Sunday, January 27, 2013

Alcohol Conditioning

I am not a connoisseur of alcohol. As a young woman I did not sip mixed drinks with my cool, fashion-conscious girlfriends. (Once I did sneak some of my dad's scotch to mix with orange soda in order to cure a cold; the only thing it cured me of was drinking scotch and orange soda ever again. It was something like putting cotton candy in your martini, I imagine. I highly unrecommend it.) I thought I knew something about wine, but I proved my ignorance in a servers' meeting post-hours at a nice cafe where I worked. The owners were trying to teach us about red and white wines. When the question-and-answer session broke out, I spoke up and said, "Whites are all sweet and reds are dry." My boss made an example of me, the poster child of blatant alcohol ignorance.

I was even more clueless about other liquor. Nine months pregnant with my first child and balancing a menu on my belly, I sat in a steak house with my Man and spied a tea I wanted to try.

"I'll take a Long Island iced tea," I confidently told our waiter.

The waiter stared, pen suspended, and my husband almost startled me into labor.

"Whoooaa! She doesn't know what she's saying," he assured the wary server. "Just regular sweetened tea for her."

Then he leaned over and whispered, "Honey, that has alcohol."

"Oh," I said. "I just thought it was like Texas tea."

"That has alcohol, too...LOTS of alcohol."

"Oh. Glad I didn't order that then."

Many years later I would discover per a friend's suggestion that I liked a Zebra or Preacher's collar. So when I found myself in an Olive Garden with several friends, and there was a long wait that prompted someone to suggest we get something at the bar, I knew just what I wanted.

I sauntered up to counter, leaned in and with a smile told the young man there that I'd take a Zebra.

The clever guy knew just what I meant, but he held up a bottle of wine and said, "Ma'am, we only serve wine here. We're an Italian restaurant."

My friends broke out in merry laughter, and I'm good for that. But I really could have gone for that beer.

The one I will never live down, though - the one that will haunt me every December 31st - happened only a few years ago.

I love Champagne, love, love, love, love, love. I don't need to know much about it, because my love is unconditional. Still, I did read a column in the paper that listed several great sparkling wines to enjoy for New Year's Eve, so when my husband casually asked me what kind I wanted him to pick up for the big celebration, I spoke up excitedly, "I've heard Dom Perignon is good!"

"Dom Perignon? That's a hundred-something bucks!"

"It is?"

My husband burst out laughing.

"You could get me some, you know," I retorted. "Maybe it's worth it."

"No I couldn't. Dom Perignon!" And then he laughed some more.

Now every time there's a special occasion, and my Man has to make a sparkling wine run, he smiles and teases in a high, snobby voice, "Do you want me to pick you up some Dom Perignon?"

Yeah, alright, alright. Put a cork in it. Because one of these days, one of these Valentine's days, I'm going to swing by the grocery store...or the French Embassy...on my way home. Then when my Man walks in the door, I'll be sitting in a sweet little red dress with a nice little bottle of wine. I'll extend a glass to him and say smoothly:

"Care for some Dom Perignon, Darling?"

Like Marilyn Monroe, I might even bathe in it - or at least wash my hair in it - because life should be sweet...or dry...and expensive, even for a dork like me.


My poor sophisticated guy and his crazy, Champagne-loving lady

Friday, January 25, 2013

Let's STOP - for all that is Good

I can't look at the violent ads for movies since Newtown. I turn away, and I turn the channel. But I swear they are present during every break. Often I wonder just why such an ad is on screen during a weekend afternoon when children can be exposed to its crude message. (I should ask the same about Super Bowl ads.)

As has been pointed out in a different arena lately, all these stars who stand up for gun control have no problem shooting it up in ultra-violent, "realistic" film scenes for a fat paycheck. Some would say this is not hypocrisy, but it absolutely is.

