Hobo Mama or Don't Come Cryin' to Me

Me-Yow!

2010-05-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

(Georgia with Coconut; Flurry, Ferbie & Fergie, front to back) (Fergie & Furbie)

Because my life is just not hectic enough, I decided to copy my friend Lisa S. and become a foster home for kitties. Dave & I both grew up with cats but have never had one because there are just so many friends allergic to the little critters. Mentally I go round and round, with my inner Cat Lady battling my Hostess with the Mostest about whether or not to bring cats into the house.

Last year Lisa told me she found this organization called "The Cat Connection" that let's you temporarily house moms & their kittens. This seemed the perfect compromise: the kids get all the fun of the kittens but then they go away just when they start to get tired of feeding them and changing the litterbox; and if I keep them in the basement, then the rest of the house (where the parties happen and the guests stay) would be free of dander & fur.

Meanwhile, critters of another sort are assaulting our house. From time to time mice get in the walls and I have to put poison around to keep them at bay. Lately they've gotten bold and actually stormed our castle. Two weeks ago I open the closet to the laundry chute and there is a mouse hanging out by my bottles of stain remover. He sees me, and no joke, turns around, wedges his nose between Spray & Wash and Oxyclean and buries his head under his paws as if that would conceal him. Of course I get short-bus mice. A few days later they appeared in our basement and I offered the kids $2 if they caugt a mouse; I didn't really think they'd catch any but I needed them out of my hair for a while. Here are Georgia & Millie with their catches.

They'd clearly gotten into my poison and were super docile. Dying things are like that.

Finally the call came that 4 kittens (3 sisters & a brother) needed a temporary home for a few weeks. That night I dreamed I was in the basement and a fat grey mouse ran across my feet and under the futon. As I drove to the house to get the kitties I was a little sad I was only getting kittens this round as an experienced mama cat would have a better chance of killing my vermin. I brought the kittens home and as I was getting things set up in the basement, out shoots a fat grey mouse that runs across my foot and under the futon. It's their cockiness that really gets me, like they're daring me to actually do something. I looked at the little furry kittens and said, "Sic kitties, sic!" Of course they just stare at me with their "We are Siamese if you please" attitude that all cats have.

I ran to Petco to get supplies and 20 minutes later when I went into the basement I saw the most beautiful thing: Fergie is shaking a furry grey lump her mouth which she drops to the ground and then bats to Ferbie. Ferbie whacks it to Coconut and my heart skips a beat: My kittens are playing soccer with a dead mouse. I love them and their little killer instincts.

The kids are loving them. Jonah takes his homework into the basement and lets the kittens sleep on him while he reads. The girls get up early to feed them and Bea tortures them with doll clothes and baby strollers ("Mom, what does it mean when a cat says "Hissssssss!!!?"). It's going to be hard next week when I have to take them to their adoptive homes. But the Cat Lady has promised me 5 month old kittens as replacements. I'm sure we'll find a way to love them too.

Surviving Mother's Day

2010-05-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

Happy belated Mother's Day to all you moms out there and to all of you who mother people you may or may not have given birth to.

Mother’s Day is one of those holidays that all moms are supposed to love but some secretly hate. I have mom friends who stay home from church on this day, fearing they’ll hear another talk about Superwomen who never get mad and bake 50 loaves of bread and go running before waking the family for scriptures and prayer every morning. And some of my friends without children just can’t take the pain and perceived judgment and/or pity.

When I was a kid I loved Mother’s Day. My dad gave us money to buy something for my mom and would let us keep the change. I remember my kindergarten class making all our moms ashtrays and handing mine over with such pride. And the best of all were the “Mother Awards” handed out at sacrament meeting: “Who out there has more than 5 children; more than 6, 7, 8? Sister Jones has 9! Come on up and get a carnation!” I dreamed of one day winning such an award, wondering what it would feel like to be a superlative mom.

Now that I’m a mom, I’m ambivalent about the Sunday service. I love hearing the kids sing and secretly hope one of the Sunbeams will cause a scene. One year my 5 year old daughter shoved her 3 year old sister down during the chorus of “I Often Go Walking”, and the next thing I see is a tiny fist rise up and sock the shover in the gut. It made me proud that my girls were no shrinking violets.

What I do dread is that scripture about "her price being far above rubies." Every year someone has to quote that one. I roll my eyes because I know my price is more in the neighborhood of the semi-precious stones. Take your amethyst, aquamarine, or garnets, for instance. Now those are jewels one can more easily live up to. And honestly, what’s wrong with being a turquoise mom? Rubies are overrated in my book.

And because I’m at peace with my semi-precious status, I don’t care that I’d never win any of the superlatives I so longed for as a kid. I was never the youngest mom or had the most kids or whatever else they honored. But I do like to imagine what awards I’d give out if I were in charge on Mother’s Day. How about an award for the mom who lets her 9-year old French braid her hair and wears it out in public; or an award for the mom who can nurse a baby while pushing a shopping cart and talking on the phone. And I’d like to recognize some tough mommies too: an award for the mom whose son did NOT get his Eagle because she refused to do the paperwork for him or an award for the mom who took away her daughter’s cell phone because she was texting friends at 2a.m. Now those are some mamas who deserve a pat on the back.

So whether you’re a diamond or Cubic Zirconia, a long sufferer or a screamer, a maker of fine baked goods or a purchaser of Hostess products, I salute all the women out there who love and nurture and make mistakes and keep on going. And especially I thank all the women in my life, my friends, my sister, my daughters, and my mom, who treat me like a ruby, even when I’m not.

Love is...Finding the "Fun" in Dysfunctional

2010-02-18T12:07:00.000-08:00

This week it was my turn to write for the Exponent blog. Here's my post.

Growing up I used to think that most of my friends’ families were so normal and healthy, and that mine was the only one with quirks and cracks. Now I know the truth: every family is nuts. And if you think you know a perfectly healthy family, you don’t know them well enough.

Granted, some people’s brand of crazy is more socially acceptable than others. For example, in my home we appeared on the outside to be well behaved high achievers, which was a mask for a control freak mom and an emotionally remote, success obsessed dad. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I realize that on the crazy scale my family was dented but functional. Not bad at all. (btw I am the needy thumsucker pictured above)

I have a family of my own now and see many of our idiosyncrasies. And at least today we have a better vocabulary for labeling our neurosis. Terms like OCD, ADD, MPD, BPD, SAD, etc. etc. allow us to name what ails us, and naming things is delightful because it gives us control, or at least the illusion of it.

A few years ago I came across an acronym for a condition that I knew intimately but had never quite put my finger on: ODD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder. These are the people that cannot resist challenging authority and playing the devil’s advocate. Oh how I love to tease my contrarian friend about how she suffers acutely from this. And her response just confirms the diagnosis: “No I don’t!” I love these people. Just when everything is getting so boring in Relief Society, everyone sitting there nodding their heads “yes, we ALL agree” and along comes someone with ODD and makes a comment that turns everything upside down.

She in turn diagnosed one of my less than desirable traits. I suffer from SVS, shock value syndrome. As the youngest member of a hyper proper family, it was my duty to make my mother blush at the dinner table. And even now at 42, whenever I get around people that seem a bit too uptight, I get the irresistible urge to say/do something borderline inappropriate. So I skinny dip at Girls Camp and give sacrament talks on the virtues of Harry Potter. Recently when my 12 year old son told me that he hated it when I called him “friend,” I replied, “Well then how about ‘douche bag,’ because that’s what you’re acting like.” Show me an envelope, and I’ll push it.

Here are a few other conditions the American Psychiatric Association might want to add to their books:

CBR-Chronic Buyer’s Remorse: Perpetually malcontent, these poor souls are convinced that whatever choice they make is the wrong one. Filled with self doubt and a touch of bitterness (related syndrome: GIGD--Grass is Greener Disorder).

RSS-Refusal to be Served Syndrome: You know who you are. You are forever volunteering to bring meals, babysit, work at the Bishop’s Storehouse as if every act of service added another brick to your mansion on high; but hell would have to freeze over before you would let someone bring you a casserole. In their heart of pious hearts, these folks believe that the strong give and the weak receive.

CV-Compulsive Volunteerism: A sister syndrome to RSS (with more guilt, less pride), CV manifest itself in an inability to pass a sign-up sheet without committing to doing whatever is requested. One friend had such a severe case of this that I created an organization just for her—Volunteers Anonymous. I became her sponsor and she was not allowed to agree to do anything without first consulting me. A typical conversation went like this, “Heather, I’ve been asked to be PTA President. Tell me again why I should say no?” “Because you just gave birth to twins, your husband is YM President and travels, and you Visit Teach a black hole of needs.” “Oh. Okay. So should I say maybe?”

Tanorexia: When sufferers of this disorder look in the mirror all they see is pasty whiteness, even if their true color is closer to a Slim Jim.

Appsberger's: The compulsion to download apps for completely useless things. And then talk endlessly about them with other sufferers. "Look, I can use my phone as a harmonica!!!" "Well mine can show me the time...in Braille!" "Mine makes a cowbell noise. Get it? 'More cowbell?'!"
Topperism-No matter what you’ve been through, these one-uppers can top your experience and raise it a notch. So while you’re delighted that you are training for a 5k, the Topper is quick to inform you that she ran the Boston Marathon. And won. While pregnant. With triplets.

So my question is not "are you crazy" but "what kind of crazy are you?" And can you find a way to live with it and laugh about it? If you can't, your crazies will make you nuts.

"Give Me the Hard Stuff!"

2010-01-24T16:53:00.000-08:00

Um, not to brag or anything, but I throw killer parties. Georgia turns 10 this week and since she's almost as big of a Harry Potter nerd as I am, we went all Hogwarts and threw a "Potions Party." Georgia's favorite Harry Potter activity is to pretend she's in Professor Snape's Dungeon doing potions. Every time I turn around another bottle of my lotion has been emptied and for every ounce of shampoo that goes on their hair, at least 5 ounces end up in bubbly concoctions that they entitle "Sleeping Draught," "Liquid Luck," or "Kissing Potion." Dave keeps asking where all his travel size containers have gone and I tell him to check Georgia windowsill where it looks like a display case for a mad scientist. I'm happy to leave them there. Until mold sets in. I draw the line at black and green fur.

For the party we ordered green (Slytherin color) 2 oz spray bottles and .25 oz cosmetic bottles to make perfume and lip gloss, or rather, "Petal Potion" and "Lip Magic." I ran around gathering ingredients: jojoba oil and alcohol for perfume base; canning wax (thanks Jen & Sherrine!), vitamin E oil & petroleum jelly for the gloss base, plus lots of tiny essential oils for smell and/or flavor. By Friday afternoon I was putting together goody bags and frosting brownie cupcakes. I realized I needed to write out the potion proportions so I got back onto the website to figure it out. Under "ingredients' it listed alcohol and I assumed rubbing would do. But when I scrolled down it said it had to be a single grain alcohol like Everclear or vodka. As I read this I realized that rubbing alcohol has a strong odor and would make the perfumes stink.

Shortly thereafter Lindy called me to see what time I needed her to show up to help (she is my kid party slave and does it sooo well). Then I uttered a phrase I never thought I'd say, "Hey Lindy, I need a bottle of Vodka for Georgia's birthday party. Do you have some?" "Sure," she replied, "how much do you need?" We both started laughing at the ridiculousness of my needing booze for a 10 year old party and her having some sitting around (although I should not be surprised as her kitchen is as well stocked with every possible ingredient as Julia Child's was).

At 7 the girls arrived and Becca (my other slave, acting as Molly Weasley) poured Sprite into their Poprock filled goblets and they oohed and ahhhed at the blue fizz. Then we made our potions and ate cake. Right after we sang to Georgia, there was a LOUD banging at the door and in marched our surprise guest, Severus Snape (aka Big Daddy G).

The kids went berserk and were all begging to be cursed by the Half Blood Prince.
Molly Weasley posed with him for a picture and then threw him out in her awesome British accent. Next we went into the "great hall" to be sorted into houses. My friend Amy made my week when she asked me if I wanted to use her sorting hat for the party. She got it at a white elephant/Yankee swap and I still can't believe what a perfect addition it was. Jonah hid behind the couch and used a stealth microphone to announce what house each girl would belong to.

Millie end up in Ravenclaw and was delighted. It was a magical night (except when the Slytherins locked the first years out of the common room and Millie & Gigi bawled) and Georgia seemed so happy about it all. I am exhausted and still cleaning up sticky Sprite spots off the floor. But as I always tell my kids, a party isn't a party until someone spills and someone cries. By all standards the party was a success!

Bea Opens Up a Can of Old Testament

2010-01-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

Last night the family was trying to watch Idol and Bea dumped her popcorn, refused to clean it up and just, kept, screaming. I've been battling a headache for days and in frustration told her to "Shut up." She was NOT happy with me. She kept telling me, "Mama, you said a bad word! Do not say bad words!" I apologized, we cleaned up the mess together, and I told her I was sorry for giving her "owie feelings." End of story. Or so I thought.

Today over lunch she said, "Mom, God told me that if you say bad words to me again, He's gonna send a storm. For you." Then she smiled and ate her clementine, giving me a look like an Old Testament prophet.

Should I be afraid?

Hillbilly Hot Tub

2010-01-01T20:33:00.000-08:00

(Jeff, Dave, & Jim & a staggering work of engineering genius)

My brother-in-law Jeff is a dream. He's smart. He's funny. He drinks the "potions" my kids make for him (Tabasco, mustard, & eggnog). And he knows how to have fun. For example, this year he decided that when they came up for Christmas break, he'd put together a "Hillbilly Hot Tub." He told us this at Millie's baptism and I sort of thought he was kidding. (No offense, but sometimes these brainy guys get all sorts of ideas in their heads that will never come to fruition.) But the week before Christmas a big box showed up with a good sized inflatable kiddie pool. Jeff wasn't blowing smoke. He arrived the 25th with some copper tubing, the pump from his mini koi pond, and a dream of hot water on a snowy day. And a week went by, and though their was lots of talk, nothing much happened. But over breakfast this morning Jeff announced that today would be the day.

Since our neighbors the Kellys have an Armenian bread pit in their backyard (What? You've never heard of one? They're ALL the rage in Yerevan and Watertown...) Jeff decided that would be a good heat source. While some people had their doubts (you know who you are), it turned out to be the highlight of our vacation. The kids & dads went nuts. Here are some pix:

The Armenian bread pit is extremely deep and constructed to get and stay hot. They wrapped the tubing around the logs before bow drilling the fire (matches are a dirty word to Dave and Jim).

Notice the turkey thermometer used to keep track of the heat. It got to 126 degrees at one point.

They filled the tub with water and then turned the pump on to circulate the water thru the tubes, to the copper tubes in the fire, which then returned toasty water to the "hot tub." Given the size, we jacuzzied in shifts. The little girls went first and LOVED it. They grabbed snow balls to see how long it took them to melt in the hot steam.

Next Dallin & Spencer had a girl-free turn. Notice how roomy it is and the awesome space blankets that Jeff brought for insulation.

Denise orchestrated games for the bigger kids like, who can stand outside in the snow for the longest and who can jump on the trampoline, swing for 2 minutes, and go down an icey slide before collapsing from hypothermia. Jonah won at 11 minutes. I don't think there was any lasting braindamage...

Finally the daddies got in. And I'm pretty sure they had trunks on...

It was the perfect way to ring in the New Year. May 2010 bring you unexpected warmth!

Caution: Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear

2009-12-21T21:39:00.000-08:00

Sucky fact: Georgia gets migraines. If she's too hungry, too hot, too tired, too anything, she gets sick and ends up hurling. On Monday after school she went to her book group (the Chipmunk Hotel)and I get a call an hour into it telling me Georgia wants me to come get her. I race down there, scoop her up, and try to race home before the inevitable. "Let me know if you are going to puke," I say as I drive. Two minutes later, about a block from our house, she says, "Mom, I think I'm going to BAAAAAAAAA...!" There is no where to pull over, no window to roll down, and as I glance in my rear view mirror I literally see the hurl coming towards me. She is directly behind me and has awesome projection. It hits my head, my shoulder, my arm. And once she starts, she can't stop. And did I mention that she screams as she vomits? Very loud, gurgley cries. I get her home, stripped, and in the tub and then head back out to the scene of the grime. The worst part? You know that pocket on the back of the front seats for storing maps and such? I don't think I'll ever be able to use mine again, now that it's been a spew receptacle. I scrub and wipe and clean until my hands are numb from the cold (it's 20 degrees)and then proceed to do laundry for the rest of the night. So how was your evening?

That [Manic] Time of Year...

