with sugar. My 14-year-old inhales his and begs for mine. This is one thing I won't give in on. I eat my own raspberries, savoring each fresh bite.
Someday, maybe I'll get a whole bowl brimming with berries. But I have no hope of ever affording enough raspberries, or any other food, that will fill up my 14-year-old.

If I had one wish....

A guy I teach with is getting ready to move to Kansas or Nebraska, some more Midwestern place, to get his PhD. Because he's leaving, he won't be able to teach this summer.
"Guess I'm looking at manual labor," he said. He went on to express his wish that the more letters behind his name, eventually he will be able to leave manual labor behind. He'll know he has really made it when he can order in pizza and drink good beer with it.
Funny, how such a simple thing could be the sign of success.
Mine used to be books. I thought if I had enough money to go into a bookstore and buy whatever book I wanted then I would know I'd made it. Then I realized, the library fulfills that need for me. I can bike down to the library and fill my basket with more books than I could ever read.
Sometimes I wish I had enough money to buy whatever the kids need for their many sports. Spencer's basketball shoes are too tight. We go buy a new pair without calulating when the season starts, how long they'll have to last, how much his feet will grow.
Tucker's goggles leak and we traipse down to the aquatics store. Maybe we choose a few pair so that he has a backup. Grace's racing swimsuit gets too loose so we send away for the $200 Speedo, the one that can take precious 100ths of seconds off her race time.
Maybe buying the kids all of their high-tech gear for sports would spoil them. Maybe it's for the best that I say, let's wait until... payday, we sell the other house, that big government rebate check we're still waiting for.
When I think about what would satisfy me, lately, I've mostly wished to be comfortable enough to eat out or order in most nights, so I won't have to fire up the grill or my imagination to come up with another dinner!
How about you? What's the one thing that you need to be comfortable?

School Success

My 12-year-old had been in school exactly three months when he dressed that day in a Polo rugby shirt and gray cords. He tried to smooth down his dark hair that sticks up on top and I saw him swallow hard a few times before he headed out the door.
It was supposed to be an honor, this student of the month award. To him, it seemed more like a punishment. Oh, the award was nice. Good behavior, good grades, respect, helpfulness. All of those things were taken into consideration before they chose my youngest to be the sixth grade boy student of the month. And, he admitted, that he likes to get to school early so he can hold the door open for the teachers and students. Little brown noser. So that may be why he was chosen.
The prize for being student of the month is a lunch at a local restaurant. That sounds good. We'd been there a dozen times in the fall to watch OSU football and eat wings. The catch was, the lunch was for the students of the month from each grade,
5th through 12th. One boy and one girl from each grade, plus the principals from the middle school and high school.
He was nervous. Who would he talk to? He didn't know that many students in the 6th grade, much less students from the high school.
That night he came home with his certificate.
"The burger was so big I couldn't get my mouth around it," he said.
"I was the only one who ordered Coke. Everyone else had Sprite."
We have a no caffeine rule in our house, but I told him for this special occasion he could go with the Coke.
He sat at a table with the two fifth graders and an 8th grade boy who is an acquaintance of his brother.
"It was okay," he said.
The principals sat away from the students, on the other side of a partition, peeking their heads over to see if they were behaving.
The impression that remains, Student of the Month is really just Student of the Lunch. Not a big deal, unless you're the youngest kid in a family whose older siblings haven't been chosen as student of the month-- yet.