They are not the primary ones who contribute to our culture of violence, however. Every selfish and/or ignorant parent who takes their five-, eight-, or ten-year-old to a movie meant for adults, because they don't want to pay for a babysitter or make entertainment sacrifices for their kids' well being (Believe me, I have seen tiny kids dragged into PG-13 and R movies) is culpable. Every parent who lets their teenage son play violently graphic, and often pornographic, video games shares blame. And, heck, never mind the teenagers, my 10-year-old son has shared the titles of games his peers are allowed to play, and it is discouraging.

A long time ago a mother reached out on Facebook to ask advice. Her son wanted to buy a rated M game with his own money. Should she let him do it? She had reservations, but he certainly wasn't a little kid anymore.

I liked my sister's response to that question. She replied that her 17-year-old son was not even allowed to play rated M games, that games for teenagers were almost all off limits, too.

People might scoff at that (he's a teenager, for crying out loud), but I think we'd all be better off if our youth were not exposed to simulated battle with weaponry, crime and sex. If 10-year-old's are playing war games or games with morally reprehensible titles and themes, my friends, society has a lasting problem. Kids gain a skewed view of life and its value.

It's harder as kids get older. I get it. I've made mistakes. A huge one was letting my eldest boy read all the Harry Potter books and then watch the movies. My husband just stared at my during one of the movies to communicate, What the hell were you thinking? My fast-forwarding of certain scenes didn't alter my Man's disapproval. And my boy's teacher let us know she thought it was a little early for him to read the whole series. She was right, but, foolishly, I had agreed to let Berto read the first book, and it snowballed. Berto was already a reader like his Aunt Vinca or Uncle Nate, seeming to devour rather than read books, and I made my mistake.

And I worry in the evening when our oldest two have reading time that they can hear the cop/detective shows my husband and I are watching in the other room. "Turn it down a little. Turn it down a little..." I say. Maybe in our small home with our small children, we should give up these shows and their "good guys" with questionable methods for defeating the bad guys.

LET'S STOP.

Let's stop patronizing movies filled with horror and brutality. Let's stop sending our kids off to play video games that corrupt their minds and their view of mankind and sexuality. Let's stop allowing our kids to watch so-called "children's cartoons" that are mindless, vulgar, obnoxious, have bizarre characters and no educational value in basic or social skills. Let's stop watching adult programming with our kids, thinking, oh, it's just a show - a funny show, a good show and start realizing that media can shift their moral compass. Let's stop saying anything goes in the name of ART! and ENTERTAINMENT! Let's boycott this sale of our collective conscience.

Let's talk to our kids more. Eat dinner at the table with no media whatsoever. Take them into nature alot more often. Teach them about God. Teach them how to be social animals face-to-face instead of screen-to-screen. Get back to the promise land of programming like PBS. Let us communicate our family values.

Let's try, for all that is good in the human race, so that when they see evil, crime and horror, our kids can cry; they can feel it deeply and want to combat it with love, light and justice.

Come on. We can do it. It may be damn hard, but I believe in us. I have hope. And so do you.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Spirit

This post is dedicated to the mother of my close friend who recently suffered a heart attack and is recovering. I pray that you get well quickly.


Have you ever been around someone who is a mystery? They attract other people, and you yourself wish to be near them. Not because of their appearance or their confidence or their personality, but because they seem to be in possession of something very valuable but intangible - something which brought comfort and perhaps joy with it.

Not to say these people are perfect specimens of the human race. They may struggle financially, battle recurring depression, have health troubles, challenges within their family, but regardless, they have something that pulls them through all this with the extraordinary ability to uplift others as well.

I recall how my dad stood at the grill during my graduation party, and a group of young men who had never met him before surrounded him, asking him questions and seeking his advice. I knew why, but they probably didn't understand. And they certainly weren't the only ones to do this during my time at home. I had friends and cousins and saw near strangers hang on my dad's words, trying to glean something permanently strengthening from them.

And my mother to this day often finds herself in long conversations with people she has just met. They spill their troubles, and she mops up the messiness, doling out compassion and love.