2009-11-29T18:37:00.000-08:00

(imagine what I'd do to a dog...)

This time of year is insane for me. Of course the holidays are crazy for every mom, but wedge in 2 birthdays and a huge church party and you too may find yourself mentally rocking in a corner in the fetal position.

Yet hosting 20 people for Thanksgiving turned out to be the eye of the storm. The fact that I had time to make festive gerbil headgear on Thursday morning speaks volumes. The key is inviting the right people. And making your friend Lindy set and decorate your tables. We had 3 turkeys (smoked, deep fried, and brined), mounds of sides, piles of rolls, and enough pies to induce diabetes in an elephant. We played games, read gossipy magazines, slept, laughed--in short, it turned out to be an amazing day. And Anne did all the dishes (she insisted, seriously she did).

On Friday my real work began for our church's annual wreathmaking party, which Dave calls Belmont Ward Prom (see my last year's post). I am in charge of food (pause for laughter). I think they called me because they are (once again) trying to scale things back and figured that putting a Hobo in charge of refreshments is one way to keep things from being too high-falutin. I really had to resist the urge to use a recipe that involved Velveta and Dave wanted me to serve squirrel. I don't speak Foodie, but I am well versed in Comfort Food so I planned on meatballs and bacon laden mini quiche and 450 mini cupcakes and every bar you can imagine (blondies, brownies, gingerbread, oatmeal bars, apricot bars, lemon bars, peppermint chocolate bars, coconut bars, caramel bars...). Tons of people helped so it was doable. But very exhausting.

I conned Dave into making the little cupcake trees for me and tossed the whole decorate the table stuff to Lisa and Christine who know how to work a pomegranate. So although we started out swearing we'd simplify things, it was just as fancy and over the top as it should be. But in my defense, I did do away with all utensils. No forks or spoons needed. Just toothpicks which again, are kinda Hobo.

Seriously there is a whole other post in my head about the "Anti-Wreathites" (tm Becca) who hate this annual party and almost succeeded in derailing it this year. And as my hand was cramping while decorating mini cupcake #411, I started to go to the dark side myself and had very Grinchy thoughts but I drowned them with a Big Gulp of Diet Coke. And then when the second giant batch of marshmallow whip cream frosting wouldn't set up and we added 2lbs of powdered sugar to stiffen it and it still fell and now tasted like a sugar cube dipped in Fluff, I was very discouraged and cursed my Boston Foremothers for instituting such a time consuming tradition. But then Brittany drizzled chocolate on the top and lo and behold, a Wreathmaking Miracle occurred. They were not only passable but by far the favorite cupcake. "How did you make this frosting?" "These white ones are delicious--I can't get enough!" Oh the bad frosting that was turned into manna. I can't believe I ever doubted.

Now that the huge Mormon Ladies Winter Extravaganza is over, I should be turning my attention to that little holiday coming up, what's it called? Oh yeah, CHRISTMAS. This weekend we got a tree and decked the halls watched Miracle on 34th Street, Mr. Kruger's Christmas, Frosty, and The Grinch (cartoon, not Jim Carey).

But before I can really wrap my head around Santa, our Millie has a huge milestone. On Friday she turns 8. For us that means she is old enough to be baptized an official member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My mom is already here and Grandma Dava and Grandpa Russ arrive this weekend along with Steph et al from Jersey and Lee et al from Albany to participate. Mills is really excited and so are we. If you're in the Belmont area on the 12th, show up at the chapel for a nice little programs and some yummy treats after. Probably some bars. Nothing too fancy, I promise.

Little Women/Little Men

2009-11-16T16:43:00.001-08:00

My house has been filled with magic. Much to my delight, we've had house guests for the past few days and the ensuing chaos has been so enjoyable. Don't you just love it when some of your favorite people get their bathroom remodeled and turn life into a big sleepover? The magic is how well these kids get along. Ellie, Gigi & Bells blend seamlessly with my girls.

They pass their days playing Harry Potter, casting spells and working on their British accents. I'm not going to pretend it's been perfect. On Saturday I kept finding white powdery stuff all over the carpets. It turns out they used confectioners sugar as "floo powder" for magical transportation. And today they emptied 4 bottles of shampoo in their "potions" lessons. But it's all worth it when the 3 oldest have string practice. That Gigi is amazing on the cello, and I got all teary listening to Georgia and Ellie play "Away in a Manger." Of course attention hogs Bells & Bea had to then sing for us...endlessly. I felt like Marmie March watching Jo et al with pride & joy.

Jonah has loved having Peter here, sharing his room and his nerf guns skills with joy. But the spell was broken when Danny returned Monday nite with their new puppy, Thatcher. Jonah is so jealous he wouldn't even speak to me that nite. He puppy sat today for a while, and thinks he is wearing me down by repeatedly pointing out how cute Thatch is.

Which leads me to my next story. Monday morning Bea said to me: "Now that the Snows have a dog, they should get a cat. And the dog will get bigger than the cat, and then the dog will attack the cat and hurt its leg. Then Danny will have to shoot the cat, and it won't die, so Pop will need to go kill it. Then he'll pop it in a bag, bring it home, skin it and cook it so we can have cat for dinner. Won't that be yummy mom? Won't it?!"

I sat there wondering what evil carnivore had taken over my precious baby who was salivating over a house pet. I know where this came from. It's the damn squirrel thing. Danny shot that squirrel which didn't die, so Dave finished it off before serving it to the kids. Now she thinks everything is fair game. Dave is delighted. Having lived in Hong Kong he adopted the notion that anything lower than homo sapiens is fare food game. When we lived in China a kid we knew showed up one day with two fuzzy ducklings in a shoebox. I tentatively asked what she planned to do with them when they got big. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "I will cut off their heads and eat them of course." The implied "duh" was almost audible.

"Sweetie," I said, "we don't eat cats. Ever." Bea's face fell and she replied, "When I'm big, can I kill a squirrel and eat it all by myself?" I sighed, resigned that my Grizzly Adams husband had a tiny convert. "Yes. You can eat squirrel." She ran off happily, probably going to practice choking a stuffed animal.

But we are all a little warped in our house. It comes with being Hobos. This evening Georgia came into my room and said, "Mom, I found this in my hair." I literally lept off the bed and my scalp began itching uncontrollably. I saw something black between her fingers. When I got it under the light I sighed with relief, "It's just a tick--not lice!" What is wrong with me that the threat of Lyme disease is somehow preferable to having cooties?

All I know is that this Hobo Mama has loved the magical chaos of our temporary commune. Anyone else have a bathroom in need of remodelling? Come on over!!!

Hits & Misses

2009-11-01T15:23:00.000-08:00

Hit: Exotic meat. Tonite Dave killed, skinned, gutted & cooked a squirrel. The girls went crazy for it.

Miss: Vermin. I tried really hard not to vomit just thinking about it. I barely do dark poultry meat.

Hit: Lilyrose Florals (http://www.lilyroseflorals.com/) is the flower business my friend Linda is starting. Not only should you check out her gorgeous arrangements, but those lovely models as well... If you live in Boston, hire this woman for your next event.

Miss: Sting-a-ling-a-ling. While at Target the other day, I saw that Sting had a new funky Christmas album out, "If on a winter's night." I was so excited (my first concert was The Police's Ghost in the Machine tour of 81/82--thanks Hon!). Until I listened to it. Has Sting started smoking 15 packs a day? There are one or two that don't suck. Made me want to cry. Not in a good way.

Hit: The new shows that we are lovin are Community (I could not stop giggling about "Mexican Halloween") and The Middle. Great acting. Great dialogue. The jury is out on Flashforward (it makes me miss Lost already). Too many Brits with fake American accents (I am NOT talking about you Simon Baker--I love how your Aussieness occasionally sneaks thru)

Miss: Nasty old ladies who ram into your car in the library parking lot, even though you honk like mad before she makes contact, and then accuses you of hitting her rust bucket.

Hit: When people in uber liberal Cambridge use Republican as a swear word. For example, "You are a nasty piece of work and I bet you're a Republican to boot!!!" It's the "R" word.

Miss: Having kids get the swine flu. I know why it's called that. You spend so much time attending to whiny, needy kids that your house turns into a pigsty.

Hit: Getting everyone well enough to trick or treat and eating so many homemade donuts you feel like Homer Simpson.

Ghosts of Halloween Past

2009-10-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a little piece I wrote back in 1999 about Halloween.

As you can see, October is a busy month. Those of you planning on making Halloween costumes for your kids better get started. I know that many Mormon mothers have an aversion for store-bought generic costumes (let's not even get into the "mask" debate here). There is something that goes against one's pioneer heritage in schlepping to Bradlees or Toys R Us and simply buying a Cinderella or pirate or whatever costume. So many of us feel it is more--dare I say "industrious?"--to buy fabric and have needle and thread or hot glue gun at the ready to hand make our little pumpkin suits or ladybugs.

When we were kids, my mom would NEVER buy a costume (nor would my mom buy Skippy peanut butter, not matter how much we begged, instead she bought the bishop storehouse tin can kind that had 3 cups of oil on the top and ripped the bread when you tried to spread it--as if my very salvation depended on my not having that extra spoonful of sugar in the Peter Pan that made it so delicious). But she didn't make our costumes either. So we always had to find stuff that we could turn into a costume, like a black leotard would make you a cat, or a swinging skirt and cashmere sweater a 50s girl (this was when Happy Days was all the rage). But I secretly LONGED for a store bought costume. I lusted over Jill Yamin in her ready made Tooth Fairy get up complete w/sparkly wand. I envied Janie Nordblad her Saloon Girl outfit so much that I borrowed it the following year and loved every second in those smart and sassy duds.

Now some will claim it is cheaper, and hence, more thrifty to make a costume. A friend of mine recoiled at the Disney store price for a Sleeping Beauty costume so she set out to make one of her own. In the end, not counting her time or sanity, she spend $10 MORE on the homemade version than if she'd bought the store one. But there is something special in a one of a kind, homemade costume that (even if the kid could care less) makes you feel proud. And many women LOVE to sew and find great satisfaction in these creative endeavors. I can't sew at all. Now I know many of you say the same thing but secretly you DID have a home ec class in 7th grade and have made aprons or "tres facile" dresses. I've heard many a woman swear she can't sew and then I find out she not only has a machine but knows how to do zippers and linings and buttons--oh my! But when I say I can't sew, I mean I have to get the instructions out every time I need to thread the darn thing and still have to wind bobbins by hand (this is the one time a year when I drag out my sister's old Singer to make a costume for Jonah). But even so, I still feel compelled to MAKE a costume for him.

Last year he was a lion and I spent 20 hours and 3 yards of felt trying to get his hat/mane right. Then on Halloween I go to put it on him, he cries and rips it off his head and I say, in all seriousness, "You will wear this or I will BITE you." He cried even harder and I finally had the sense to bribe him with Smarties to get it on. Am I evil or what? This year when I asked him what he wanted to be, I hoped he'd say something that I could get off the rack. Homemade schmomade, I'm pregnant and working and I can't sew. Please say Winnie the Pooh I was thinking. But no, he tells me he wants to be a bird. Maybe he wants to be Big Bird, I think, maybe there's a Sesame Street store... But no. Jonah announces in the next breath he wants to be a Blue Jay. A Blue Jay for heaven's sake. My husband Dave is an avid birder and has been training Jonah since birth to be the same. By 2 Joe could identify morning doves while I still thought I'd heard an owl.

Okay, I think, I can do this (he is my first and only so I am still too acquiescent to his wishes). So I drag out the many bird encyclopedias we have and look up blue jay and draw a simple sketch. Enter Dave, master birder. "Um, Heather, that's nice and all, but the head is shaped more at an angle, and the beak needs to be pointier and shorter. And be sure to remember that Blue Jay's feathers are iridescent so the fabric will need to shimmer." Next thing you know I am in JoAnn fabric in the BRIDAL section looking at chiffons and taffetas for a 2 1/2 year old's Halloween costume that he will wear once (that is unless he refuses to wear it...).

Once the fabric is cut it is too late to turn back and so now I am trying to figure out how on earth to do this thing. So far I have some blue felt pinned together for the head with a toilet paper roll cut to resemble a beak but it just looks like a toilet paper roll with black felt on it. I am too scared to attempt the wings at this point. I will most likely wait until the 29th and do it in a rush when there is no time too worry if it looks good enough and no time to do it again if it doesn't. So if any of you out there were thinking of making a costume, think long and hard and then run to Party Needs while they still have your kid's size. A sewing free Halloween sounds like quite a treat to me.

Ten years and 3 kids later I still work very hard to acquire ready made costumes. This year was mostly a success. Jonah wanted to be a scary clown. All that he needed from me was creepy make up. Bea wanted to be a black cat, BLESS HER!! Georgia gave me trouble by deciding she needed to be Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter, the whining chick who was killed by the Basilisk while in the loo. I did end up in JoAnn, but it turned out to be almost pain free to make a Hogwarts robe for a ghost. "Frayed edges look spooky," I assured George as I refused to hem any of it. Me too Millie opted to be Hermione which was not tough at all, given how easily her hair can be frizzed. Here are the results:

(Jonah was helping run the spook alley and I couldn't get a good shot with the strobe light.)

(She insisted on crawling for full cat effect.)

(Moaning Myrtle & Minerva McGonagall)

(Hermione, with a fever of 102, who we didn't let attend the ward Halloween party,

but did let show up for the outdoor Trunk-or-Treat)

(So here's a glimpse of a Mormon spook alley. I love the juxtaposition of imagery.

Papa Boka Rocks!)

How Embarrassing!!!

2009-10-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

My friend Anne directed me to a great blog, http://www.sistasinzion.com/. The first post I read was about an embarrassing moment in sacrament meeting. While we Mormons go to church for 3 hours on Sunday, the most important part of it all is the 15 minutes when the bread and water are blessed and passed around to the congregation. It's sort of like communion except for that whole transubstantiation thing (for years Jonah thought Catholics were cannibals). Visitors and babies are welcome to partake--it's not forbidden for the uninitiated. Only when you're doing some serious repenting do you take a pass. Basically we reflect on our baptismal commitments and think nice thoughts about Jesus.

Of course the more serious an event is the greater potential there is for irreverence. Which means most of us have embarrassing sacrament stories. When my friend Jen's son Walker was two he was convinced the whole thing was like a mid-meeting treat and shouted out once, "I LOVE the Snackrament!" I wish I could say my most embarrassing church story was because of something wacky the kids did (I need to shout out to my sis-in-law Sarah who mooned the entire Primary when she was 3). But it wasn't the kids. It was me.

A little background. Sometime in 2000, we discovered that Dave had developed a sesame allergy. So if he bit into a burger that had seeds on the bun, or any Chinese food that had come in contact with any seeds or oil (basically all of it), he'd get itchy then red then his throat would start closing. You get the picture. Well one Sunday we're sitting in church wrestling 3 kids and I mindlessly grab a piece of bread from the sacrament tray and chew it. Mmmm. Savory. Crunchy. And then it clicks that I'm tasting sesame seeds. I look over at oblivious Dave who has the bread half way to his mouth and I dive across two kids to smack his hand away and shout in a stage whisper, "Don't take the sacrament!!!!"

Everyone in a 6 foot radius goes stiff and silent. In the pew ahead of us are the Temple President and Matron. She steals a glance at us and shakes her head. Dave was the president of the young men's organization and the boy holding the tray for our row looked like he was going to cry as he imagined what sordid thing Dave must have done for me to literally knock the bread out of his sinning hand. I turned beet red and felt like I was going into anaphylactic shock. Being the center of attention is just fine by me, but being the center of a scene--I was mortified. Dave loved it. Thought it was hilarious.

And there's no way to gracefully dig oneself out of embarrassing moments. I am still cursing my sis-in-law Sue for getting me into trouble with our delivery man. Sue refers to the UPS men as "brown Santas" because they bring presents and wear brown. So this summer I hear a loud knock and I open the door to find a package there that I'd been dying to get. I scoop it up and shout across the road, "Thanks Brown Santa!!!" And when I look up I see an African American UPS guy shaking his head at me in disgust. What am I then supposed to say? "The brown refers not to your skin, but your uniform." There's no extraction at that point so I slink back in the house and order things via FedEx for a while.

Sometimes I think a little humiliation is good for the soul. Especially as a parent. Kids routinely delve into humiliation--wetting the bed, crying in public, falling off monkey bars with the whole playground watching. Then when they come cryin' to me, which they always do, I can nod my head and say I understand. And mean it.