Pulling on the reins

I did something yesterday that I never imagined myself doing. I walked into a cinemaplex, entered the darkened theater where the movie flashed, and found my 14-year-old son.
"We're going home," I said. And he got up and followed me.
I don't know if I'm really mad at him, but I do know I was manipulated and I'm pretty pissed at the dad who took him.
Saturday was a busy day. I was at a writer's conference all day and my husband was working. The kids were left unsupervised. Well, the youngest spent the day at a friend's house after soccer. So my 14-year-old left a sleepover to walk over to another friend's house. He called -- three times in a row until I answered -- to tell me the change of location. I called him back at lunch time.
"Could I please go see Escape from Guantanamo Bay?" he asked. I'm picturing terrorists and guns and chase scenes.
"It's a comedy."
I asked a passing friend. "You know anything about it?"
Not suitable for a 14-year-old, the friend suggested.
"Make another choice," I told him before I went to eat a grown-up lunch.
Later in the day, my phone rang, vibrating in my pocket. A session was wrapping up and the phone vibrated again before I could escape to the hall to answer it.
"Please, Dylan's dad is going to come with us so we can get in to the r-movie."
The agent I was hoping to catch was coming out the door. I wanted to talk to her.
"Okay." I agreed to the r-rated movie so I could catch the agent.
When I got home, he stopped by for money and my phone rang again, this time it was the mother of one of his friends. "Are you really letting him go, because I'm not letting Dakota."
She read the review from Common Sense.org. Incest? Sexual positions? Excessive drug use?
The father, divorced, was waiting in the car with his son and another boy who was allowed to go. I walked out to the car, barefoot.
"Look, I'm not going to let him go," I said. "I just don't want to deal with all of those issues. Sorry you waited for him."
They started to drive away when the son yelled, "We could see something else."
The boys agreed and my son hopped in the car. In the house again, I looked at the newspaper to see what their other options were. Under PG-13 I saw Prom Night? A slasher film.
I texted the boys. I'll take you to the video store to rent something.
No. We're going to see 88 Minutes, they texted back.
I'd seen previews. Al Pacino. Probably a lot of tense moments, I thought. Wait. That was rated R too.
I looked it up. Violent torture of women. Victims are hung upside down in their underwear.
That was when I decided. Carrie was with me, so I wouldn't humiliate my son alone. We walked in the theater and said, "Our sons are in an R-rated movie without our permission."
They let us sail by like we were Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip.
As we walked out of the theater with our sons, the father came running out after us.
"I'm sorry. I didn't think."
I didn't turn around, I kept walking with my boy towering over me, my hand on his thin back.
When the dad stopped by later, to apologize again, I made amends. "He should have known he wasn't allowed to see that movie and he should have told you." I said to the dad.
"I shouldn't have put a 14-year-old in that position," he said.
Yeah, I wanted to agree with him. You shouldn't have. But you're the divorcee. The fun-time dad.
"Look, any movie that is degrading to women, I'm going to object to."
I wanted to say, you have a daughter too. Don't you get it?
But I didn't.
I'm reconsidering the freedom my 14-year-old has. You can bring your friends here, I told him. For awhile. Let's stick around home. Where I know there are adults who are keeping an eye on things.

Central Ohio Meets Hot Miami

A group of 8th graders travelled by bus from the flatness of central Ohio to the former swampland that is our nation's capital. The boys were herded into the back of the bus and the girls coralled into the front with the chaperones sitting between. They hit all the major monuments, and were stunned into silence at the Holocaust Museum. The week culminated with a dance and dinner cruise along the Potomac. The boys, growing tall and gawky, put on polo shirts and dress pants. The girls donned dresses and skirts, some of them daringly wearing spaghetti straps under a pearl-buttoned sweater. The shoes were a disappointment, but the teacher insisted on flats only, no heels. The girls' hair was slicked straight and many opted for a ponytail. Giggling, they boarded the boat and were surprised to see another group of students -- 8th graders from Miami, Florida.
These students looked different. The girls' dresses were cut low across the chest and high on the leg. They glittered with jewelry and hair ornaments in their wild curls, frizzing in the swampy heat.
When the dancing began, the groups were mingled. These central Ohio kids knew how to dance. They'd been going to dance club for six weeks, stepping and shaking in rhythm to the music and the directions of the dj. But they weren't quite ready for the Miami kids' dancing.
One boy, about 5'4" and with a smooth, innocent face, stood doing his goofy dance, his arms in the air bending back and forth like windshield wipers. His friends love to watch him make up dances. Suddenly, a girl from Miami joined him. Her dance moves were centered a little lower.
"She was just humping him," said one 14-year-old observer.
"What'd he do?" I asked.
"He ran."
And when he told his girlfriend, she laughed.
Another boy, a little taller, his muscles beginning to fill out, his face tan and his smile dazzling, shrugged his shoulders when two girls asked if he wanted to dance.
He knows now that he should have said no. Shouldn't have been so accommodating, but when they began to grind on him, he wasn't the one who went running from the dance floor, it was his girlfriend. She still isn't speaking to him, in spite of pleas and tears.
"Those girls from Miami, they were different from the ones here," my wise 14-year-old observed.
"Compared to them, our girls are prudes," said the boy who sat on the sidelines watching and refusing to dance.
"Well," I said, "let's just call them more modest."
And, as I pulled the car into the garage, I felt pretty good about our move to this small town in central Ohio.