You meet people with this sort of quiet power, but you're most likely to recognize its impact if they are not your friends and are not related to you. I know many of my friends possess it - I can feel it while in certain conversations with them - but it is not startling to me. Yet I have recognized it in something so pedestrian as an email, and it did surprise me; a gentleman I scarcely know sent me a message telling me not to be discouraged concerning my writing, but how he said it held that same power that gives strength if one avails oneself of it.

Sometimes it pervades the home where people dwell. There's more than enough of it to go around, and it's like permanent sunshine indoors. While on a trip this fall to visit family and friends, I recognized my Uncle Kipper and Aunt Cheryl's house had it - love and nourishment for all who lived, visited or rested there.

Sometimes people bring it with them into a home where there is conflict and struggle, and it suddenly, inexplicably dispels the shadows and balances everything, at least while they linger.

One of my closest friends moved to be nearer her family, a long way from friends who love her, but I understood what good there was for her in that decision when I met her parents again on our trip, the day of her daughter's baptismal. When they came to church for the wonderful occasion, they brought that sunshine, that strength with them. And, yes, it was already in that spiritual refuge; it was already present with their daughter, but they made it more abundant. For me, being around and talking with them and my friend at her home after the baptismal was like homecoming, a spiritual homecoming. I recognize what they carry with them. It gladdens me, and I garner what wisdom I can from it.

My friend told me that at her parents' 50th wedding anniversary, her dad said that he was proud all 10 of their children had gone to college, a great thing. Then he stated that the reason their family had made it through difficulties and thrived was because they always had God.

How many times have I heard my dad say the same thing? And many others.

That quiet power, that sunshine, that strength, that thing that makes some people state after a devastating tragedy that their faith helped them through the pain - that thing that confounds so many people - it comes from God.

The more you cultivate it by seeking Him, the more likely you are to feel it when your life is troubled and the more it will give strength to others without you fully realizing it.


The wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell from where it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit - John 3:8

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Ana and Beatrix

Last weekend I watched the movie Miss Potter with my beautiful daughter Ana, a treat for us that would have been more delightful if my toddler son had not fought with my preschool daughter and gabbed during the whole of it.

I need these moments with my oldest girl. She once came to me in the hectic morning hour before school and tried to tell me something that was important to her. I broke some cardinal rules; I interrupted her to tell her what she wanted to say, then when I got that wrong, I told her to just hurry up and tell me what she needed. She went away sad, and I was left in the misery of my momentary bad parenting. I coaxed her back and sat her on my lap, and then she broke my heart with, "Sometimes I feel like you don't have time for me." I'd like to say I never let that happen again, but she came to me again on a later school morning while I was scolding her little brother; I told her it was not the time to try to communicate with Mama.

Please don't judge too harshly. I feel pulled between a lot of people and a lot of tasks. Everybody wants a piece of me. It leaves me wondering, though, Will my Ana confide in me at all once I need her to share the concerns and secrets of a teenager? Or will I, God help me, have trained her not to seek me out because of my daily stress and time constraints? I am trying to rectify my mistakes by spending more time with my sweet girl, speaking with her when there are no distractions.

Ana is a quiet, even-keeled child. She does not have the temperament of her older brother. I spend a great deal of time in discourse with Berto, ironing out all manner of perceived ills or just catching up with conversation that he begins with complete confidence that you will want to join in (and you do - he is quite the conversationalist). Then there is the fact that Ana's little sister and brother are greedy with my time and love. If Ana sits by me, they come and scramble up onto my lap. They fight over me, jealous for my attention (a side effect of attachment parenting). I break up my lap - one leg per each child - but where does this leave my gangly eight-year-old when her younger siblings have each staked their claim? Trying to hang on at the side, to Mama's arm or hand, anything.

My toddler son routinely exclaims, "My mama! My mama!"

To which I respond with the line I have recited time and again, "Mama is Berto's mama and Ana's mama and Ella's mama and Danny's mama."

I often hear Ana lament, "Please can I just sit with Mama by myself?"