Scenes From a Playgroup

2009-09-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

Bea, almost 4, has a playgroup once a week with her BFFs Lauren & Emmy and her "boys," twins Henry & Owen. Jen, whose turn it was last week, emailed us the following exchange of their version of "house:"

Lauren: "I am married to Owen"
Owen: "I am not ready to get married yet. We can get married in a few weeks."

Henry: "I am married to to Emily." (Unlike his brother, not afraid of commitment.)
Emily: "I like that."
Bea: "But there are not enough boys!!!" (said with serious emphasis)
Henry: "Don't worry, when I am done with Emily I will do marriage with you."

Henry (to Bea): "That other dad wants to hold your baby, is that ok?"
Bea: "No, I don't let other dads hold my babies, they are not careful...never mind, I don't think I want a baby, I am just going to have a dog."

Later that same day Jen reported that some "drama" and spouse swapping had gone on:

At some point Lauren told Bea to laugh at Owen, and they both did. Owen was devastated. He went into the other room and cried inconsolably. Emmy (who I am pretty sure had been biding her time all along-if you can't have the one you love, love the one you are with!) wandered over and hovered quietly until he stopped sobbing and looked up. She said: "I will go with you upstairs to watch a movie." (He had been sobbing 'I just want to be alone and watch a show'). They walked upstairs, but as they passed the living room Emily stuck her head in and triumphantly said to Lauren: "Now he is married to me!" Well played Emily!

Also, in a moment of piqué some girl was overheard saying that she wouldn't invite Owen to her birthday party. Henry said: "Then I won't come either, and you can't come to ours". Owen added: "We already had our party--but you have to give back the hat and the squirt gun if you don't invite me"

Heaven help us when they're teenagers!

Five Fall Really Bad Ideas

2009-09-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

1. Do not buy Halloween candy in September. Just because Target already has 4 aisles of Halloween candy, doesn't mean you have to fill your cart. It will be gone before October even starts no matter where you hide it. Pre-mature candy purchases leads to fat butts and tooth decay faster than you can say "fun size."

2. Don't put all your summer stuff away when school starts. If you do, the weather will surely get warm again and your kids will come home sweaty and grumpy and curse you for making them wear "too hot of stuff." I know it's a pain to keep 2 seasons out and accessible, but just do it.

3. Don't over volunteer. When you head to back to school night, only volunteer for one thing. I don't care if the sign up sheet looks all sad and empty and the teacher starts to cry. You will regret it. If you can't resist the urge to say "yes" when asked to do something, call me and I'll be your sponsor at "Volunteer's Anonymous" (something Jen & I made up last year--I swear I had to do an intervention with that chica at least once a week. Some of you are too good for your own good.). Don't think of it as saying no, think of it as you allowing other people to grow and gain blessings. Now that's unselfish.
4. Don't buy new school clothes just for the kids. Buy yourself a new "uniform." You know what I mean, that outfit that you throw on when you are too tired--too rushed--to bloated to put together an "ensemble." You're probably wearing it in your Costco photo. It's cute, it's comfortable, but your friends are sick of seeing you in it. Go to TJMax and splurge.

5. Don't forget to have some fun. Fall brings homework and lessons and sports and all sorts of other good things that can take over our lives and make us grumpy taskmasters. Screw soccer one Saturday and go pick apples (which really means go eat cider donuts & Cortlands dipped in caramel & peanuts); yank kids out early from school and go to the park with friends; ride bikes along the Charles before it's too cold; turn a blind eye and let the kids dig up part of the grass to make awesome mud and acorn pies.

It's Baaaaaack

2009-09-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

Sometime in mid August my blog disappeared. Vanished. Gone. Warning people of danger and toxic malware. For days I tried to figure out how to bring it back, and even got my people involved. Dave B. contacted friends who work for Google. My Dave spent hours posting on tech trouble message boards and trying to remedy things. And still nothing. My email girlfriends started to contact me: "What's up Hobo Mama? Where is your blog?" Jen sent out emails trying see if anyone had copies of my ramblings and started to piece things together. One friend brought me dinner because she knew how devastated I felt. I'm pretty sure one of my more spiritual friends actually fasted and prayed on my behalf. I imagine her supplication was something like this: "Dear Lord, please restore Heather's blog because writing helps her process things and she's getting screwed up and cranky. She's a bitch if she can't blog it out. Amen."

Then last night at a women's retreat on Cape Cod, Parry whisper-shouts at me at 1am, "Hey, hey, I just got your blog on my iPhone. It's an Exponent Miracle!!!" And when Becca told me the same thing, I could hardly believe it. I did a whoot whoot when I got online tonite and found my little pink page. Kinda scared to trust Blogger, but for now, it's just good to be back.

"Lice-capades"

2009-09-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

To say my mom has a lice issues is like saying Oedipus had mommy issues. When you spend a better portion of your life Cloroxing wooden spoons, brushing your teeth so often the gums recede, and buying ammonia in bulk, the idea of filthy flesh colored cooties crawling on your head makes you kookoo bananas. Fact: my mom has NEVER rested her head back on a movie theater seat; refuses to wear helmets while renting bikes unless SHE Lysols it; has never used an airplane pillow or tried on a hat/scarf/muffler in a store. It was torture for her when we all got it as kids. But what put her over the edge was when she got lice in return for taking in two LDS sister missionaries who had been living in a filthy apartment whose windows were shot out by gangs (no good deed goes unpunished...).

Dave & I lived in China for a year and I was so homesick for normal food. A typical meal there was soggy bread, sea slug, and cow tendons. I was so desperate that we even took the train 14 hours to Beijing just to go to McDonald's. I wrote my mom and begged her to send me some Swedish Fish. Two weeks later a slip in our mailbox that there is a package for us downtown. "Treats!" I think and we take two buses down to Zhongshan Lu, wait in one line for 20 minutes to pay 5 yuan for another slip of paper that let's us wait another 20 minutes to turn that one in for my precious padded envelope. When I saw my mom's handwriting my heart skipped a beat and I tore it open to find...a bottle of RID shampoo. "Dear Heather, You may need this in case of lice. Love, Mom." I cried a little as I cursed her and her OCD ways. Dave took me to the market to search for something familiar and comforting to buy. The closest thing we could find was Tang--but lychee flavored. Yuck.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve 2006. I am sitting in church, soaking up the music and Nativity scriptures and admiring my Georgia's beautiful thick hair. She snuggles closer and I run my fingers through it...and see something dart across her part. Upon closer inspection I discover several more critters and start to channel my mom. I can't hear the music anymore, just the thump thump thump of my heart as I realized that my kids, my house, are vermin infested and it will take herculean efforts to rid us of these beasts. And we will be branded as the "Lice Family." We do indeed have cooties. Georgia might as well have leprosy.

The rest of the vacation was a blur of shampooing, combing, washing bedding, combing, olive oil treatments, combing, soaking brushes in bleach. (For a hilarious essay on the stages of dealing with lice, read Marion Winik's at http://www.myonlinewellness.com/topic/nitsessay) I even resorted to microwaving pillowcases and hoodies. The "Christmas Miracle" as we call it was that Millie, who shares a bed, brushes, and basically everything with Georgia, never got lice. Bea, Jonah & I were also part of the Passover. But Dave, who poo pooed my cleaning frenzy and rolled his eyes when I manically scratched and doused my head with the shampoo made from Agent Orange, got lice.

We survived and went on to watch it pass thru and ravage our friends houses. In fact, it became the Mormon plague. We got good at louse archeology. By examining the nits & nymphs, we could determine roughly when a kid had first become host and it turned out that Sunday was NOT a day of rest for lice but the high holy holiday and our church pews the vector. So while we thought that taking our kids to Sunday School was filling their souls with Christianity it was really filling their heads with parasites. So we bought lint rollers and religiously attempting to masking tape to death any bugs left by the previous congregation. We refused to use the communal coat racks and adopted the fake hug that keeps you free of hair contact. We became my mother.

It's been almost 3 years without another incident but I keep RID on hand and heaven help the kid who scratches their head. Every time I see the school's number on caller ID I pray, "Dear Lord, please let this be ANYTHING but a lice call." I've had kids break limbs and get hospitalized with RSV. And lice is worse because it makes you paranoid and ashamed and nobody conspiratorially says, "Ooooh, that's the family with the broken legs. Don't play with them."

So this year when I starting working on my song for the Exponent Retreat talent show (I'll admit it, I am the Mormon Weird Al), I decided to dedicate it to all the mamas out there in the trenches who battle this scourge. It's set to the tune of "Ere you left your room this morning." We used combs, magnifying glasses, and electric clippers as props. And the stuffed lice that Denise and I loathe but also had to buy. I have to say that we, Coco, Neese, Parry, Sande, Libby & I rocked. And with Parry & harmozing Libby, we actually sounded good for once.

1. Ere you groomed your kids this morning,
Did you check for lice?
Were there any creepy critters?
Even dandruff gives me jitters
Check, not once, but twice.

Chorus:
Oh--nitpicking makes me weary!
Washing sheets from all the beds,
Malathion makes me teary,
Perhaps I’ll shave our heads.

2. Before you put them on the school bus,
Did you check for lice?
When you see your daughter scratching
Does it mean the eggs are hatching
Nymphs the size of rice.

Chorus

3. After having a sleep over
Did you check for lice?
Don’t you know that at their friends’ house
They might pick up a stray louse
And now you pay the price.

Chorus

4. Ere you go to church to worship,
You should check your pew
Cooties on the benches flourish
Then on your kids scalps they nourish
Try some RID shampoo.

Chorus

Here's wishing a louse-free year to you and yours!

Displaced Family Home Evening

2009-07-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

One Monday in April we drove past the LDS Temple here in Boston on our way home from taking Dave to the airport. It was almost 8pm and there were virtually no lights on. The girls commented on this and I explained that Mormon temples are closed on Sunday and Monday. "Why Mondays?" Millie asked. "Because of Family Home Evening," I guessed. [For the uninitiated out there, Mormons are advised to set aside one night a week, usually Monday, to get together as a family. There is often singing, a religious lesson, and most importantly, a treat.]

Georgia said we forgot to have FHE last week and needed to do it tonite (she is our rule follower). When we got home I put Bea in bed, lured Jonah upstairs with the promise of "Chuck" after, and we all piled onto Georgia's double bed with the latest issue of the Friend magazine. Millie picked a story about an 8 year old boy whose parents divorce. When the mom remarries and has twins, the kid feels neglected and displaced. The metaphor for it all is the family walking to church, mom and dad side by side, each holding a twin, and the son trailing behind trying to keep pace. It was actually very depressing but led to a great discussion as Millie wanted to understand why the boy was so sad.

In the spirit of that whole new "let's connect this to me" literary movement, I explained displacement to the kids. I told about how Jonah, age 2.9, reacted to Georgia's birth. While he never took his angst out on the baby, anything new made him really mad. When I switched the dresser in his room, he flipped. When we got a bigger car, he threatened to "dump oil on it and smash rocks on it and bite its tires!" They all giggled, imagining our now 12 year old being to enraged. Next I told about little Georgia, just 22 months when she was kicked off the Baby Throne, leaning over and pretending to kiss Millie and then biting her with all her might, leaving dental records on poor Millie's forehead. At that they all laughed really hard.

Now came the hard part: addressing the arrival of Bea and the impact on Millie over 3 years ago. Millie was 4 and lived the role of "Baby" the same way that method actors like Daniel Day-Lewis embody a character almost to the point of madness. Every time I nursed Bea, Millie looked like she too was desperate to latch on. Gingerly I commented that unlike Jonah and Georgia who never remembered life without a younger sibling, Millie did. And she was Jonah's pet (see Exhibit A below). Until the new one arrived. I then turned to Millie and did what I should have done a while ago: I publicly acknowledged her pain. "It was hard for you when Bea came. You feel like Jonah doesn't love you as much and it hurts." Millie collapsed into sobs and out of her mouth rushed 4 years worth of displacement pain.

Exhibit A: Joe habitually snuck into Millie's crib.

And then the sweetest thing happened. Jonah took her in his arms and told her how much he still loved her, would always love her, and that now that Bea was getting older and into his stuff, she was the irritating one and he actually preferred Millie. She stopped crying, "Really? You're not just saying that?" He patted her head like he would a dog's. Jonah replied, "Nope. I kinda can't stand her right now." Millie beamed and threw herself back into his arms. At which point Georgia joined the hug, laying her head on Millie's shoulder. I wanted to dog pile them all, but felt like this was their love fest. When they stopped hugging, Millie commented that it wasn't fair that Jonah's birth didn't bump anybody. That's when I told them that though their Pop would thoroughly deny it, Jonah's arrival wasn't always easy on him, and sometimes he felt edged out. The girls' jaws dropped. Jonah grinned.

I also got personal about some of the drawbacks of being the baby: feeling left out, hand-me-downs, being the last one in a booster seat... I asked Millie why Bea was in the other room asleep while we were all hanging out chatting. The light bulb started to go on. "Oh..." she said. "Big kids get to do stuff babies don't."

We skipped the song, said a prayer, and then they asked if they could all sleep together that night. I tucked them in and they giggled themselves to sleep, treats and "Chuck" forgotten.

I'd love to report that our sweet FHE miraculously transformed my family. It didn't. Just tonite Millie socked Georgia in the stomach because her big sister had "tooted on me on purpose!!" But I do sense less jealousy towards Bea, and more solidarity between the big 3. Jonah has taken to including Millie more and she just glows under his attentions. I have always known that my kids really love each other. Now I know they know it too.

"Mama-say Mama-sah Mama-kusan!"

2009-06-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

Pretty Young THING

Okay, I have to echo every person I hear in the media and say that Michael Jackson's music has been a soundtrack of my life. My sister Angela and I were hooked on his music from the first time we watched that oh so cheesy Jackson Five cartoon that came out in the early 70s, courtesy of Bass-Rankin, the folks who brought you Rudolph & the Snow Miser (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYI8M3aJzR8). Michael was so cute and so talented. I felt very disloyal, liking him more than I liked Donny Osmond. But there you have it. I even saw "The Wiz." Ouch.

Even the songs we didn't like somehow loom large for us. For example, Angela still tortures me by singing that creepy song "Ben," which was all about an evil rat. I'm serious. Look it up if you don't believe me. (http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1408) I liked "Off the Wall" but it was the "Thriller" album that really got me. Ange was working at Miller Outpost at the time and used some of her money to get us MTV. This was 1982 and the video world was exploding. Sure bands like Journey just filmed themselves playing in an abandoned wherehouse, but cutting edge groups knew this medium could change everything. And Michael Jackson was the king.

I remember going to my girlfriend Amy's house in December 1983 when MTV was premiering the "Thriller" video/mini movie. We watched it over and over and had the dance memorized by the next day. [see guide below] I still do a great zombie and thoroughly embarrassed my kids whenever I hear that song. Or "Beat It." Or "The Way You Make Me Feel." Michael makes me dance. And dancing makes me happy.

And growing up in LA, Michael Jackson was more than just a pop legend, he was a local boy, a Jehovah's Witness who just might show up at your door with a "Watchtower" pamphlet, dressed in a yellow suit with a matching yellow umbrella even though it was June. [I am still so jealous that he came to Amy's house. She even got a picture of the back of his Jheri curled head.] I once fought over a pair of cowboy boots with his baby sister Janet, Miss Jackson if you're nasty (I won). Here is a photo from 1984 that captures the times so well. I'm flanked by Stephanie & Amy and we are on our way to go dancing at some skanky club in Santa Monica or Hollywood.

Of course his whole freakiness took over, surgery after surgery, monkeys and Elephant Man bones and then feeling so embarrassed for Lisa Marie Presley (She had no idea?!) and then the baby dangling incident. Seriously? Top it off with the whole Peter Pan lusting after the Lost Boys and he lost us. We distanced ourselves. We called him Wacko Jacko equated him with the National Enquirer. But alone in our cars, we still sang along, still wanted to HEAR his music if not SEE his unrecognizable face wearing masks long before the swine flu made them vogue.

Now that he's gone, it'll be easier to remember the good times.

One last link that kills me every time I see it. It's from the show Psych about a fake detective. This one they go undercover on an American Idolesque show and perform "Shout" from Tears for Fears but bring a Jacko quality to it. It reminds me why I stayed up all night watching MTV, waiting for "Beat It" to come on. Sham-on! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS-MMBupQPw

Father's Day Cards: When You Don't Care Enough to Send the Very Best

2009-06-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

I heard a comedian once doing a bit about going to buy a birthday card and being freaked out by the overabundant variety of categories. Aside from the obvious birthday, wedding, anniversary and thank you cards, he went on to mention wacko categories like "I'm sorry your cat died of feline AIDS" cards and "Congratulations on the new hairpiece" cards. Ha ha. And I admit there are some odd occasions in the stacks of greeting cards. But today I had the opposite experience, and stared at rack after rack of cards and couldn't find anything that fit.