Social Savoir Faire

My kids have done pretty well adjusting to school after all those years I tortured them with homeschooling. The thing we homeschool moms laugh about is when people ask the "socialization" question. We spent our days driving to sports and crafts and trying to get our friends to take their kids back home rather than leaving them at our house for another day. Socialization is not a problem for homeschoolers. They play with kids of all ages.
And, I'm lucky that, although one of my kids is struggling with test taking, he has mastered the school social stratum. He has had a couple of girlfriends, but he's really more interested in hanging out with his buds, coming home covered in mud from football in the field or basketball on the court. His hands grow weary from Guitar Hero and Play Station.
He came home one day and said some girls made a list of the hottest guys at school and he was number one. He was obviously feeling pretty good about that.
"Who are the girls?" I asked.
"Oh, just some girls. I would never go out with them or anything," he said.
They are on a different rung of the ladder from him. A little lower, just dreaming of the guy on the rung above them.
I'm not sure if I should be bothered by his feeling that some people are beneath him, but am I kind of disturbed to realize that I was one of those girls. I might have made a list. I might have given a secret nickname to the hot guy, but he was never going to look at me.

Friends

The worst thing about sending my kids to school, aside from all of the school things, is that in one fell swoop I lost contact with all of my friends.
When we were homeschooling, hardly a day passed that we didn't get together with friends to play or meet at the rec center or have classes at the library or go on a nature hike/kickball game. The days were filled with laughter and yelling and conversation.
These days, after 8 a.m., my house is mostly quiet. When I'm home, I work in the solitude, shooing the cat off the mantle, turning on another load of a laundry. I don't mind the quiet and sometimes will stretch out on the couch for an afternoon nap. But I do miss my friends, those homeschool moms who helped me brainstorm so many childrearing problems.
And so, I'll think to myself, we should go out for coffee or lunch. But then I remember the problem. That mom still has all those kids at home. She can't just dump them and meet me. I can't invite her and the clutch of kids to my house because my kids aren't here to entertain them. And, I'll have to assume, my homeschooling friends figure I wouldn't want to visit their houses with the passel of kids there. Who would want to leave a quiet house for a house full of kids (to steal a turn of phrase from Seinfeld)?
So, I'll sit here in my quiet house, reminding myself to get my work done while the kids are gone, and hope for more days like the snow day, when I invited some moms of schoolgoers over to play cards and we had pina coladas in the middle of the afternoon.

Blizzard

Somewhere back in my childhood is the memory of being snowed in. I think I can remember my father not going to work because of the snow, but it somehow gets mixed together with my best friend from college being stranded at our house too, so I know that different blizzards have mingled. But I felt that same excitement yesterday when the winter storm warning was changed to a blizzard warning.
As a child, I can remember the weather man's face on the news when he warned that the barometric pressure was dropping. That was a sudden and scary blizzard. The one this weekend was just heavy snow that refused to quit.
I was prepared to hunker down in the house, a nice fire drying off the wet gloves and boots as the kids came in from their sledding forays. I got up at 5 and turned on the TV so I could see the cancellations, confident that the championship swim meet over an hour away would be put off for another day. But when the call didn't come, we piled into the car, leaving at 6:45. The kids busily texted their friends.
"Where r u?" they asked.
Not going, came one response.
Then, "Turning around," from the friends about 20 miles ahead of us. The roads are too bad. And the highway was covered with packed down snow. When we got to a smaller route that didn't have buildings on either side, the blowing snow was piled up, scraping the bottom of our Honda Pilot. We began the route home, calling the swim coach with the bad news.
So today, as the kids arrange sledding dates, there is a vague feeling of missing something. Being stranded in the house with peanut butter cookies and cocoa, card games and a curious kitty isn't as satisfying because we have that left out, nagging feeling, knowing that in an overheated natatorium, the kids' friends are swimming, possibly making their zones' times.
And our kids ask for rides, to a friend's house three blocks away or to the sledding hill. Another is picked up to go to a farther sledding hill. And so the bunker mentality of the blizzard is broken as the kids disperse and my husband stops to get a movie for those of us who won't brave the snow. Okay that's just me. But now I'll always remember the blizzard of 2008 as the year that I watched Italian for Beginners.