She got to do that as we enjoyed the movie based on Beatrix Potter's life, and I staunchly defended her right to that time. Recently, I have carved out time for her to sit with me in the evening, too, as I read to her from Potter's children's books, borrowed from the library.

I thought none of my kids who would enjoy those tales. I tried to get them as birthday books for Ana when she was younger, but my husband glanced over them and basically said, "Meh." So how pleased I was when Ana approached me at the library with, "I know these are kind of babyish, but do you think I could get them?"

"Of course!" I replied. "And they're not babyish. I read them when I was your age."

Truly, my Ana and I are very similar. We are loving, open-hearted people, goofy to the nth degree, fascinated by history, animal lovers, and true fans of Beatrix Potter's stories. What joy to sit and read them with her before bed and chuckle at Potter's humor in The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes and to see those wonderful drawings again in Miss Tiggy-Winkle!

As a child I had several of Potter's "bunny books". My parents bought me a set of four, and they were among some of my most prized possessions. My mother used to read them to me each afternoon as I sat on her lap while my brother and sisters were at school, and I cherished that time with her. Once I could read to myself, I did so gladly, but the time spent in my mother's arms and on her lap with favorite stories is what I most remember.

But I was the baby of the family. Ana is not; it is harder for us to find that time.

Today I encouraged Ana to get more of Beatrix Potter's tales from the library. I want to make these memories with her, because I do have time, I will make time, for my eldest girl. Right now, she gets me all to herself after Ella and Daniel are put to bed.  Then I get to reflect that Ana and I are like each other in many ways, but dare I flatter us by saying we are like Beatrix? She was an animal and nature lover. Miss Potter is also still an excellent role model for young girls everywhere; she was smart, independent, highly educated, trail-blazing in her conservation efforts. In revisiting her work I am reminded why I loved her so as a child, why I can admire her all the more, knowing her personal story, as a woman. I hope Potter's life will help teach my Ana to be bold, to be genuine, to invest in her own natural talents even if she must go against the current. For now, however, I'll just settle for Beatrix Potter teaching me how to make time for my precious and talented daughter in sharing something that brings us both pleasure.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Mother Crisis

In October and November of last year, I went through what I facetiously termed a post-accident, mid-thirties crisis. Simplified, it was a crisis of feeling. I felt old. I felt unsuccessful. I felt I was less than I should be - less talented, less important, less nurturing, less educated, less attractive. I had struck out at the ballgame.

In feeling unsuccessful and unimportant, I particularly compared myself to the firefighters and trauma surgeons who treated me for my injuries after our September car accident. These individuals are vital in their communities and invest a great deal of their time and resources in acquiring and aggrandizing valuable skills. Observing their efforts made me ask myself, What am I doing with my life? I certainly wasn't that successful writer that I thought I would already be. I didn't even know how to maintain a blog properly; for far too long, I thought you just wrote.

While on the phone with my dear friend Camille one day last fall, I told her how I felt. Camille reminded me that I am doing a highly important job, though I wasn't likely to get accolades or affirmation from others. She wasn't telling me something eye-opening, but I needed to hear it anyway.

I've been a mother for the last 10+ years. I have four very different children. As a parent you bring the resources and personality that you as an individual possess to the endeavor, variables that you cannot deny. Then, if you are like me, you do your research when facing challenges, reading all that you can and having discussions with fellow parents to find methods that will work for you and each special kid within your family. Two tools are essential, no matter who you are or the environment you came from: love and patience. Loving, competent parenting will always be indispensable to human development.

Still, like every person I've ever known, we mothers want to make our mark. Sometimes, we feel left behind by the ambitious, fast-moving world, even if we were once part of it. Forget aggrandizing our skills, we often feel we are stagnating, lacking broad schemes. We fail to remember in those self-doubting moments that the contributions our children will be equipped to make to a safe, ethical, and productive society through our instruction is the greatest part of our mark on this world.