As you all know it's Father's Day this Sunday. Just ten years ago I had to buy for 6 dads/grandpas, and now I'm down to 2. Aside from Dave (best dad ever, whoot whoot) I also eagerly get a card for Russ, Dave's mom's husband who is the only grandpa my kids really know. My dad passed away last year and had been in poor health for a while and couldn't really visit. The kids know him in pictures, but don't KNOW him. And Dave hasn't talked to his dad in years. Estranged may be the term, if you assume indifference and not enmity on Dave's part.

I found a wacky one for Dave and a lovely one for Russ, and then, for nostalgia, tried to figure out what I would have sent to my dad. I always went to the funny ones, because while I could buy my grandpa one with a long poems about sacrifice and heroes and unconditional love and mean it, my relationship with my dad wasn't close enough for that. We were more comfortable navigating this distance between us with humor. It took a few tries but there it was. Something about a TV remote. It conveyed affectionate teasing. No false gushing. I mentally sent it heavenward and turned to go.

Then my damn inner-Christian had to get involved. "You really should send a card to Dave's dad. It would mean a lot to him." Sigh. "Fine," I said to Nice Heather. "I'll do it. But I won't lie." I can't buy a card unless I mean every word of it. So I set out to find a card that would wish him a happy Father's Day but NOT present sentiments that we did not feel. I knew the "For My Father" ones with fishing poles were out. I switched to "Grandpa" thinking that would be safer. But they all said stuff like, "We love you grandpa you are so fun you make me feel like number one." Well, my kids couldn't pick him out of a line up, so that's out. Under the "For Everyone" category, the cards all expressed deep regard and respect for the type of man he was. This is where I got one for Russ. But Dave's dad is literally and figuratively not in the same category. I was drawn to a Darth Vadar one (if you know the history it's obvious why), but the inside said, "To a Dad who's out of this world!!!!" Ummm nope.

Frustrated (and running late) I went around to another aisle in the more generic "Thinking of You" and "Friend" sections, hoping to even find a "blank inside" option. Way way too much gushing. Where are the cards that acknowledge someone as part of our lives without breaking into "Wind Beneath My Wings?"

I just can't believe we are alone in our ambivalence towards some key players in our lives, so here are some section headings I'd like to see Hallmark add to its Father's Day line: "Emotionally Absent Dad: Even though you loved golf/work/church more than me, you never beat me. Thanks." or "Sperm Donor: Thanks for the thick head of hair!" or "Good Enough Dad: You did your best and I'm not too screwed up" or "Feeling Magnanimous: Thanks for being there during a chunk of my life before abandoning us all--Nobody's mad (expect Mom)!" or "Drunk Daddy: Without the sauce you rocked!" Maybe Shoebox could do funny cartoons about garnishing wages or meeting the "other" family. And those new musical ones could open up and play "Cats in the Cradle."

I left the store feeling really bad. I want to acknowledge the man who donated half his genetics to my sweet Dave, who at one time was a dear friend to me, who, if he only made an effort, could be a true (and not just biological) Grandpa to my kids. Maybe I should have looked in the "Condolences" section, because honestly, he would be devastated if he knew how much awesomeness he was missing.

Zen Citrus, Indians, & Neon Casts

2009-06-18T21:01:00.001-07:00

Jonah's school requires several hours of community service each semester, and we decided to finish them off with a good old fashioned lemonade stand last Saturday. All proceeds would be donated to Heifer International which gives livestock to folks in developing countries who then raise them and give in kind to others. Everyone was so excited! The kids made the signs, the lemonade (or lemonaid) as we so cleverly spelled it), and set up shop around the corner (our street is too busy). Bea was the money collector, Millie and Georgia took turns pouring, and Jonah, who had a friend over, quickly abandoned the venture. (In return I'm making him do their chores this weekend.) Business was slow at first but picked up.

At one point I left the stand to Dave and the girls and ran back to the house. I had to grab my camera and capture a bit of the magic. My sister Angela and I ran endless lemonade stands, often the door to door variety aided by our red wagon. And whenever I see kids selling homemade drinks, I feel compelled to stop and support them. It's like reaching back in time and reconnecting with my 5 year old self. Life feels simpler, happier and more fun. I am obviously not alone in my nostalgia; most of the people who stopped were so delighted to see others reenacting some forgotten part of their childhood. So it seemed very appropriate when I was heading back to the girls that I misread the sign we'd put up.

As you can see, the "H" in "charity" sort of looks like an "L," which made me read it "Lemonaid for Clarity." Seeing my kids having so much fun raising money to buy rabbits and ducks for kids in far away places made me teary. And when Dave showed up, he got so into it he extended our "business hours" an extra 90 minutes just for the pleasure of handing over cold drinks to strangers. Even the mean neighbor coming over and accusing us of messing up her rock wall (which we didn't) couldn't mess with my high.

But our "high" could also be from all the drugs we're taking. Dave & I both have been sick--he with flu & pneumonia, me with flu & bronchitis. We fight over the codeine laced cough syrup. Luckily the kids are all in good places right now and very happy. Knock on wood.

Here is Jonah a couple months ago at his birthday. He has been amazingly helpful to me, especially when Dave travels. We get the girls to bed and giggle together watching "Malcolm in the Middle."

Georgia begged me to sign her up for softball. I was reluctant after two seasons of her begging to do soccer and then REFUSING to ever go on the field. But she loves it. Loves the chanting at the opposing team, loves playing catcher ("best position ever"), loves her purple glove, loves eating peanuts while on the bench. ("You can throw the shells on the ground!!!")

Millie broke her ankle two weeks ago on the trampoline (technically Jonah and Bekah broke her ankle but nobody's mad). So she rightfully is entitled to be grumpy but it's like she won some handicapped lottery. She LOVES her cast. She LOVES that the nurse insisted Millie use the wheelchair while at school. She LOVES the attention and still wears her E.R. bracelet. She has never been more pleasant. If I'd known an injury could turn her into Mary Sunshine, I'd of busted her foot years ago.

And here is Bea with her buddy Emmy, turning cream cheese into "nake-up." She is getting so grown up and it breaks my heart a little. Poor thing will always be my baby.

"Nobody's Mad..."

2009-06-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

Several years ago we went on a trip with Dave's sister Steph and her husband Jeff. There she introduced me to one of my favorite phrases, "nobody's mad." She'd use it in potentially tense situations where she was trying to get/give information without escalating emotions. For example: "Nobody's mad, but did we just miss our exit?" "Nobody's mad, I think we forgot your mom's birthday." "Nobody's mad, but that's my Diet Coke you're drinking and I have the swine flu."

Language works on so many levels. So while on the literal level a question like, "Did you feed the kids?" means "have the children eaten?" But for many of us, the question is less about food and more about accusation and blame: "You didn't feed the kids did you, even though I asked you to but of course if I want anything done right I have to do it myself." But sometimes you really ARE just trying to get the information, no judgement. Nobody IS mad.

So Dave and I use this phrase all the time, and the kids have adopted it. Now when Bea spills/breaks/ruins something, the first words out of her toddler mouth are "You are not mad. No one is mad, right mama?" The other day she knocked something over at Dindy's house and looked at her with a little panic and said, "Nobody's mad, right?" It's actually very funny when I am mad and tell her so. She kind of freaks out. Her next line is, "My [primary] teacher says Jesus says you can't be mad or he'll be mad!"

Then there is my mother who, when I tried to explain the phrase to her last Thanksgiving, could not grasp it. "So if I'm making the gravy and run out of something, I'll say, 'Is there more corn starch because the container is empty. Nobody's mad.'" And my mom said, "Oh so you ARE mad." "No, I may be frustrated or sad, but I don't want that to be misconstrued as anger. Get it?" "Yes. You're mad." At this point I WAS mad because she is so passive aggressive she would state the exact opposite of her feelings just to grind in the guilt. And the phrase can be used as a nice little shiv for emotional stabbing. One of my girlfriends used this phrase a lot in the early years of her marriage. She'd end an argument by saying, "I'm not mad, I just know you better now." Ouch ow owie. I love it. And have used it on occasion myself.

The phrase is catchy, and now I hear Stephanie's words coming out of dozens of people's mouths. Just last month a friend used it when speaking at a baptism "Nobody's mad that it took you 15 years to make this decision" (okay, so maybe she was a tiny ticked off but still, she trying NOT to be mad, and that counts for something). Another friend used it while we were out to dinner when the waiter got the drink order mixed up (when I say drink order I mean Diet Coke with or without lemon) as a way to get things fixed but let the guy know that it wasn't a big deal. And I used it at the ER when trying to figure out how much longer it would take for radiology to read Millie's ankle x-rays (Jonah & Becca doubled bounced her on the trampoline but nobody's mad).

Maybe I'm deluding myself, but I swear I've had smoother interactions since learning this phrase. It allows you to be direct without being a jerk. Unless of course, you really are mad.

Heeding Barbie's Sage Advice

2009-05-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

[From time to time I blog for The Exponet (http://the-exponent.com/). Here's the one I did last night.]

So I have issues with iPhones. My husband will tell you it’s because I’m a techno-phobic Luddite. Which is true–but isn’t why I resist getting on the iPhone/Blackberry bandwagon. Let me illustrate.

This spring some girlfriends and I went to NYC. One afternoon we are all on the boat to Ellis Island and Sande and I are having view-gasms at the sight of the Statue of Liberty. The Lady is just gorgeous. We turn to share our emotion with our companions…to find them texting away or reading Facebookor whatever, totally oblivious to the 150 ft goddess towering above us.
“Excuse me ladies,” I say, “but to quote a line from Barbie’s Princess and the Pauper, ‘Be present, be pleasant, and be proud.’” I clearly say it louder than I’d intended because on the next row of benches two men turn around and one asks me to repeat the quote as his boyfriend whips out his electronic gadget and types it in: “’Be present….be pleasant…be proud.’ Barbie you say? Jonathan, we need to remember that.”

The phrase, the first part at least, reflects a real struggle in my life. Frequently I am not where I am supposed to be. Physically I am at church, or a meeting, or the dinner table with my kids, but mentally I am elsewhere, often aided and abetted by an electronic device. While the kids chatter about their day I am straining to listen to “All Things Considered” on NPR. I’m ashamed to admit how often I talk on the phone to my girlfriends or sister when I have a real live child of mine near me who will never be exactly that age again.

My kids used to cringe when they saw me bring out my camera because they know I disappear behind the lens. I get so obsessed with capturing a moment that I cease to be part of it; with my camera I am a historian not a participant. It’s been a real challenge but over time I’ve learned that if I want to really remember an event, from the inside out, I have to leave my camera behind. So some family times that are most dear to me are never recorded. But I remember them in a way I couldn’t have if I hadn’t been truly present.

If I get this distracted by the radio, a camera, and a simple cell phone, I’m terrified what an iPhone would do to me. I’d be the person in a movie theater, missing half the show because I’d recognize a face and have to IMDB the actor to figure out where else I’d seen them. Many times while out to dinner with my husband, I’ll make him look something up for me on his phone—what is Ben Kingsley’s real name (Krishna Bhanji) ? Who was the prostitute in The Brother’s Karamozov(Grushenka)?

Last weekend was our stake conference. I attended the Saturday night session but didn’t hear much of it. I was too busy getting text messages from friends. I felt like I was in junior high again, passing notes, making jokes about the speaker, wondering where we should go eat after, explaining why we were late, etc. And as much as I hated myself for it, and even though it takes me forever to pluck out a message (I can’t even do that predictive thing), I could not stop. I could not be present. Or pleasant. I was not proud. The next day I left my phone in the car. The kids were distracting, and some of the talks were boring. But I was there, body and mind.

So I struggle. I’m a social creature. I want to share my thoughts instantaneously with my people. I want to be in the know. But I also want the people who are with me to know I am trying to be there for them, physically and emotionally. So I resist getting a frickin iPhone. I want to be present. Some people can do both. I can’t.

Magnum Al P.I.

2009-05-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

Last week Emily CC tagged me to do the following:

1. Go to your documents/pictures

2. Go to your 6th file

3. Go to your 6th picture

4. Post it, and blog about it

5. Tag 6 people to do the same

6. Name your picture

So I went into my files and the sixth folder only had two pictures in it. I went to the next folder. It had four. So I am ignoring the directions and posting some of the pictures I have been working on this last week.

Many of you know our good friends Lindy and Al. They are like grandparents to our kids, godparents to us. Just dear, dear people. Al even volunteered to pay for Bea's wedding (she is his favorite, and I suspect he thinks we will give her a hobo reception in the gym with hoop-a-flage and cheap cake unless he intervenes).

Al is what we LDS call a "dry Mormon," meaning he attends church, does all the Mormony things us Mormons do, except he has never been baptized (ie just add water). So imagine our shock and delight when last week I get a FRANTIC call from Linda telling me Al is joining the church. Screams, tears, hyperventilating ensued.

I immediately went into party planning mode and decided to do a slideshow for Al's baptism. I know baptism slideshows are a bit ridiculous ("let's take a 20 minute pictoral review of your loooong 8 years accompanied by that fat Hawaiian singing the Rainbow song..."), but I LOVE them. I love pictures. I love any excuse to go thru my millions of folders and cull the best ones and juxtapose them with the right pictures.

I told Linda my plan. She told Al. And he vetoed it. He hates to be the center of attention. Initially Linda and the missionaries were the only people invited to attend. But just as I knew Al would relent and invite his close friends to attend, I also knew he'd love MY slideshow so I immediately got to work. I soon realized that Linda had no pictures of young Al. Not a one. This is a problem in a slideshow where you are attempting to capture the scope of a life. But I would not be daunted. Enter my best friend, photoshop.

I was up until 1am several nites last week googling, cutting, pasting, and generally Forrest Gumping Al's face into a childhood and young adult life he never knew. Here are my favorites:

Everyone over a certain age has one of these pony pictures. Al's sister actually thought this one was real.

Ah, meeting the President. I used a newsprint finish to get the grainy look.

How fun to imagine a Woodstock moment. I think I need one of these.

"You can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man, no time to talk..."

I don't know about you, but I LOVE me some Magnum. My sister was a huge fan and loved to go to the USC volleyball games with her boyfriend Bill because Tom Selleck's kid was on the team and he was usually there. One time Ange was waiting outside the men's room for Bill and out comes Tom Selleck. A minute later Bill emerges and says to my sister, "Well, they don't call him 'magnum' for nothing."

Although I am a PC girl, I must say that Dave's imovie program made putting the pictures and music together to simple and so much more effective than traditional means.

The baptism was lovely, very moving event. After we went to their house for a celebration. We played the slideshow and it was a huge hit. We laughed, we cried, two thumbs up. I'm still on a high. Maybe I should ride the wave and get started on Millie's slideshow. She turns 8 in December which means I only have 7 months left.

Proud Moment in Hobo Parenting

2009-05-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

Last Friday at the park I sat chatting with friends as Bea ran around playing. Periodically I glanced up and made sure I knew where she was. Imagine my pride when I see her walk over to a tree, pull up her dress, take off her undies, squat, pee, stand up, take off her shoe and drain the urine out of it, put it back on along with her undies and run off again.

I know some of the mommies were horrified at my daughter's vagabond behavior. But I could not have more delighted. So she smelled like a nursing home. So what. I had some quality time with my friends as my 3 year old solved her own problems. Isn't that what life is all about?

March Madness

2009-04-07T18:34:00.001-07:00

While it's always a little crazy at our house, this month was absolutely manic. Not sure why. Here's a montage of some of our Hobo-Hijinx.

Spending the day running errands with the girls and ALL of us wore our bunny ears the entire time. Kept forgetting and wondered why I got weird looks from people.

Bea decided to wear my Indian wig and goes all Blue Steel with the raised shoulder.
Noelle visits and everyday is a crazy playdate filled with bubbles and Barbies and tattletaling and "I'm-so-excited-I-just-peed-my-pants-even-though-I've-been-potty-trained-for-months!!"

We turned Mini-school into Noelle's third birthday. Too busy making up silly games to bake an actual cake.

Freeze dancing to "It's Raining Men." The girls wear fairy skirts and the boys knight capes courtesy of Rachel who can sew in her sleep.

Millie remembered that ages ago I speculated that Minky would turn one around this time of year and kept insisting we have a full on first birthday for her gerbil. Lucky for me, Lisa S. dropped off a bag of party supplies for our annual Cinco de Mayo party (all are invited) that happened to be rodent sized. So when 8 members of Dave's family arrived last week threw an impromptu Gerbil Fiesta. Ole.