Makeover

I love good escapism like anyone else, but as I'm devouring a mommy lit or chick lit book, I find myself dreading the scene when the heroine has a makeover. Suddenly her gray hair is tinted with fabulous highlights. All of her old clothes are replaced with new designer brands that show off the tiny waist she was hiding under her shapeless clothes. And who knew that with a little make up she could accentuate those sparkling green eyes.
Perhaps we're conditioned from our childhood days of Cinderella to believe that the makeover must occur or we're just not worthy of all the good things coming our way. The Prince, after all, is deserving of much more than a date dressed in a Kohls' juniors evening gown, arriving in a rusting Dodge Colt. Even a magic pumpkin will suffice.
But, when I look beneath the superficiality of the makeover scene, I wonder whether this character, usually a mother who has spent her recent years taking care of everyone else, can change inside without the outer metamorphosis. Can she become introspective, realize she has become a person she doesn't know, a person without passion, and then change only within? Suppose she starts taking time for herself rather than devoting all her minutes to the kids. Can't she just curl up in a corner and read novels rather than buying a new wardrobe and going to fabulous parties? Maybe the makeover isn't just a symbol for shaking off the old life. Maybe it's necessary for this character, this woman, to realize her value again.
But the part that really hurts is when they throw out clothes that I know are in my closet. Why can't the heroine ever hold onto those boiled wool clogs and the overalls? Won't she ever have those bloated days again?

Let Me Get This Straight

In the mid 1980s when big hair was on the loose, I finally let my hair down. I was living in Washington D.C. and then Pinellas County, Florida. What chance did I have against the humidity but to let my curly hair do its own thing. So I lived with the curls and became used to getting out of the shower, putting in some hair gel and not thinking about it again.
One of my friends deemed it "romance heroine hair." So I could shake back my curls and pretend to be sexy.
And that worked for me through all of my childbirthing and childrearing years. You know the ones I mean, when instead of putting in contacts, I'd wear glasses so I could nap whenever the kids were napping or watching a movie. When the only make up that got near my face were a few smears of strawberry jam on my cheeks.
This fall, when I had my hair cut, the kind hairdresser offered to blow it dry straight. I'd spent my middle school years trying to straighten it into a page boy, so I knew it would never work, but I let her try it. Something in the world of haircare has definitely changed since my middle school years. My hair was straight and flat. My husband loved it. He bought me a ceramic flat iron for Christmas. I used it once before deciding it was way too much trouble to try again.
Until last week.
That's when I got my hair cut again and the hairdresser straightened it. My husband loved it again, but the comments from friends were the worst.
"Wow, you look 10 years younger," said one.
"You look like one of the kids," another mom said.
"You look really thin," said a third. "I'm not standing by you."
Now, it is not really possible that straightening my hair has taken off years and pounds, is it? The problem is that I'm highly succeptible to other people's opinions.
So, on Saturday morning, before driving to a swim meet, I got up early, showered and blew my hair dry. When is the last time I aimed a hairdryer at my head? Maybe if the temperature was below zero and I had to go out. When my hair was dry, I plugged in the flat iron and painstakingly separated it into small chunks, pulling the scorching ceramic iron along the waves until they fell stick straight. My husband came in and added the finishing curl under at the back.
Three times now I have stood in front of the bathroom mirror, running the flat iron over and over my curls until they're straight.
People keep asking me, "How long does it take?"
I have no idea how long it takes. I don't have time to time how long it takes; I'm busy straightening my hair!
This I do know, it takes 100%, maybe 1000% more time than it used to, because I never did anything to it.
And another thing I'm sure of, now that I'm straightening my hair, curls should be back in style any minute.

"My Head is Like a Magnet"