I've heard and read opinions that being a stay-at-home mom is a waste of one's talent and education...or that it proves you don't have either. What hog wash! As a mother or a father, you utilize all that you possess to teach your children, and from birth to age five are crucial years in their development. No boss or co-worker could promote innovation so well! Your time spent nursing and holding your baby (sometimes all day long), playing and conversing with your toddler, reading and teaching basic skills to your preschooler, and disciplining your child is not wasted. Not one minute.

I recently uttered these sentiments to a couple of friends and fellow mothers who, I was surprised to find, were experiencing a similar crisis to my own of "feeling less than". What I struggled to feel with conviction, I had no problem affirming to others. I've noticed the challenges they faced with aplomb, the time they invested in learning what was best for their kids' development, their amazing reservoir of patience and effective discipline techniques, the hours spent in aiding their kids' schooling, and the profound progress their children made thanks to their parenting efforts.

Of course, I understand their need to feel more than just a mother. Has motherhood erased my ambition to be a writer? No, and it never could. It certainly has given me great material, however, and broadened my understanding of many things - including my imperfect self.

(Parent, know thyself - and teach yourself - then raise your children well, with love.)

Yes, I will never be a trauma surgeon - a good thing for the safety of others, I think. I'm not yet an established writer. I am a woman of many foibles who is striving to be the best parent I can be for my children. No basic job within our human family has a greater capacity to improve the world than that one.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Mr London Street

This is a quick post to wish a writer well in the new year, as I have meant to do since December, and to say goodbye to the hope of new material on his blog. It is a sad farewell, because I have truly enjoyed his essays over the last couple years.

Actually, he just published again. I am really hoping he is going to write twenty or so farewell posts, then realize that there is, in fact, no reason for him to stop.

I discovered Mr London Street very early on in my blogging endeavor and knew immediately that he was a writer I could admire...and envy when his posts were so often superior to my own. I didn't love the topic choice of his every post. I didn't agree with all the opinions expressed, but there were many brilliant pieces written by Mr London Street that made me believe he had done with his words precisely what he had intended. That was an amazing accomplishment, and sometimes he just bowled me over and made me feel all warm and fuzzy and romantic and bursting with sunshine and goodwill, though I'm pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate my saccharine description of how his writing influenced my mood. (Sorry, fans are never demure.) He had more than a few essays published on various sites and also got, as he justly deserved, a column in his local Reading newspaper. My jealousy increased, because no matter how old-fashioned they are, I would love to write a regular column for a newspaper, any newspaper...but I digress.

In my opinion one of the things MLS did most brilliantly was describe his fellow human beings. As a reader you were fully invested in your hope, love, pity, admiration or disdain for these people, real people who populate his life - if only in his memory or for five minutes in the checkout line each Sunday.

My favorite posts of MLS's were those that he wrote about his wife. I won't attempt to explain why. Simply go read the ones below, and you will understand, I think.

The brace position

Women, Mothers

Thermostat

I wish all the best for Mr London Street in 2013. I am sad to see him leave blogging behind (or is he?), but my hope for him this year is that he will find a worthy publisher for his essays.

As I peruse his posts that I missed, I will try to link to my favorites in the future.

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I wish all my readers a Happy New Year! May you chase your dreams and never grow weary or discouraged. More importantly, may you experience a renewal of love, gratitude and charity for your family, friends and neighbors.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle - Plato


P.S. I hope everyone will discontinue this torrid love affair with smartphones, tablets, video game systems or whatever-the-heck is zipping around the next corner, get back to the sound concept of moderation in everything and rediscover nature, prayer and actual conversation via eye contact with the people who share their meals, room, home and neighborhood. Ironic coming from a blogger (why do you think I want to write for something as archaic as a newspaper?), but there you have it.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Arch Queen of Accidental Disaster

I have prayed over major appliances, only expensive ones of course - or ones that belonged to somebody else.