Bea and Uncle Doug help fill the tiny pinata with sunflower seeds. We gave them toothpicks as sticks, which they enjoyed more than the popcorn. Go figure.

Sarah gnaws a hole in the burro. Rhino poops on a party blanket. Casey tries to escape. A good rodent time was had by all. Not pictured is the party we had two days later for Eloise's 3rd. We had pizza, games, a pinata, cake and ice cream, all in less than an hour.

Our dear niece Lizard is a huge Red Sox fan so we got tickets to tour Fenway Park as a surprise. Part of the surprise was also that Dave had accidentally said there were 8 of us, instead of 14, but whose counting?! There were almost 2 less of us as Millie kept having to go to the bathroom and in Boston, public restrooms are a rarity so she and I raced to a beer hall down the street and barely made the tour. I was ready to kill her until it occurred to me that she probably has a bladder infection and can't help it. We spent the rest of the day at Urgent Care and then buying gallons of cranberry juice. Poor thing.

Millie, Jonah, Flat Stanley, Maddie & Lizard at Fenway. Georgia was too busy listening to every single word the tour guide said to stop and be in a picture. I'm sure she spent the last two days regaling her friends with tidbits about the original color of the green monster and why the #42 is in blue when all the other retired numbers are in red.

I am now counting down the days to Spring Break when I can spend a good chunk of my day reading or sleeping or drinking Slurpees. My mother-in-law called to ask if we could celebrate Jonah's birthday while we're there. Inwardly I cringed but I know myself. Give me a couple weeks and I'll be stuffing another pinata and trying to find a good theme for the celebration.

Jingle Bells Batman Smells

2009-03-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

This morning as Dave was getting the girls out the door to school, I heard a loud groan and then Georgia's unmistakable "mmmoo" sound that she makes when she is trying to stifle her sobs. I raced down to see what was going on, and Dave motioned for me to go with Millie to get her coat on while he talked to Georgie.

Millie was in tears at this point. "Georgia's crying and she won't tell me why!" she almost shouted her betrayal. These two are 22 months apart and function as a pair, Laverne and Shirley, Ernie and Bert, Frodo and Sam, Thelma and Louise. I snuck back into the dining room and asked Dave what was up. Apparently Georgia went into the garage hunting for a scooter and came upon the giant cardboard box that contained the dollhouse they got for Christmas. From Santa.

My 9 year old looked me in the eyes and whispered in horror, "I know the truth. There is no Santa." This is the little girl that spent the better part of Christmas Eve writing a letter to Santa, asking thoughtful questions about his middle name, when his birthday was, and what were the reindeers' favorite treats. I hugged her fiercely and told her that Santa is part of the spirit of Christmas and that it's okay to choose to believe. Dave said there's magic on both sides of it: that now she could be part of the fun of helping with stockings. It felt so rushed, trying to assuage this loss of childhood.

It happened for Jonah much earlier. He was 6 or 7 and it was spring time and I had bought some plastic eggs. He stopped on the stairs and said, "There's no way a giant rabbit goes around taking baskets of candy to kids... And if the Easter Bunny isn't real, there's no way there's a tooth fairy... Oh no. Santa..." I just stood there watching these wonderful mythic icons of childhood fall like dominoes as he processed the logic of it all. For the next year whenever he said the name Santa, he'd make air quotes with his fingers. Jonah needed no comfort, just threatening. "If you tell your sisters, or even talk about this with ANY kid under the age of 12, you'll never get a single thing from 'Santa' again!" And Jonah has enjoyed the shift in role. He loves to help pick out trinkets for Easter Baskets and hide eggs. He seemed relieved in a way. He's logical, like Dave. Needs things to make sense. Be tangible.

But Georgia...ouch. She clearly needs some yuletide talk therapy that could not happen at 8:17 this morning. I watched her dry her eyes as they raced to the bus, Millie still puzzled and hurt at her other half's refusal to share her pain. During the day I imagined the dominoes falling in Georgia's mind. Santa gone. Mmmoo. Tooth Fairy? Mmmoo. The Giggling Leprechauns? Mmmoo (she even believes in the mythic holiday creatures our Irish neighbors dream up).

She had a friend over after school and then violin, homework, etc. We never had a second alone to talk. But at 9pm she snuck out of her room to find me. "Mom, Millie wants to know why I was crying this morning. I can't tell her. I can't. What do I say?" Our friend Rachel is visiting, and we just looked at each other. I had no idea what to tell her. She doesn't want to erase the sugarplums that dance in Millie's head. But this is her SISTER. Her BFF. She has to tell her something. So I handed Georgia a lie to give to her sister. "Tell her you were thinking about Emma, [Georgia's gerbil that died last month] that made you cry, but you don't want to talk about it." "But..." she stammered, knowing this was false. "It does make you cry when you talk about Emma. Just tell her." How do you explain that honesty is not always the best policy?

I kissed her off to bed and wanted to cry a little myself. I should have made time to have a private talk with her. I should have had a better response this morning. Dave and I have a pretty good standardized spiel for the sex talk, but not for Santa. I hate seeing them lose their faith in the magical, mystical aspects of childhood. I want my kids to believe in stuff, stuff that can't be seen or touched or proven but stuff that gives them hope and faith in things bigger and better than us. Because I want to. Sometimes I respond like Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street when it comes to the metaphysical: "I believe. I believe. It's silly, but I believe." Faith is fragile.

When I go upstairs to check on the kids before I go to bed, I know what I'll find. Jonah will be sprawled across his bed and if too much light leaks in as I open the door, he'll grumble until I restore the dark. Bea will be in her room, closet light on, waiting another hour or so to sneak into my bed, hoping Dave is too zonked to notice. And I'll bet that tonite Georgia will have left her bed to sleep with Millie, legs and arms entwined so that I can never separate one girl's limbs from another, just like the gerbil sisters sleeping in a furry pile in their cage. I'm sure of it. But I'm not sure what's going to be harder for Georgia, knowing St. Nick's secret, or having to keep it from her other half.

Mean Mommies Take Manhattan: Part 1

2009-03-10T09:53:00.001-07:00

Some girlfriends and I went to NYC this last weekend to celebrate 3 of our birthdays (I turned 30/11!). We had so many adventures it's hard to know where to start so I'm just going to hop to my favorite one and get to the rest at some future point in time (perhaps the 12th of never?).

We decided to be tourists and get tickets for one of those hop on and off double decker tour buses that schlep you around the city. On one particular leg of the journey (Empire State Building to Canal Street) we had a very informed guide whom I'll call Mr. White. Mr. White was 50ish with silver hair and everybody on the bus loved him--except me and 5 Indians tourists. When we got on the bus Mr. White didn't even ask us if we had tickets. He saw me fishing for mine and waved a hand as if to say, "That's okay, if you know where the stop is, then you must belong." I can't say why he bugged me other than I felt like he expected our full attention, like it was a scholarly lecture. If I had to cough I thought he might stop talking and give me that "yes missie, we're waiting for you!" look. I'm happy to hear about Daniel Burnham designing the flatiron building but if I want to chat with Denise about dinner plans, then I shouldn't have to do it stealth, should I?

And the nail in the coffin came when an Indian family got on board and sat down. Mr. White said to the man, "Do you have tickets?" "Yes," replied Mr. Brown. "Where are they?" said Mr. White. Pulling them out of his pocket, Mr. Brown held up the tickets, "Here they are" and goes to put them back. Not so fast. Mr. White, who has not asked to see a single person's ticket while we were on board motions for Mr. Brown to come back to him, "I'll need to see your ticket." The poor man was turning red and I was too--it was clearly a race thing. 5 white ladies get on and no tickets needed. But people of color? That's another story... I shook my head as Mr. Brown walked back to his seat.

Meanwhile, across the aisle and 3 rows back Lisa is eating up every word this guy says while simultaneously trying not to hurl. The woman behind her, bless her soul, was vomiting uncontrollably into a bag, leaning forward towards Lisa with every retch so that she could feel the vibrations. Just as Linda T. is a sympathetic cryer, and wells up every time someone so much as sniffles, Lisa is a sympathetic barfer as are her 6 kids. Not fun. At one stop, a man comes on to sell water and when he leaves, Mr. White escorts him down the steps (everyone is up top) and has to get off to let him pass. Next thing we know the doors are closed and we are off, leaving our guide in his dust. Now some of us think the driver got confused, and honestly thought Mr. White was on board. But others of us (me and the Browns) were thinking, I'll bet the driver has been itching to ditch Mr. White Supremacy.

Sande elbows Lisa and says, "Grab the mike!" Without hesitation, as if she's spent her whole life talking to crowds of people in high decibels, Lisa jumps into the tour guide seat, turns on the microphone and starts banging on the metal stairwell: "Hey driver!! You left the tour guide. You've gotta stop!" The driver slows down, Mr. White, out of breath and clearly pissed, comes within inches of the door...and the driver hits the gas and takes off again. I hate to admit it, but a thrill ran thru me. The entire bus jumped to their feet to see what would happen next.

At this point Lisa the Mom kicks in: "Mr. Bus Driver, our guide is not on board. He is chasing the bus and needs to be let on. Pull over right now. I am not joking." The bus keeps going, Mr White keeps running. Lisa smacks the side of the metal stair rail and demands that the driver stop the bus this instant. If the bus hadn't start to slow down, I swear she was going to go, "ONE. TWO. Don't make me say THREE...." While we waited for our guide to rejoin us, Lisa sat back and relaxed, having successfully negotiated with the errant bus driver, and made some observations about the architecture of the buildings around us, tossing off a joke or two, all the while chatting into the microphone like a pro.

After ripping the driver a new one, Mr. White gets back up top looking like his heart was going to stop after chasing us for about 3 blocks. As he reaches for the mike, Mr. Brown stands up, walks towards him and says, totally deadpan, "Do you have a ticket?" Mr. White sort of "ha has" and grabs the mike but Brown isn't done with him. "Where is your ticket?" Mr White pulls his I.D. badge out from his coat and Mr Brown steps forward: "I'm gonna need to see that." White's jaw dropped, but he held it out, and Brown said, "Oh okay, you're fine." He turned around to see me grinning from ear to ear and then gave me a giant high five before returning to his hysterically laughing family.

As much as some of us enjoyed Mr. White, we decided to get off at Canal Street to pee and shop. We do have 22 kids between the 5 of us, so our bladders aren't what they used to be (except for "camel bladder" who Kelly suffered thru endless bathroom breaks and suggested that maybe if we didn't all drink so much Diet Coke we could go two blocks without doing the potty dance). Lisa put a tip in the jar as we left, though I think she should have charged for the show.

One day of parking in the theatre district: $26
One ticket to the Empire State Building: $15
One 24 hour pass on the City Sights bus: $39
Watching your girlfriend hijack a doubledecker: priceless.

[one of these things is not like the other--no wonder our bladders were bursting]

[One of the many McD's we visited on our trip--steer clear of Burger King, skanky restrooms]

[Our new friend Rupert, one of the fun sights we saw, along with Angela "Murder She Wrote" Landsbury]

The Good the Sad and the Furry

2009-03-03T14:35:00.001-08:00

The Good: my birthday was this weekend and I had two nights of good food and good games.("Wise and Otherwise" is a crack up--sort of Balderdash with obscure proverbs that you have to finish, such as, "An old Japanese saying goes, 'By poking the bush....' "and the real ending is something about snakes. For real.) I also got some fun gifts. Here is a sampling:

The Sad: Georgia's gerbil Emma died Saturday morning. After chores, Zsa went to check on Emma and noticed she was barely breathing. Dave and I had resusitated the gerbils once before when they were sick, but sweet little thing died in my hands as I did rodent CPR (stroking her chest fur). Poor Georgia came unglued, then Millie, and Bea, not wanting to be left out, made herself cry too. "Emma was the firstest gerbil we ever had!" Wahhhhh! "Emma is a dead Emma!" Wahhhhh. When she had no more tears for Emma, Bea started contemplating other things that made her sad: "We have no more crackers and will have to go the the store to get some!" Wahhhhhhh. [here is Zsa with Emma last month]

The Furry: Gerbils are social creatures and the books say they need a companion to thrive, but introducing a new one is tricky. So we headed to our local Petco and talked to the lady who suggested we get two new young sisters, so that even if Minky rejects them they'll still have each other. Jonah picked out the one that looked like a miniature squirrell.

Georgia got one that looks like a chipmunk with a star on its forehead. She said to me, "When I can trick my mind into not thinking about Emma, I don't feel so sad." She named hers Sarah, and Jonah named his Casey in honor of the FBI handlers on "Chuck," mine and Joe's new favorite TV show.

Here is Millie with the survivor Minky. [Please check out Millie's front tooth that sticks STRAIGHT out and refuses to fall out. We've taken pliers to it and wiggled it to death and Thursday night I got out 3 kinds of thread and the damn root busted the thread. ] We were warned that the "old" gerbil will often reject the new ones and to introduce them slowly, having different cages, etc. Sweet Minky was delighted at her new playmates and got anxious when we took them out of her cage. So while there was no fighting amongst gerbils there was contention with the kids over how to lodge them and in whose room.

That afternoon the Snow girls came over to attend Emma's funeral. The weather was warm enough that I could dig a hole in the patch of ground next to big rocks where I have ground cover roses growing. Her coffin was a heart shaped pink box from the dollar section of Target and her shrowd was a pink napkin Parry gave me that Emma liked to shred. We all got teary. Georgia bawled.

When the 3 gerbils were still having a lovefest that evening, Dave took Bea and Millie back to Petco to even out the numbers. We purchased the last gerbil sister for Bea so there's a pairs in Joe's room, and a pair in Georgia & Millie. Bea is so excited that she has a gerbil and she can't stop talking about it: "I have a gerbil stister her name is Rhino she is orangey and soft but hers claws are scratchy like my mom's nails so I don't wanna hold Rhino my new gerby. She's orange." She here's a picture of Rhino and since Bea's too scared to hold her I'm adding one of Bea doing gymnastics. This is her version of a backbend which she calls a "bangaroo."

Thanks for sharing my happies and my sads.

Peloponnesian Food Fight

2009-02-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

Dave has a good friend who I also really like--except for when he throws dinner parties and then I call him the Food Nazi and I await in panic for my food assignment. Let's be clear, I have the palate of a 3rd grader and think of all lettuce that isn't iceberg or Romaine as "lawn clippings." If I have to I can eat anything--I slurped down sea slug in China and no one but Dave knew I was having an internal freak out. The truth is I am embarrassed by my unsophisticated palate but what's a girl to do when raw tomatoes make her gag?

The first time we went to the Chef's house, Dave told me we were assigned "Fruit--no, wait, I think he wants pears." I brought a lovely fruit salad with pears and raspberries. WRONG! The Chef had intended them to be served with fancy cheese and did NOT hide his displeasure at my food faux pas.

A couple years later we were again invited. This time the Chef sent an email and our assignment simply said "Starch." I wanted to die. It's deceptively simple. I knew I'd get laughed at if I brought any kind of potato or pasta. In desperation I called Becca and said, "Becca One Kenobi, you are my only hope." Even though she had company in town, she volunteered to be my "ghost chef" and made an amazing rice that everyone oohed and ahhhed over. In fact, it was a little too good and several people asked for detailed instructions on how to make it. The Chef must have known I'd faked it because he really grilled me: What KIND of rice had a I used? Were the peas fresh? And was it cinnamon or cardamom that was in there....I fumbled my way thru it, like when people ask Grandma Jean how she makes her jam and she starts rambling on about sugar and berries and meanwhile Dave is whispering, "Take a jar of Smuckers. Remove label with steam from tea kettle..."