After 9 years of homeschooling, my daughter started school this year. She's a little more naive than most 16-year-olds and that's why I didn't really believe her when she came home and said people keep throwing things at her head. I mean, she's pretty innocent, but those high school boys are way finished with throwing things at girls to get their attention.
At first it was the hacky-sack boys. During lunch, they play hacky sack in the halls. They did that when I was in college and inevitably, someone walking down the middle of the hall would get hit. She claimed it happened every time. Finally, I gave her some advice that I learned from watching her "Aunt Pat."
When we were reporters in Clearwater, Florida, Pat was terrified of spiders. One practical joker in our office took delight in hiding a rubber spider in places that would startle Pat. She would scream and rave before handing the spider back to Mike, who would hide it again in another place. One day, after finding the spider in her coffee cup, she'd had enough. She took the spider out the front door and stood along the curb, waiting for a break in traffic. Then she threw the spider into the middle of the four-lane street. (Of course, Mike later ran into the street and retrieved the spider, but that's not the lesson I wanted my daughter to learn.)
I told her that the next time they hit her in the head with the hacky sack, she should grab it, run out the front door of the school and throw the hacky sack. (They're allowed to leave school at lunch time.) But before she had a chance to retaliate against the hacky sack boys, other boys began throwing things at her head.
Carrots at a swim meet. Coins and a ping pong ball at lunch. A pencil, part of a pen and a bottle cap during class. "Then he giggled," she told me the other day. "A high school boys giggling is not something you want to hear."
Her friends at school were unbelieving too.
"You're exxagerating," one friend said.
"Watch," my daughter retorted. She stepped into the hall, her friend Lisa right behind her. A hacky sack flew straight for her head.
She glared at the boy.
I think she's becoming famous for her glares, but they don't really serve as a force field to protect her head.

Bah, humbug valentine

Happy Freakin Valentine. I'm in a pissy mood. I know I have no right to be. I have a devoted husband who brought me roses and tulips and took me out to dinner last night. But my mood went bad last night when I heard a Congressman really grilling Roger Clements and his personal trainer. I wanted to scream. Who cares about baseball and steroid use? Why don't you go after the President and Vice President who have lied and tortured and sent our soldiers to fight an unnecessary war? Why don't you go after the oil company presidents, who were allowed to testify in Congress without being under oath? But they put the baseball players under oath. Hmmmm. Who is going to affect my life more?
So, I was pissed. Don't we elect these reps to make our lives better. Baseball and steroids. Who cares?
FOCUS.
So at 7:30 a.m. this morning, still feeling a little disgruntled, I stood in the CVS with my two sons as they looked at boxes of heart-shaped candy, trying to decide which to get for their "girlfriends." Middle-school girlfriends are questionable. They seem to change quickly.
My 11-year-old grabbed a box wrapped in clear red paper and was ready to go. My 14-year-old hemmed and hawed. He was surly. I suggested this then this then this. "No," he replied each time. A woman standing in the row, exchanged a look and a smile with me.
That set him off.
"You just want me to get her candy so you look good to the other moms."
He accused.
"That's it," my brain said. Actually, it said, "What the f***?"
I know my mouth was open and I stared at him.
"Forget it," I said, starting to walk away.
He grabbed a box of candy and joined me at the register as I forked over money for my boys to woo their girlfriends.
My older son hid his candy in his backpack, saying he would give it to her only if she gave him something. My younger son hopped out of the car in front of the school, clutching the red box in his hand and his brother yelled.
"Hide it. Put it away."
He didn't care. He'll probably have a different "girlfriend" in a few days anyway.
As we drove around the corner, just me and my surly son, I remembered that my anger at his behavior rarely has an effect.
"You really hurt my feelings," I told him.
And he apologized as he slipped out of the car, looking around like a spy before he put on the backpack that held the offending red and gold box of Valentine candy that would go to a girl who loved talking to him before they were "dating." Now she barely speaks to him, because that is the code of middle school girls. Once you have them on the hook, you must keep all hopes and dreams secret.