Prayers such as Lord, please may this stereo experience a revitalization of its necessary components, so my brother-in-law won't kill me, and please, I ask that this dishwasher be able to process that huge chunk of glass that's stuck in its filter.

I need the intervention of a higher power, because I am Destroyer of major appliances, Public Enemy No. 1 of all things breakable, and Spoiler of white, immaculate things. I am, in fact, the Arch Queen of accidental disaster. I have put permanent stains on my parents-in-law's creamy white carpet during two separate visits. I have broken half the stoneware and three-fifths of all drinking glasses in every home in which I have lived for more than a month. I have annihilated numerous irreplaceable objects, created stains on other people's clothing from a respectable distance, and lost the personal property of family members while on vacation.

I am on the fourth microwave in my married life and the fifth set of dinner plates.

And Matthew, my poor, poor man, is married to me. When he breaks something, loses something, spills something, like the coffee yesterday that he left by the couch, what do you suppose I do? I rejoice! I keep the score. Sure, it's my 3,984 accidents to his dozen or so, but every new tally on the Matthew page gives me an itty-bitty bit of leverage for compassion when the next accident strikes via Hillary. And it will, probably in the next five minutes.

Last week I busted a whole case of beer after I shoved it beneath a shopping cart. "It's wedged," I said lightly to Matthew, even as I heard the faint squeak of that inner warning voice, now so weary and hoarse from years of shouting and clamoring for the attention I so rarely give it. But it gets plenty of validation, as it did when that beer fell with a splendid crash against the pavement as my husband traversed a speed bump with the shopping cart.

"Yeah, it's wedged." he said acerbically as he bent over the damage, flicking beer from his fingertips.

It was face my husband's disappointment over the loss of pricey beer, or shamelessly ask the store for a new case. By now I am pretty shameless. I'm an old pro at acknowledging the catastrophe, garnering sympathy, gaining forgiveness of my debt and/or compensation out of pity. I should carry my own liability disclaimer into every home and place of business I enter. Because a case of beer? That's nothing. I've broken three cases of vintage soda in a novelty store/restaurant by swinging my child and their carseat into a carefully-arranged display, and all that after forgetting my wallet at home and finding myself unable to pay for my breakfast.

One of the worst moments I've ever had in my prolific accident career happened after Thanksgiving. I realized our car keys were misplaced as we were leaving our friend Camille's house to head home across three states. Sickening, but even more sickening to know that this colossal accident would go on my extensive tally sheet. I had reached a pinnacle of shame. We turned out my purse and the diaper bag and all suitcases, searched every room in my friend's house, scanned the driveway, crawled through our vehicle, literally dumped our dirty laundry out in the street.

And then....then I found them on my tenth or so desperate dig through the dirty clothes in the chill Oregon air. They were in the zipper pocket of a pair of pants, and those pants belonged to...Matthew.

I cackled and danced like Rumpelstiltskin in triumph. I gloated and shouted exuberantly that it was in fact NOT MY FAULT! I skipped and laughed as I rattled the keys for my Man and everyone to see. This is not to say that I went out of my way to make my wonderful husband feel bad about it. No, no - my joy was was not bridled by such petty feelings. I simply felt liberated from remorse and justified, innocent when naturally assumed guilty. Amazing! All hope of such a thing had seemed increasingly slim with every year of marriage to my non-accident-prone, near-perfect man.

Of course, my lovely guy did apologize, and sincerely, albeit with a look of shock on his face. I needed something to celebrate my rare good fortune, so I begged a piece of Camille's birthday cake from her to take on the road.

She replied, "I already gave a piece to Matthew for you." Aha! His gift to acknowledge his false accusation, I thought, but then she added, "And he asked for it before he knew he'd lost the keys."

Well, well. He got me an enormous piece of chocolate cake for the road even as he thought I'd lost the keys to our new minivan several hundred miles from home? What a wonderful, long-suffering man!

But it still went on his accident tally. It can't quite even things out, but it is a BIG boon for me in future beer-busting situations. Hey, I love the guy, but I need all the leverage I can get.