So this year when Dave said we'd be going to the Chef's I insta-freaked and wondered what on earth I'd have to bring this time. But I was NOT prepared for the food assignments. I guess the Chef has learned that he has to be more specific in doling out assignments lest the pear fiasco of 2003 repeat itself. Here they are (I have changed the names):

"After much consideration, the menu committee has decided we will have beef stew for dinner on Saturday. Herewith the assignments:

· Anderson--hors d’oeuvres

· Sundahl--vegetable side dish: (“stew” will be Provencal in character so something quite green and full of flavor could be ideal)

· Barker--starch: (papperdelle [wide noodles] would be ideal; couscous would be fine…even rice, to appease “rice aficionados” who’ve lived in China)

· Metropolis--salad: (consistent with the new regime, we’re looking for diversity; it can be Mediterranean heritage but not from the Peloponnesus)

· bread and cheese: just part of the deal

· the Chef--dessert: (something small but very chocolate, I suspect) Let’s gather about 6:30 pm. Please bring some of your beverage of choice. "

In case you skimmed, please go back and reread the salad one. WHAT on earth is a Peloponnesian salad?! I sent the email off to Becca and called her to discuss my "green and full of flavor options" (and what does that have to do with Provencal stew?!). Poor thing was stumped when I ruled out asparagus (yucky and bitter), brussel sprouts (asparagus balls), and artichokes (big pokey asparagus). If I bring it, I have to be able to eat it. Her first suggestion was broccoli which I actually like, but unless we cooked it at the Chef's how to you keep it from being flaccid by the time you serve it? Sensing my growing angst, Dave asked the Chef which green and flavorful veggie HE recommended. He, like Becca, said broccoli but added that of course we'd have to steam it at his place.

Good. Broccoli. But I suspected regular old Star Market broccoli would not do. On Saturday I went to Wilson Farm where foodies get orgasms just looking at the produce. I walked up to someone in a green apron and said, "I need you to help me find the snootiest, most stuck up, fancy pants, hoity toity broccoli that you sell." Without batting an eye he shows me two contenders, broccoli raab and broccolini. He was pushing the raab which he said had a wonderfully bitter taste (the only bitter I like is in my chocolate chips), but also praised the broccolini which seems like what you'd get if a broccoli floret and an asparagus spear hooked up and had children. He assured me it had a mild taste so I bought $12 worth and hoped for the best.

The party was lovely. The Provencal stew was yummy (beef cooked in tangy sauce). The Chef was fun and gracious. Except when the poor Barkers brought boxed noodles. The Chef was not pleased and made a few comments. I contemplated coming to their defense, making some Peloponessus crack but in the end I just shut my trap and thanked Wilson Farm that this time I was not the target of his culinary wrath. I lie to myself and say that if we are ever assigned hors d'oeuvre, I'll bring a can of Hormel and brick of Velveeta and make my famous white trash chip dip. I won't. But I'd love to see the Chef's face if I did.

Gorgeous George Turns 9

2009-02-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

Last week Georgia turned 9 and I wanted to toss out there some of my favorite Georgia pictures and stories. Though Georgia's officially a US citizen, her true nationality is "Is-fraili." Not only does she suffer from migraines, she is also the most susceptible to any bugs going around. She woke up Sunday with a fever and at 10 am she jumped up from the couch saying, "I'm gonna barf!" but never made it past the kitchen. I threw the trash can under her as she puked her guts out. Bea was sitting at the counter eating cereal watching all this and when Georgia finished, Bea clapped her hands and said, "Do it again! Do it again!" That said, she's a model patient and I've had the time of my life lounging around with her watching fun movies. Today I showed her "Little Women" and we both cried when Beth died.
Here's "Zsa" with her favorite Uncle Mio.

When she was this age I'd ride around on my bike with her in the attached seat and she'd kick my behind and shout: "Faster! Faster!" She would also beg me for every purse she saw when we'd be out and tell me she hated me when I wouldn't buy them for her.

Georgia was the BEST baby: a great nurser, slept like Rip Van Winkle, easy going. My other 3 are dogs: always in my face, slobbering on me, needing constant attention and affection. Georgia is a cat. Very independent. She chooses when she'll curl into your lap and pur. We have to be mindful of how self sufficient lest she be lost in the shuffle. At 5 she made lunch for herself and 3 friends while I was doing laundry. I came upstairs and they each had a toasted cheese tortilla and a cup of milk. Here she is in front of our Beech Street house eating chysthanthemums.

She loves to collect things and put those things in other things (in a box in a bag in a box in a bag). Of course she adores snails because they come with their own little container. And that smile? My sister Angela's.

Georgia right before her first birthday between ear infections.

Millie's arrival brought out the bossy in Georgia. How thrilling to have someone to (literally) push around. When she screams "Mill-Lay!" in anger, it is pure profanity. She may pretend otherwise but Georgia is Millie's biggest fan. Becca S. has tons of funny stories about Georgia. My favorite is when Ellie did something that upset Georgia (probably read a book or something while George was still wrestling with the alphabet). Whatever it was, Ellie had NOT done it maliciously but Georgia knew just how to hurt a girl. She looked at the bunkbed and asked Ellie where she slept. Pause. "The bottom." "Well," Georgia replied, "I'm starting a top bunk bed club and fraidy cats like you can't be in it!" I have to say I like her fiestiness because it doesn't cross to cattiness and she is one loyal little buddy.

Whoever said girls were made of sugar and spice never met Georgia. She is made of snails and dead birds like the one she has here and kept for a while then wrote all sorts of stories about her "pet bird" Joey, whose carcass she carted around for days... She and her buddies currently play "Chipmunk Hotel" at recess. I've never asked too many questions because I'm afraid carrion may be involved.

One of these things is not like the other... What I love love love about my Georgia is she does not follow the pack. Here we have Pullen & Parry Princesses and what does Zsa do? Put herself in a burka. Miss Taliban 2007?

She eats snow. But won't eat ice cream. Her favorite foods are mac & cheese, brownies, carrots, apples and Cheezits. Without a weekly dose of McNuggets, she'd be a vegetarian.
For ages Jake & Aidan were her two best friends. One day while upstairs on the couch with Aidan, the two were waiting for Jake to arrive for playgroup. But when the door sounded, Georgia turned to Aidan and hissed, "Quick hide!!! It's my husband!" Dave loved that story and told it to everyone he worked with. To this day I'm sure they all think I must have been stepping out on Dave.

I love my Dodgie, my Zsa, Georgie One Kenobi, Zsazerbyjani, Gurj, Georgia Burnham Rose!!!

Holiday Highlights

2009-01-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

While there are still a few vestiges of Christmas past lurking in our house (Playskool's Virgin Mary was hiding in my bathroom), things are for the most part put away and back to normal. The consensus is that the holidays were good: everybody got stuff they liked; there was lots of yummy food around; nobody got lice.

And we even squeezed a bit of religion into the season. The Sunday before Christmas church was cancelled due to a storm and so the Kellys trekked across the street to join us for our own mini-service. Jim and Dave slept thru most of it. Denise brought her costumes so we could do the nativity. After fighting tooth and nail for the role of Mary, Maren got cold feet so Dave graciously stepped in. He did a fine job but perhaps got too realistic during the stable birth scene when he labored on all fours for a bit then asked Jonah/Joseph and Shepard/Dallin to hold his legs while he pushed.

[sleeping daddies]

[the Virgin prior to going into labor]

King Bea

Though Dave did get a concussion on Christmas Eve which honestly, irritated me. [It was reminiscent of the eve of our wedding when he sprained his ankled playing basketball and limped thru our wedding and honeymoon. The temple workers would see us coming, see Dave's laboured, dragging walk and they'd all pat my arm, like wasn't I the sweetest sister to marry this "special" man and kept quoting that part in Samuel when the Lord says not to look at people's outward appearance but on their hearts.] I know it's not rational--or kind--for that to irritate me, but his Grandma was here and she is such a worrier and I knew I'd NEVER hear the end of it. We went to Lisa & Dave B.'s and Gr Jean spent the whole nite, not checking on Dave, but following me around, asking me to check on Dave. I'm in the kitchen cutting hunks off Costco's flying saucer size pizza's to get them into the ovens and she's there. "Miss Heather, do you think Dave is all right?" "He's fine. Go check on him." "Where is he?" "In the living room." She hobbles off (one knee's been replaced; the other needs replacing). She hobbles back. "Miss Heather, he's not there." Hoping the pizza's won't burn in my absence, I hurry to the living room where Dave is sitting, plain as day. It continued like this all night. Georgia & Ellie are playing "Good King Wencaslas" on violin and she's tapping me on the back to check on Dave. She got frustrated with my lack of worry and enlisted our host, Dave B., to call everyone to attention so he could pray for Dave. Poor Dave B. was so not thrilled about it, but bless him, he did it anyway.

[Ellie & Georgia]

Grandma is big into prayer and worrying which is great because she can then spend all her time either worrying or praying about the things that worry her. Danny S. came over with his father-in-law Buzz to talk to Steph, a publicist, about a book he's writing. But Grandma gets it in her head that they are there to pray. They settle down in the living room and I get the kids in the kitchen and try to get Grandma in the kitchen so that they can get down to business. But Grandma won't leave. I'm making pancakes and keep hollering for her to come help me. She keeps taking over the conversation to talk about her aches and pains. Then she walks over to Dan and Buzz and says, "Will you pray for my neck? It's been making me crazy." At this point I shout, "Grandma!!! Get in the kitchen now!" Stephanie must have clarified the purpose for their visit at the same time because she wandered laughing into the kitchen, "I thought they were here to pray, so I wanted them to add my neck to the list."

Every year when she comes she has to make jello and every year I try to make it palatable. Last year I had fresh raspberries and whipped cream. But she doesn't want that. And this year I surrendered. I bought her strawberry jello and canned cranberries and pineapple and pecans and mandarin oranges and didn't even add those extra cups of water to her mix that is so high on jello/fruit low on water that the sugar crystals never quite dissolve and one bite can put you in a diabetic comma. I had to leave the room as she made it. But to show my love for this wonderful crazy bird every night before I went to bed I took the bowl out and scooped some down the disposal so that she would think someone besides herself was eating the swill.

Jonah was thrilled that we got a huge dumping of snow the weekend school let out. He and some friends made a giant mound on our front lawn, and then carved out an entrance and a sleeping cavity. Dave was so delighted that he got into the project of building a "quinzee" and the two of them slept out there in the middle of a storm. Poor Jonah. In the morning he looked terrible. "Too cold, huh?" I said. "No. I was plenty warm. Pop just snores so loud I couldn't sleep. So half way thru the night I turned around but he snored so loud that my feet vibrated and kept me awake." Welcome to my world, little man.

[Cave Sweet Cave]

Jonah also had another rite of passage during winter break. I was running errands and got a call from Dave, informing me that Jonah had broken a window. He was trying to knock icicles off the back awning, threw a frozen tennis shoe at them and it busted both panels of the window above the kitchen sink. Jonah was terrified of my wrath and was just falling apart. Honestly, I am flattered that I inspire that kind of fear in my kid. Dave put him on the phone and this is what I said, "Hey Joe, you know my party philosophy: it's not a party until someone spills and someone cries. Well, here's another thing I believe: it's not a boy's childhood until he breaks a window. Welcome to your childhood." Poor guy was so relieved his Mean Mama didn't open up a giant can on him, he just sobbed.

One of my favorite holiday memories is ABBA related. I got Dave a Blu ray for Christmas. He was happy...expect that now the picture is so great, it really makes the sound seem sucky. Enter Jeff and ten thousand trips to Best Buy and Radio Shack and as many hours in the basement and now we have this whole home theatre thing going on. (I need to say that to help me get on board I was promised VHS capability, and it's never happened--I know I'm a techno-tard, but damn it if DVD's don't get scratched and become useless after a month!) I invited the Snow girls over and their 3 and my 3 set up camp in the basement to watch a movie. They love music and getting their groove on so I put in Mamma Mia and went thru all the songs for them. They went nuts. Pretty soon all 7 of us are bouncing around the room to "Dancing Queen." It made me so happy. The funniest part was when Piece Brosnan started "singing" and Bea clapped her hands on the side of her head and screamed, "OWIE OWIE MY EARS!"

[Dancing Queens]

Speaking of Bea, she is potty trained. Unlike our other kids who will relieve themselves anytime, anywhere, Bea has always demanded "faux privacy" while defecating. If you ever saw her crawl under a table, go behind curtains, or in some other way "hide," you knew exactly what she was doing. And when she started to talk, the phrase "DON'T SEE ME!" accompanied her hiding. This is fine and dandy if we're at home, where I have to help her onto the potty, get banished from the bathroom only to be summoned 30 seconds later: "Mama, now you can see me." But in public this is trickier. Last week we were in Panera and she informed me she needed to go potty. #2. So I get her in the stall and on the throne and then she starts shouting: "Get out! Don't see me!" So I leave the stall, pull and hold it closed with me hand over the top. "Mama!! Move your hand! Go away!" I try to explain that the door will open but she keeps insisting I "Go see Lisa" whose waiting at the table, as if I'm going to leave a 3 year old alone in a public bathroom. But when I let go of the door and it swings in a few inches, she flips. Somehow between her need to both have the door closed and not have my hand on the door, she evacuates her bowels and is suddenly all sweetness, "Mama, you can see me now." Sigh.

[Bea sporing her big girl panties]

[Eloise & Cece decorate a gingerbread house]

So we've concussed ourselves and prayed and made igloos and shattered windows and discoed and potty trained and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

The Ritzes v. The Hobos

2008-12-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: The following events are true. Some names and details of this story have been altered to keep people I love from getting pissed at me. If I didn't care about them so much I'd rat out all the poop-heads who deserve outting.

Once upon a time my mother-in-law remarried a wonderful man named Russ. His mom, Namie (pictured above at the wedding) and her husband owned a lovely yellow lake house (YLH) in New England. They bought the former hunting lodge ages ago and when Namie's uber wealthy brother-in-law, Mr. Ritz saw it, he and his kids also bought properties along the same neck of land. But the way they acted, you’d think they had been the first humans to settle the lake and condescended to let Namie and crew visit it as well. Every summer all the Ritz clan descend. Over time they bought up all the lots in that area to accommodate their ever growing families. For as long as I’ve known him, Russ has taken Namie to the YLH each August. Given our close proximity, we started going up in 2001 and have come to dearly love Namie and our time at the YLH.

The house is huge, charming and drafty and sitting on the best spot of the entire lake. Each stairrailing is intricately carved, the bathroom fixtures are antique, the back porch is to die for. But the kitchen floor also slopes, it gets mice (and chipmunks) and needs lots of expensive upkeep. A Ritz cousin, Ellen & husband Don, wanted to buy the place from Namie. Russ & sibs agreed to sell it but the contract stipulated that as long as Namie lived, she and her kids could use the YLH every August. She was already old and frail at this point. The Ritz's agreed, thinking within a year or two she'd kick the bucket and they could tear down the place and built a lovely McMansion for their Ritzy offspring, and in the meantime they rent it out during June & July at a hefty price.

Years go by and Namie is not dying. My mother-in-law provides such excellent care that Namie thrives. She has a stroke and dementia, but dammit, come August she's desperate to get to the Lake where she sits on the back porch facing the lake, flips thru magazines, and imagines she is with her husband and all her kids and grandkids. The ritzier Ritz's always visit, but to us Sundahls, there seems to be an air of condescension in it all. Like this wing of the Ritz's isn't Ritzy enough. When they come over, they don't knock; just waltz in like they own the place (which I guess they sort of do, but come on!). When we wonder onto their side of the neck, they slow their cars down, ask us who we are and their neon blond children look at our kids like they might have lice. Or scabies. Year after year this happens no matter how many times we are introduced.

Two summers ago we departed for the YLH with heavy hearts. Within 24 hours my dear friend Lisa has just escaped dying in childbirth, Millie almost caught her bed on fire, Russ got a call that his grandson has been diagnosed with a tumor, and the local cops phoned to say that Namie had escaped our house at 5am, wandered down our street and was trying to get to "a lunch appointment with her bridge club." We all drove to the lake in a bit of a stupor. While my in-laws stopped at the market to get supplies, Steph & Cece & Ousie, Aunt Sue, and I & my four made our way to the house as Millie had started hurling and needed to lie down.

We pull down the long drive and see that there are cars in the garage. There are bikes on the lawn and we can hear laughter in the house. We call Russ and meet on his cousin Ellen and Don's front lawn. We suspect we've been screwed. We talk in hushed voices as Russ calls Don at his home a few states away and Don informs Russ that he's rented the YLH. You can see Russ go thru several of the stages of grief: shock, denial, anger. "But it's AUGUST, " he says. "The house is ours in August."

Don goes on some tirade about how this year August first is on a Wednesday and if they hadn't rented it for that whole week, they would be out $3000. Plus, Don said Russ was supposed to call and say whether or not they intended to come and no one had called. Russ is trying so hard not to lose it. "Don, my brother told you that was a silly formality. He told you that long as mother is alive, we'll be there. She's alive. We're here. This is NOT acceptable." Don is getting snotty now and says there's nowhere to move the people, even though they own all sorts of properties around the lake.

Steph, Sue and I are agog at all this. These people are bagillionaires and they are willing to screw family and break a contract over 3k? Russ is losing it. Losing patience, losing face, losing dignity as we are all sitting on a front lawn, sweating and tired and in Millie's case, hurling into a zip lock bag. Steph and I nurse our babies on the grass.