An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton

I sat watching the primary returns last night with my 11-year-old. He had tucked a blanket over his lap and stretched his legs along the couch as we watched CNN.
Mike Huckabee won Arkansas.
"Will he stop the war?" my 11-year-old asked.
"No," I said quietly.
John McCain won Illinois.
"Will he stop the war?" the question came again.
"No, honey," I replied, feeling the weight of the question.
Next Hillary Clinton won Tennessee and New York and Massachusetts.
"Will she stop the war?" he asked.
And I felt unbearably sad. She voted for this unnecessary war. Most recently she supported President Bush's saber-rattling toward Iran. Would she bring home our troops?
"No, I haven't heard her say she'll stop the war."
Barack Obama won Georgia and Illinois.
"Will he stop the war?" my son asked.
"Yes, I think so," I said, the words of his speech "Yes We Can" ringing in my head.
My son was asking the most important question of our day. Stop the war. Bring home the troops who are dying across the ocean for a war that should never have begun.
But he wasn't only worried about them. He was worried about himself, knowing that whoever is elected this year, might be re-elected again in 2012. And that president might get to make the decision whether U.S. troops should be sent to fight. That president might decide to reinstate the draft, scooping up boys who never thought they'd serve in the military and that might include my 11-year-old. The quiet boy with glasses who wouldn't play football a second season because he didn't like hitting people. (His siblings are exempt from this feeling.)
So I'm asking you, Hillary Clinton, if you get the democratic nomination and then win the general election, will you promise? Will you promise to stop the war? Will you promise to bring home our troops? Will you promise that anytime you consider sending our army to fight a war that you will first reflect on -- 'Is this fight worth my daughter's life? Would I be willing to send Chelsea first to battle this war?'
And if the answer is yes, you would give your daughter's life to save the slaughtered Jews in Hitler's Germany, or the Muslims and Albanians who were being exterminated in Kosovo, then send my son too.
But if you think a war would mostly benefit your wallet and the wallet of your friends. Or if you think a war might boost up the U.S. economy or settle an old grudge, and you wouldn't be willing to let Chelsea die for it, then don't send my son or anyone else's child. Promise?

Silent House

The middle of the day and all I can hear in this near silent house is the jingle of the cat's bell as he bats a rubber ball along the wood floor. Being home alone is strange for me. For 15 years, nearly 16, children have been my constant companions. Sometimes a whole houseful, other times just my three. We'd snuggle on the couch and read books in the winter or set up lemonade stands and backyard sprinklers in the summer. We did messy science projects and some unsuccessful art projects with the glitter still on the dining room table as proof.
Until today.
Today is silent.
A silence that began when my youngest walked out the door following an argument about whether he needed to wear a coat today, his first day of school, with the thermometer reaching a balmy 21. I won the coat battle, but didn't get a goodbye kiss. He left the back door open, so I had to walk over and push it closed as he climbed in the car with his father.
10 years of homeschooling have ended like that. A scared and angry sixth grader slamming out the door, wondering whether he'll have to sing by himself in choir class since he's joining in the middle of the year. His brother and sister are old pros at it now, having started school in August. His sister gave the youngest a light up pen on a string that he hung around his neck. His older brother advised him to remove it. "Looks kind of nerdy."
They were nervous for him. "You have to play football during recess. You have to play whatever the boys are playing," his older brother said.
My youngest shrugged. Today, he is still full of that homeschool fallacy -- that people can choose to do what they like and no one will protest or comment. I'm sure that will fade.
I had a meeting this morning so I jumped in the shower when they pulled away. The bathroom door opened a few minutes later and my husband's glasses fogged up as he stuck his head inside the shower curtain.
"So all the kids are at school."
I wondered how many years he had been waiting for this moment. To me, sending all of the kids to school was a slightly painful milestone. To him, an empty, silent house could mean only one thing.

Walking

Isn't it ironic that since we moved to a small town where I can walk nearly everywhere, I haven't been able to do much walking? Is it self sabotage?
First there was the falling down, stitches in the knees, swollen knobbly knee bones that refused to straighten that kept me off the streets for a couple of months.
Then I was back on my feet, even running a three-mile circuit severals days a week, gazing at the architecture of the 1920s homes, meeting my running buds on Saturdays and gritting out a six-mile route. Until that day when my feet hurt by the end of the day. But I shrugged it off. I'd run six miles, worked the bullpen at a swim meet, herding little children to the blocks, then returned home to stand on our kitchen's tile floor to bake cookies. Of course, my feet should hurt. I gave myself a day off from running. But when I ran again, surprise, my left foot was hurting. It seemed to be a phantom pain that moved around. First it was my heel and the inside of the ankle. Then it moved to the outside of my foot and ankle. I didn't want to go to the doctor until after the new year. New insurance, new medical savings account. So yesterday I went to see the sports medicine doctor. I love those guys because they understand the insanity of runners. They know that the goal is to get back on the road.
A shadow along one of the bones in my foot told him that I was developing a stress fracture. That's basically overuse and old running shoes. He assigned me to three weeks of little walking and no running. In two weeks I get to try the stationary bike. Ooops, that's what I was doing all last week when my foot hurt too much to run. Then at week 3 I can try an elliptical machine before I return to see him. And, finally, before I hit the streets (to run -- no money will change hands) I'm to go to the elite running shoe store and get a pair of new shoes.
What I learned from this experience:
*trying to save money by running in old shoes always comes back to bite you.
*I hate swimming but it's better than not exercising.
*The doctor should have given me a boot/cast as he threatened, because that way my family would take my injury seriously when I ask them to run to the freezer downstairs to get a loaf of bread rather than rolling their eyes at me.
*The only outward sign of my stress fracture is the increasing girth of my thighs.

Escape

I've been thinking about the themes in my novels lately. Whenever people asked, I always blithely said, "Escape. My novels are all about escape."
And, on the surface, that seems true. The two novels I've finished (as yet unpublished) and the one I've started on all have people fleeing their homes. In DEPARTURE, a mother takes her three children and runs away to Europe. In TRAIL MIX, two women leave behind their husbands and teenage children to hike the Appalachian Trail.
So, obviously, escaping from their humdrum lives is the point. But if I look at the end, they return to that life they were escaping from. It's not the life they want to avoid; it's themselves they need to change. So the escape is a search for an opportunity to change, to improve. In TRAIL MIX, my characters have to get over superficial worries and find the beauty in living again. In DEPARTURE, Annie must become a stronger person, find out what she enjoys, before she can be the wife and mother she wants to be.
And thinking about that search for beauty and the true person on the inside, made me think about Christmas and how my family and I probably didn't need any of the presents that made us shriek with joy. Maybe we just needed to stand for a minute in the sun beaming through the window and feel it warm on our face, to realize that we don't have to escape to find beauty.
Merry Christmas.

Perfect Mom?

Suppose a mother took a mid-morning break from grading papers during finals week and toasted an everything bagel. She slathered on creamy swiss cheese and the savory smell filled the kitchen. She could almost taste the crunchy bagel as she tapped the spoon against the side of her tea cup and moved toward the table. Then, her 11-year-old, who'd already eaten a whole bagel on his own, asked if he could share hers. She'd look at the still warm bagel, a golden brown around the edges, the cheese melting just slightly.
"Okay," she'd agree to share.
But when the grimy hand reached for the top of the bagel, the one that was covered with sesame seeds and poppy seeds and salty goodness, she had to put her foot down.
"Not that side."
Perhaps, she's not quite the perfect mother after all.

Deep Breath

I was feeling pretty proud of myself as a parent this weekend as I drove two of my children to a swim meet through the dark morning. The clouds were piled up like mountains and the light was peeking through attempting some sort of midwestern Northern lights show. We left the house a little after 6 a.m. About an hour later, I was standing at one end of the pool with a stopwatch in my hand as Grace swam the 500. That's 20 laps and it is one of her favorite races. She's pretty good at it. Some of the girls from swim team were at the end of the pool turning cards that counted her laps. She was on 13 when she seemed to fall behind the girl next to her. And, as she reached the end of the pool, rather than the smooth flip turn with a glimpse of her legs flashing over her head, she stopped and held onto the side of the pool. I saw her put her hand to her mouth and cough.
She must have gotten choked on the water, was my first thought as I stood there, glancing down at the watch. This was really going to mess us her time. The girls she had been ahead of flipped and headed back to the other end of the pool. Some of the girls were only on lap 11, so if she got going she could still beat some of them, I thought. Our coach knelt down in front of her and was talking to her. Then a white-outfitted offical bent over to talk to her.
The coach made a motion with her hand, calling me down to that end of the pool. I took off the watch, laying it on a chair next to the dad who was timing. "Sorry I can't help you with Nick," I said as I walked away. By the time I got to the end of the pool, Grace was sitting on the bleachers and the coach was glued to her side. Her friends on the other side. I knelt in front of her. Okay, I was still feeling a little annoyed. So she wasn't going to have her best time, she should have finished.
"Do you want the paramedics?" the sheriff's deputy on duty asked.
I felt confused. Why? I looked at the coach.
"Yes," she told him.
Grace seemed pale but she was upright; she was breathing.
"I had to carry her out of the pool. She couldn't support any of her weight," the coach said. "She couldn't breathe."
So the paramedics came and Grace seemed dazed. They said what people who aren't athletes would say, she probably over exerted. But she swims this race almost every week. She was scheduled to swim the 1000 later in the day. This should have been nothing.
We talked about lungs and heart and, as a mom, I began to worry. Those football players who collapse during summer drills. All those kids whose hearts seem healthy until they just stop beating and all the teammates talk about what a kind person the kids was. I was torn between encouraging Grace to try again and wanting to keep her immobilized. When she walked, I held onto her sweater, like that could keep her from falling down.
We saw a sports med doctor on Monday. She ordered a stress test to see if Grace has sports-induced asthma and she'll do an EKG too. Then a friend started talking about whooping cough and the recent outbreak that started with a swim team so we went to see the pediatrician. The pediatrician, not our regular doctor, swam competitively through high school and college.
"Sometimes if your oxygen gets low and your CO2 gets high, you'll start to hyperventilate," she explained.
I practically saw the light bulb over Grace's head. "I'm not dying?" it seemed to ask. And the cold she'd been fighting became nominal. She could be a swimmer again.
And I could take a deep breath and be just a mom again -- not the best or the worst, but a mom.