At this point Ellen's mother Margaret, Namie's sister-in-law waltzes over from her 8000 foot mansion to greet us. Well, Namie and Russ. The rest of us are treated as lawn gnomes, best ignored. Dava says, diplomatically, that there must have been a mix up because Don & Ellen have renters in Namie's house. "That's odd," Margaret replies. "Ellen mentioned to me that you were arriving on the first as usual." So they KNEW we'd be showing up but just didn't care?

It is the hottest day of summer so far and we are all desperate for shade and water. We are praying that Margaret will notice this and offer a little help. As if on cue, she says,
"My goodness. Why are you sitting on the lawn? Come on over to my house." Russ demurs a bit. We have babies and pukers. "Well," he pauses, "there are so many of us..." "Oh my no. I didn't mean for you to come into my house--you can use the porch."

Sue elbows me and says, "We rank somewhat higher than gypsies, but lower than hobos. This is getting good!" Stephanie is fuming. I can see her pissed-o-meter getting higher and higher. Stephanie does not take crap. And because she is registering our collective outrage, it means I don't have to. Sue doesn’t enjoy crap, but will let it roll off her back most of the time. Sometimes I push back, but on this day I was numb. I kept picturing Lisa in the hospital bleeding out and that kid with a tumor and Namie miraculously being found wandering around a busy street with no ID on her and I felt like I was having an out of body experience, like it was all happening to someone else and I was watching it from a few feet away. I did not rise above (when do I ever do that?!), I was in a state of shock that looked like Zen.

Meanwhile Dava takes Namie to Margaret's and Russ wanders over to talk to the caretaker of the Ritz's properties, Jed, a man in his early 50s who seems not surprised at all by the turn of events. Many phone calls are made. Margaret has better things to do so she makes Dava and Namie come back to the lawn. The house is unlocked and uninhabited, but we are not yet green lighted to wait inside.

One idea that is floated is that we stay in Juliette's house. Juliette is a cousin to Russ and Ellen and has a huge manse just a few houses down. Russ confers with someone and we are told that we will be permitted to stay at Juliette's place until Saturday when the YLH guests leave. We are a bit surprised at this since we couldn't even go in Margaret's house. Then it comes out that Juliette's house is slated for demolition. We think this is because her younger sister Maren just built a brand new huge monstrosity down the road and so Juliette needs to tear hers down and start over so that she too can have a shiny new house. Russ relays to us that since the house is going to be torn down, they said we can stay there since we can't really hurt it. So are we hobos, or an 80s rock band set to smash furniture and punch holes in walls?

Whatever the case, we are so relieved to have things settled and a place to stay that we pile back in our cars and head over to Juliette’s. Just as we start to pull away, Margaret comes RUNNING out her house, flags us down, and informs us that Juliette has changed her mind and would prefer if we did not stay at her place. We are not good enough for a condemned dwelling? I start to giggle.

Back to the lawn. More phone calls. I start chanting "I hate rich people" because it all seems so ridiculous, so petty and so pretentious and so stupid for people to act like this. And the only reason I can come up with for them to feel justified in their behavior is their wealth, like that's a license to crap on people. Russ is a Ritz after all, but clearly not the same category of Ritz, perhaps because there aren’t enough zeros in his bank account, or perhaps because he’s married into a non-Mormon-blue-blood-clan. It’s like they are the white meat Ritz’s, and we are the dark meat version, related but clearly inferior. Internally I am starting to feel again and but it's still more shock than anger so I am able to maintain a calm facade for the kids who are getting hungry and very grumpy at this point. "I hate rich people."

Meanwhile, Namie is getting more and more agitated. Remember that her day started at 5am. "Where is my house? Why won’t' you people take me to my house? Give me those car keys and I'll take us there!" Dava, the queen of kindness is starting to lose it too, going on this endless dementia loop with Namie over and over.

Once again we are told that things are settled, that we can stay at Don and Ellen's until Saturday when the other guests leave. It was always such the obvious solution but after spending 2 hours on someone's lawn you start to realize they really really really don't want you in their house. So we move our stuff in and clean it first. Don't ask me why. I'm not sure.

A half hour later as we are on the back porch Jed informs us that Don has arranged to move the YLH people to another location starting tomorrow, Thursday (so there WAS an alternate rental after all). They'll get cleaners in once they go and then we can move in. We order Chinese and wait for the next installment because at this point there have been so many plans we know more are coming.

Sure enough, Jed and another guy arrive and approach me, Steph, and Sue with the very creepy proposition, "How'd you gals like to earn a little extra cash?" And he says it with a lude smile on his face, like he's picturing Sue doing a pole dance. None of us can think of a response to that but he goes on anyway because of course we are the kind of "gals" who'd do anything for extra cash. His bosses don't even want us in a condemned house so we must be desperate. "The people at the yellow house are packing up as we speak, but there's no way we can get cleaners in tonite, and maybe not even tomorrow. But if you ladies wanted to make some good money you can go clean it yourselves right now and move in tonite." He smiles really big like he’s offered a kid a lollypop.

I thought that Stephanie had reached her limit on the lawn, and then on the deck when her daughter pooped and we are all desperately cleaning it up as if it's a symbol of our defiling the Ritz fancy pants home, but those were just warm ups to what I could see about to boil over. I leapt up and said to Jed, "Sue and I would love to go clean right this minute." Sue and I ran to the car and speed to the YLH. We knew this whole thing had to be over. For furious Stephanie. For confused Namie. For humiliated Russ. For barfing Millie. For angry but I'm not going to show it Dava. For exhausted beyond belief me who just kept thinking about Lisa's near death and I just need this day over so we can start fresh the next day NOT at the Ritz's where every finger print must be instantly erased lest we taint their abode.

So we clean. We wash. We launder. We scrub and wipe and finally were actually able to get the kids and Namie settled not too much past bedtime. Namie was delighted to be back in her home. She may have forgotten who we are, but she knew that yellow house the minute we pulled into the long drive.

Namie died this last week at 92. She held out that long due in good measure to the loving care of Dava & Russ. She passed in her sleep and while most of us were reflecting on the great life she’s lived, I’d bet anything that a certain faction of the Ritz family is jumping for joy that they can finally tear down the old lodge and put something garish in its place. I just hope they build a big porch so that if we hobos ever go up to visit they’ll have a place to put us.

The Millerific Millicent

2008-12-11T08:29:00.000-08:00

My sweet Camille turns 7 today and is still as snugly as the day she was born. She was so thoughtful too in timing her arrival. I was teaching some writing classes at BU and my last day was December 10. I came home, filed away the grades, painted my toes and said to my huge belly, "Okay, NOW you can come," and went to bed. The next morning I awoke in labor and we raced to the hospital, leaving Joe & Georgia with Sande. Dave was so used to going to the airport that he nearly missed our exit. I looked up from puking (I hurl during transition) and screamed "FENWAY!" I closed my eyes as he skidded two lanes across Storrow Drive to just barely make our exit.

Nicknames: Millie, Mills, Judge Mills Lane, The Judge, Mildred, Millicent, Mao-Mao, Mao-ey, Chairman Mao, Me-Too Millie, Dolphin, Turtle

Here she is at Lake Winnepesauke trying to steal my Coke. She has always had a thing for bubbly brown water. She is like me in other ways too.

Millie has a huge gap between her front teeth and for years she told everyone she had lost a tooth because she is so determined to be like her big sister. Now those two teeth are loose and I know it'll break my heart a little when that Dave Letterman gap goes away.

Despite some fighting, Georgia & Camille are best friends. They share a room and sometimes get mad at each other and one leaves to sleep elsewhere. But within 20 minutes, one or both begs for a reunion. "I just can't sleep without Millie in here," Georgia will sob.

Millie is a superstar with Bea. Jonah will babysit, Georgia will roll her eyes and bring me a diaper if I threaten her, but Millie is truly a friend to Bea. She is solicitous and inclusive (mostly) and willing to do things Bea wants to do. It's been so hard for Bea and me to have Mills in school full day. Bea would give her last M&M to Millie. And Millie would deserve it.

I love this picture of Millie. She has always been so at home in the water and loves spending time at the beach. She swims like a fish and dives like a seal and isn't afraid to get filthy and gross. She kicks butt.

Funny story: Recently Millie has been bringing home a series of books about Rainbow Fairies. The books are simple, two girls have to find all the fairies to restore the rainbow so the whole book is just the girls searching for a fairy. After we finished, our conversation went like this:

Georgia: Mom, when they found that sparkling stream? I kept thinking, the fairy must be in there.

Me: Me too.

Georgia: And when they saw that Queen Bee, I was thinking it was the yellow fairy in disguise.

Me: Me too! And then when they saw the golden honey, I thought the fairy was hiding in there.

Georgia: I thought the same thing.

Millie: Know what I was thinking during that whole book? Nothing. [she smiles smugly] Absolutely NOTHING.

I love this girl. She brings our family such joy.

Belmont Ward Prom: The Supremacy of Cookies

2008-12-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

Before I had even completed the move to Belmont 12 years ago, I had heard about the annual wreathmaking party and what a huge deal it was. It is such a big deal that the chair of it is sometimes released from any other calling; it is such a big deal that it takes months to prepare for and has hundreds of sub-committees; it is such a big deal that one woman made a 4 foot replica of the Boston Temple out of gingerbread and even had melted candy to replicate the stained glass; it is such a big deal that disagreements over it has created animosity between former friends and the Belmont and Arlington wards. It is such a big deal that Dave has dubbed it Belmont Ward Prom.

Every year we are told we must scale back and make it more simple, and every year people try to do it, only what part do you cut back on? It's like a hostess' Sophie's choice: do you cut back on food, or decorations? Last year the fire department even tried to rein us in, making us take out a live Christmas tree and hanging lights. But wreathmaking, like charity, never faileth and this year's was as big and beautiful and fun as ever. My take is, nobody MAKES you go coo coo bananas in your part of the party. If you decide to write a new Christmas carol for it, fine. If you have to cut out life size silhouettes of the Nativity, go right ahead. (But I do draw the line on edible temples.)

Take me for example. I enjoy the pomp and circumstance, but I also am happy with mini quiche from Costco so I can go either way. This year I was in charge of setting up the gym which involves miles of rosin paper rolled and taped to the floor and onto 25 table. I thought I was doing an awesome job until one of my OCD committee members informed me that my tables were not aligned and could something PLEASE be done about that or it might reflect poorly on all of us. So I sighed and straightened the outliers but left it at that. Go rock in a corner if it bugs you that much.

But I was also asked by Coco, who headed up desserts, if I'd make some cut out shortbread cookies. I did research on what kind of royal icing to use, made sure I had 3 lbs of the right kind of butter (sweet cream unsalted), and made 10,000 gorgeous little snowflakes. (Did you know that dragees, those little edible silver balls are practically outlawed and can only be bought from shady dealers on the Internet? Hoard them if you have them.) Decorating alone took me 7 hours. Nobody made me add piping and sugar crystals etc. etc. It might be because I am such a mediocre cook that I am so uptight about my cookies. (Please let my one superior area shine!!!) But it's more likely that I just love cookies so darn much.

Cookies are the appetizers of dessert. A little bit of this and that you can try without feeling guilty if you don't like it. So you take a bite of a cookie, discover it has walnuts (nasty!), and you casually set it aside. Plus you get a variety of flavors without having to OD. And there are so many possibilities. Tonite there were carrot/orange cookies, lemon shortbread, carmel/chocolate, meringue, ginger-molasses, spritzer, Snickerdoodles (yum!), pumpkin, and on and on. I didn't try them all but even if I had, I'm still convinced it would be less calories than say, cheesecake. Finger foods rock. I enjoy bars, but again, after two bites I'm ready to move on and feel stuck. Don't get me wrong. I love me some cake. But my friends, cake is a commitment. I cannot in good conscience take a piece of cake (which are usually pre-cut and larger than I want), have a bite, decide it's not going to do it for me, and move on to a different cake. That's just bad behavior and so wasteful (says the daughter of parents raised during the depression). I am happy to practice monogamy in love, but not with dessert. And as far the environment goes, cake requires a plate and a fork that need washing or tossing. But a cookie my friend? No utensils required. Maybe not even a napkin. Now that's living.

Whipped Shortbread - Coleen M. Low via K. Low Burns

1 lb butter at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup corn starch (yes, corn starch)
3 cups flour

Mix w/ mixer. If using cookie cutters, be generous w/ flour for rolling pin & surface. Don’t roll thinner than ¼” or they’ll get too crispy.

Cook for 24 min at 300. Watch for bottom edges to turn brown.

Bloggle Bloggle!

2008-11-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

Happy thanksgiving my friends. I write this from Albany, NY, home of...my brother Lee and family. My mom is here too.

Here are some of my favorite Thanksgiving memories:

-As a kid, all the family would congregate at 333 Dawson in Glendora, California for a huge feast at Grandpa Oscar's. Often the kids' table is the sucky place to be, the red-headed step child of tables. But in this case it was the ONLY place to be. We were set up in the 3 season porch and left to our own devices. Every finger was covered in black olives and mayhem and knock knock jokes and armpit farts ruled the day. Oscar could magically cook a 30lb turkey in 3 hours, there was jello without nuts, at least 5 flavors of pie. I could count on endless games with Onry & Robinhood.

-When we were a little older and the Mc's had moved to Utah, we rotated Thanksgivings with our sisteresque cousins the Bodens. Mom always made turkeys out of mesh & candy corn. I do it now with my guys. Best lesson learned from GiGi? Don't mix your pie flavors.

-Our first year in Phoenix, Grandma Jean & Grandpa Larry came from Denver & Scott & Kerry from SLC. I awoke on Thanksgiving morning to find half the contents of my fridge on the counter and when I opened the fridge, EVERY BOWL I owned was in there, filled to the brim with jello. Strawberry jello with walnuts and cranberries and shredded carrots and cans of fruit coctail. It was my worst nightmare but I could not stop laughing. This has happened to me every holiday we do with Grandma Jean. She needs her some jello.

-Another Grandma Jean memory: one year we flew out there on Thanksgiving. We arrive and are served stale blueberry muffins she has shoved in her purse from her last trip to the Country Buffet. No turkey. No mashed potatoes. Just stale muffin.

-The year we were in China was a wonderful feast. There was no turkey readily available (turkey in Chinese is "fire chicken" btw) so one of our students whose parents had a meat business told us they could locate a turkey. They showed up with gizzards and maybe a wing. Luckily we had also roasted chickens. My family always had lemon merangue but there's no lemons in Northern China. So we made an orange merangue pie. Dave and I were so sore after making that pie. We had to whip the duck egg whites by hand for AGES to get it stiff as we were without an electric mixer. Our British friends hosted the event and had a huge banner up that read: "Merry Thanksgiving all Ye Colonists!"

-As my brother Lee is in Abany, we get together for holidays from time to time. Lee & I always make the mashed potatoes and gravy and always say the same bad puns every year. Our all time favorite: as I start cooking the drippings in the pan, Lee announces that I will "rue the day." After that all the jokes are just gravy until we start to talk turkey.

Happy holidays and if you're not in a turkey coma by tonite, you did something wrong.

Go Team Hobos!!!

2008-11-25T11:49:00.000-08:00

All the 6th graders at Chenery Middle School have to do community service. It's a great opportunity for kids, and I wanted it to be meaningful for Jonah. His friend Bekkah is volunteering at a nursing home, and other kids are working at a food pantry. I thought about taking him to a soup kitchen, but they can be so depressing and I'm not sure Jonah is ready for that.

I went to a soup kitchen once and haven't quite recovered. Although that's more because of my dad than any of the people getting a meal. Here is my account that I shared in my eulogy at dad's funeral: 'My favorite food story with dad took place on their mission to inner city Detroit. They were scheduled to do their weekly shift at the soup kitchen and mom insisted that I go with my father, feigning fatigue, shoving us out the door. We get there, in the middle of the ghetto, with all manner of homeless people from the purely down and out to junkies and hobos. As the people came down the line, dad would greet each one uniquely, such as “Yo brother, what’s up?” or “Word to your mother” or “Give me five my man,” with accompanying hand gestures he’d probably memorized from thugs on Law & Order. I couldn’t watch. I admit I switched to dish duty so that I wouldn’t have to witness the looks on the faces of the people that my sweet dad was trying so hard to connect with. Or watch someone stab him. Truly the Lord was watching over him and keeping him safe.'