Civic Duty

"Well, what does your husband think about the gas prices?"
I was stunned into silence. This questions was beyond my grasp in so many ways as I sat on a hard metal chair against the wall of an elementary school. I had been there since 5:30 a.m. when we set up the 3 voting booths and measured 100 feet away from the doors, sticking flags and warning signs into the ground. No one should pass out campaign material past that flag. Then I was obligated to stay in the room with these four other people for the rest of the day, until we packed up the voting machines and turned in the results. I was doing my civic duty by working the polls.
The one guy working with us was probably mid 50s with hair nearly reaching his shoulders and a beard that he let grow long from his chin/neck area. Creepy. And he was the sole republican. (Can Republican and sole/soul go together?) The gas price question was obviously one of those, "do you have a husband?" questions. Ick. The man then lectured me on the fact that if he drove to Springfield - 40 miles away and 40 miles back - he could find gas for $2.50. I'm sorry, who has an extra 80 minutes to drive to fill up the gas tank and save 50 cents per gallon. Time is money, people!
The county had sent out letters to democrats pleading with them to volunteer at the polls. Since the majority of the precincts went democratic during the last election, the republicans could not be in charge of the polling places and they were desperately short of democrats. My husband (who has no strong opinion on gas prices) said he didn't have to work until the evening on election day. Why didn't I go ahead and volunteer to work. (Oh, the reasons I could come up with now!) So I did.
The gas-price guy had worked the polls for years. He came prepared with a cooler full of food, a grocery bag and a 12-pack of Sprite. Yes, 14-hours is a long time to work, but who is going to eat that much food? I'm figuring I need lunch and that's about it. As the day wore on, he walked back and forth with food. Strawberries smothered with sugar. A sandwich (he brought the whole loaf of bread and made the sandwich). A bowl of steaming soup. "And I've got two more cans of this!" Finally, around 6, he walked past with a bowl of ice cream. Ice cream? I'm going to be gone 14 hours and I pack ice cream as a snack? When anyone commented on his food, he would respond: "You don't bring it, you don't eat it."
Not that any of us were after his food. Only one woman, who was on a walker and had to take 15 pills each morning, was wishing for something of his. She needed a Sprite or clear liquid to drink before she could take her pills. The pop machine in the teacher's lounge was broken so she was out of luck. The poll worker guy did not offer to share his 12-pack of Sprite. Instead, he reminded us, "You don't bring it, you don't eat it."
When I went out for lunch, I stopped at a coffee shop for myself and grabbed a San Pellegrino limon drink for the woman waiting at the polls.
She'd had knee replacement surgery in the summer, but it became infected and she had to go back to the hospital to have it scraped before spending a few weeks in a nursing home learning to get around. Now she was up to a walker with tennis balls stuck on the back legs to keep it from scraping. She had long, numerous braids and talked about her kids, ages 21 and 22. Her mouth turned down at the edges and she was missing some front teeth. She thought someday she would like to move someplace warm, like California. I went to get a blanket from the back of my car so she could cover up as the elementary children ran in and out the school doors, letting the cold air in. She didn't mind that the polls weren't busy. She was getting paid to sit and do nothing. At home, she usually spent the day watching TV. Later, as she was talking, she mentioned her age. She was 45. Just a year older than me.
Not many people voted at that precinct on Tuesday. Not even a 20 percent turn out. But I did my civic duty and learned a few lessons about people who are outside my bubble.
Don't look for me to volunteer again, though, come the March primary. I think I'll just drop by with pizza for those other dedicated workers.