Then I thought about the Special Olympics. The preschool & elementary school Jonah went to have been "integrated," meaning the kids with special needs aren't segregated to separate classes but blended in with the "normal" kids (really, who is "normal?"). And Jonah has always been drawn to these kids (or vice versa). One time in first grade he went to a party for a girl with cerebral palsy and when I got there I realized he was the only one there without a handicap (or at least without one recognized by the board of education). I got all verklempt watching Jonah in the midst of a water fight. And thru my tears I couldn't tell who was "special" and who wasn't. And when I was pregnant with Bea and we anticipated some type of birth defect, I used to lay awake at night and wonderful what event my little girl would participate in at the Special Olympics. PF has volunteered several times, Ray Ray & Boo ran the bocce ball tournament one year, and back in our BYU days, Dave, his brother Scott & I helped with some Provo based events (the highlight for me was that Scott put "Bob Frapples" on his name tag). So this is a cause that's near and dear to us in a roundabout way and that's why I encouraged Jonah to do something for the Special Olymics.

So Jonah has created Team Hobos to participate in a 5k on December 6th. Jonah says, "If anyone wants to join our team I'd love having more people to walk with us or you can go to the website and donate to the Games. Go Special Needs!"

https://www.kintera.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=273909&lis=1&kntae273909=37CDA6E3D76F4198B7A1F9CEF89B82F1&supId=0&team=3271389&cj=Y

My Mom's Orange Rolls

2008-11-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

So this past week I was so honored to have one of my recipes featured on my dear foodie friend Becca's blog and thought I'd share her post. She is a really gifted chef, and since my idea of hot breakfast is chocolate milk warmed up in a sippy cup, I think my reluctance to share this recipe is understandable...

Becca writes:

I believe in a lot of things. I believe in being nice. I believe in forgiveness. I believe in Hot Breakfasts. As my daughter G used to say, "for real life, I do." However, mornings are tight at our house. The bathroom is in heavy demand, people are practicing instruments, almost all major appliances are up and running. Speaking of running, I am usually back from my run and instead of running on the street, by 7:30am I am running around my house barking orders to play the right note, start the dishwasher, or get out of the bathroom. So, given the morning craziness, my strong belief in Hot Breakfasts suffers dearly. Enter Fake Cinnamon Rolls.

My dear friend H introduced these to me a few years ago. She brought this towering gooey mess of Orange Rolls to Easter Dinner. I couldn't stop eating them. I took four just for myself. When my daughter asked me if there were any more of H's orange rolls, I lied and said, "I don't think so", when in fact there were about seven left. I wanted them all for myself. Whenever somebody reached for one, I gave their hand a dirty look. I resented H for not making these sooner, and I told her so. She said, "well, I didn't think you made things out of a can." "What?" I replied. "These are just canned biscuits dipped in butter, sugar and orange peel, then baked in a bundt pan." "Oh.", I humbly replied.

Fast forward a few years later. I make these fake cinnamon/orange rolls all the time. When I have an extra fifteen minutes in the morning, I pop these puppies in the oven and wha-la, the girls treat themselves to a yummy breakfast dessert (post scrambled eggs, mind you). And if any of you are grossing out that I in fact use biscuits from a can, too bad. I guess that means you can't come over and try one. Just kidding. I said I believe in forgiveness, and for real life, I do.

Marilyn's Orange Rolls (including a cinnamon roll variation)

3 cans prepared biscuits --Pillsbury Biscuits (buttermilk)

1/2 cup butter, melted

3/4 cup sugar

grated rind of one orange

Mix butter, sugar, and rind. Dip biscuits in mix, then stand on end around greased bundt pan. Pour extra mix on top (I add a bit of the orange's juice as well). Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.

For Fake Cinnamon Rolls, I use 1 teaspoon of cinnamon instead of orange rind. I also use 1/2 cup white sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar, but be sure to watch closely because the brown sugar causes potential gooey-ness to drip over the pan.

Finally, I don't use all 3 cans of biscuits for my girls in the morning, I reduce the whole recipe and use one can, and bake it in any sort of small baking dish. Yummy.

Best Witches

2008-11-03T14:39:00.001-08:00

Several years ago my grandparents gave me a card that said, "The top 3 Reasons Why Halloween is the Best Holiday: You get to dress up, you get candy & no relatives come to visit." The wisdom of the aged.

I declared this a no new costume year and I basically stuck to it. Jonah was...I'm not sure what. He picked the canes up at a yard sale (like his mother, he's a big believer in having a "spare" which he loaned to Alex). He and some buddies got into the spirit of things with cans of glow in the dark silly string. If nobody answered, he'd spray a frowny face on the door. My response? It's called trick or treat for a reason.

The girls were witches because that's what we had. If I were a more highbrow mom I'd have had the girls chanting "Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble" and if someone asked who they were they'd say, "Duh, the 3 witches from MacBeth!" But I'm more of a Wizard of Oz gal so I painted their faces green and encouraged them to say "And your little dog too!"

We live on a very busy street so we headed to the "Mormon Ghetto" and ran into half our ward while trick-or-treating. Bea was delighted by the whole affair. She kept saying to herself, "This is all my candy!" She likes the unwrapping aspect more than the eating of it it would seem, as I keep thinking there are turds on the floor, but no, it's a gnawed on Milky Way or a Milkdud. The worst is the Laffy Taffy which you practically have to cut out of the carpet. To quote Ed Levine's tirade on bad candy: "I do not laffy when I get these. I sobby. I get depressedy. Because it gets all stucky to my teethy and doesn't even taste that goody." (for the full article go to http://food.yahoo.com/blog/edlevineeats/13401/the-10-most-disappointing-treats-for-trick-or-treaters )

One of the highlights for me is the great candy swap. My sibs & I would come home Halloween night and dump everything onto the living room floor, organize by kind, and then trade the stuff we hated for the stuff we loved. I'd always try to pawn off my Almond Joys and Milky Ways for Snickers and Reese's. My sister would trade anything nutty for Twix or Nestlee's Grand ($100,000 back in our day). I'd eat the good stuff first, and by December there'd be some random crappy candy forgotten in a box: vanilla tootsie rolls, a stale Bit-o-Honey, a Special Dark, butterscotch Lifesavers. My kids clearly have their favorites: Jonah loves Butterfingers, Georgia loves Kitkats, Bea loves lollypops, and Millie loves anything with sugar in it. Though I scoured thru their bags, I stole only two items year: Swedish fish and Nutrageous. Missing from their loot were some of my favorites like Baby Ruth & Bottle Caps which leads me to ask, are they not selling those anymore in "fun size," or did my kids just not snatch those out of the bowls? Abba Zabbas are all but extinct. Sigh.

Oh, a funny story about Millie. I got a call from the school nurse last week. Seeing that number gets me in a panic as all I think is LICE LICE LICE ANYTHING BUT LICE! But it was not any illness. "Camille stepped into some pudding at lunch," the nurse states all matter of fact. "I've cleaned it off as best I can but your daughter says she is 'too chocolatey' to go back to class." And though there is a box of clothes in the office that the kids can wear, my Princess refused to even try on someone's castoff pants. Nope. So I schlepped her over a fresh pair of jeans. When Georgia heard that Mills had turned down clothes from the nurse's box, she was incredulous. "But Millie, it's really awesome FREE stuff! You know my tie-dye Mickey Mouse t-shirt? I got that when I spilled paint on myself!" My little Hobo Georgie.

Since school has started Bea's watched her sisters head off to birthday parties and return with goody bags full of, well, goodies. This Saturday Bea was invited to a party and was just glowing upon her return. She insisted I take a picture of her with her hat and treats. I was thinking of not having any kind of party for her this year (the economy is also making this a no-big-parties year), but I may have to cave and at least pass out cupcakes and goody bags this month for her playgroup. I saved so much money on costumes, I'm sure there's some $ in the budget to celebrate my favorite 3 year old.

Pumpkin Eater

2008-10-14T07:41:00.000-07:00

I thought perhaps we might skip the apple picking this year. I mean, I like apples as much as the next person, but what do you do with that 20lb bag you have to buy in order to pick ANY. Then I went to Back-to-School Night and read Georgia's essay about how her favorite thing in the whole world is to go apple picking at Honey Pot and get carmel apples, cider donuts and go thru the hedge maze (which always creeps me out and makes me think of that tragic scene in Harry Potter 4 during the triwizard tournament where Cedric gets killed by Voldy).

Since my girlfriend Stephanie was coming to visit, I decided it would be a fun outing for a Southern Californian whose only choice of apples are Red or Golden Delicious. Little did I know that Steph is an apple-a-holic. She eats at least 2 a day and would chose an apple over any other fruit whereas for me, apples are fine, but waaaay down the produce totem pole, below honeydew but above kumquats. Honey Pot was Apple Disneyland for her. She ran from tree to tree, plucking off fruit like Eve on speed, taking a giant bite then making all of us sample the many varieties. She fell in LOVE with Empire, those Snow White fleshy ones with an almost plum exterior and Golden Crisp, that are red like a hot house tomato. Sweet and sour yum yum. Then picture that dipped in carmel and rolled in roasty peanuts. Oh. My. Gosh.
Bea, who loves a juicy pear, was perplexed by the brown boscs. "It feels like a pear, it smells like a pear, but why is it paper bag colored?"

The girls were all freaked by pumpkin-a-saurus rex. We met a hilarious couple on the hay ride who told us all about their daughter's wedding. She got married in the fall and they decided to go for an apple theme. The wife describes the fruity center pieces, the desserts, the apple blossoms in the bride's hair. Then the husband starts talking about how they gave each table a secret name and seated people accordingly. "So the old people were at the Granny Smith table, and my nasty cousins sat at the Crab Apple, and my wife's brothers who drink too much were all at the Winesap table. You had your Pink Ladies, your Goofs, your Delicious..." We about died laughing at this hilarious old Yankee.

Once home, we got cooking. I made an apple-berry pie and Stephanie made a carmel apple tarte pictured above. It was so much easier than you'd think. Here's the link to the recipe:

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/ild/2007/1107/tarte-tatin-apple-pie.html I have since made apple pancakes with apple syrup (thanks Aunt Deb for the recipe!), sent a million slices in w/ Bea for nursery snack, and tonite the kids made an apple crisp. And we still have a full produce drawer.

This weekend I went up to the Belmont Temple to take some one's senior portrait and saw this gorgeous thing. It looks like it belongs underwater. Below is a picture of another delicate flower.

Kiss my Brass

2008-10-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

About a year ago my friend Mimmu (one of the funniest people on the planet) told her Exponent friends that she and her husband were moving to Finland, her native country, and that they were getting rid of lots of their old furniture, much of which had been in her husband's family for ages. Rachel, Coco & I went out to her place in Harvard to get Rachel a sewing table. She also ended up with antique mahogany twin beds and on Bea's behalf I adopted a brass bed of Grandma Sloan's that I SWEAR Mimmu said may have been slept in by Grover Cleveland (back me up Rach).

Said bed has been languishing in my garage, waiting for a serious cleaning and Bea to be ready to give up the crib. When my dear childhood friend and doer extraordinaire Stephanie came to visit this week, I knew it was time. Stephanie can do ANYTHING: cook, build, make jewelry. She's an art director and if it involves hands, she can do it.

After buying several brass cleaning supplies, we set to work on the headboard with some "help" from Bea. Notice how filthy the railings are.

After several cans of "Bar Keeper's Secret" and more elbow grease than I care to remember, we hosed it off and began the polishing process. Once it was shiny shiny, I wanted to lacquer it but Stephanie and the guy at Ace Hardware forbid me. "WWGCD?" (what would Grover Cleveland do?) You can see that both Stephanie and the bed clean up rather nicely.
The bed is so tall Bea has to use a step stool to get up. It both scares and thrills her.
Now if only I could get her to never touch her brass bed with those tiny little fingers....

Ode to Diet Coke

2008-09-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

Back in 1998 when I attended my first Exponent Retreat, I hid from the woman organizing the talent show. I am not saying I am a talent less loser, but my talents are not so easily showcased. I am one of the only Mormon women on the planet who does not sing and/or play a musical instrument. Other people CLAIM they don't play piano, but what they really mean is "I took piano for 3 years but I'm not comfortable playing in public." When I say it I mean it. No Heart and Soul. No Chopsticks. I can't even read music.

But the Exponent talent show was not what I imagined. One woman read funny poems. Another belly danced. Sure there was traditional singing, but there was also Lou with her guitar playing a Reba McEntire version of "Let us Oft Speak Kind Words to Each Other" that had me in stitches. So at the end when Cheryl asked if anyone else wanted to share a talent, I got up and sang my Mormon version of the Brady Bunch theme:

It's a story, of a special Lady,
Who was bringing up 3 very special girls.
All of them read the Book of Mormon like their mother,
The D&C, and The Pearl.

It's a story, of a Bishop named Hansen
who was bringing up 3 righteous Eagle Scouts
All of them were up by 5 to go to seminary
and do their paper routes.

Til at the Storehouse when this sister met this bishop,
and the Holy Ghost gave them a little hunch,
That in Zion they'd become an eternal family.
That's the way they all became the Hansen Bunch...

It started an annual tradition for me of making up wacky lyrics and then cajoling my buddies into making fools of themselves with me.

This last August while at Girls Camp, I came up with an ode to Diet Coke. I've always loved my brown beverages. My Uncle George gave me my first taste of Dr. Pepper when I was 4 and I spent a better part of the 80's chugging Big Gulps of Dr. P or Coke to get thru high school and college. But I never fully appreciate the magical healing properties of my fizzy drinks until I had kids. After kid #2 I started calling Diet Coke "Nap in a Can." There are days when I'm running on 4 hours of rest and as Frost said, "have miles to go before I sleep." I pop open a can and just that sound alone starts my synapses firing. Dave is a much bigger Diet Coke junkie than I am. While I wonder from Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper (aka "triple threat") and Coke Zero, he is absolute in his devotion to plain old Diet Coke. Do not buy him a citrus "this-tastes-like-lemon-Pledge" variety. Do not put a shot of regular Coke in his cup at Costco. And do not run out. No no. Bad. Very bad.

And if you are one of those people who swear that Diet Coke from the fountain tastes different from the bottled stuff, you are not crazy. When it's on tap they add our old friend saccharine to the mix. It helps stabilize it. In our town, White Hen Pantry is the one place to get fountain cokes. And I swear the Mormon Mommies are the most frequent customers. I pop in there once a week (while we have no year supply of wheat or powdered milk, we do have a mountain of 12 packs in our garage. People randomly stop by for a drink. Sometimes they stay and chat, sometimes not. It's all good.). Every time I go in I see a Honda Odyssey in the lot and know one of my sistas is getting her Diet Coke fix. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Our performance was awesome. 2 of us wore Diet Coke t-shirts that we had randomly packed. And we had cut the bottoms off 20 oz bottles and placed battery operated candles inside. We dimmed the lights and walked out with our sodas aglow. So on behalf of all us lovers of brown elixer, sing the following to the tune of "O Tannenbaum." And do it with reverence.

O Diet Coke O Diet Coke
How Fizzy are thy bubbles.
O Diet Coke O Diet Coke
You take away my troubles.
Straight from the can or over ice
When I am tired you make me nice.
O Diet Coke O Diet Coke
How Fizzy are they bubbles.

O Diet Coke O Diet Coke
I cannot live without you.
O Diet Coke O Diet Coke
I love everything about you.
You are the juice this mommy craves
I love to ride your caffeine waves.
O Diet Coke O Diet Coke
I cannot live without you.

Weekend Update

2008-09-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd post some recent pix and give a quick update on our Hobo Clan. I took the following shots outside our church on Saturday evening. It was Calvin B.'s baptism and so I had an excuse to get the kids looking civilized.

Jonah: His hair is not greasy but wet since I forced him into his weekly shower a day early. He reminds me of Mikey (Dave's youngest bro) who at this age would brag about his pungent foot odor. We also battle brushing teeth. He went to this week and afterwards complained that his teeth felt "naked without their plaque sweaters on." I am so sicked out by that. Dave was gone all week (more on that later) so Joe was my faux adult company much of the time. We rented "Son of Rambow" together and loved it. We also love "Psych." The highlight of his week was going to a Halloween store on Saturday. He's been making lists of gear needed for pranks and saving money. He got a fake rat, gorilla hands, and a retractable knife. He and Dave have started a fitness routine which involves a daily bike ride and then a million push ups. (Note to self: buy Jonah deodorant.)

The absolute highlight of Georgia's week was on Thursday when we rented her violin. The school starts string instruments in 3rd grade and she is elated. (Millie is green with envy, stamping her foot and shouting, "I've GOT to get an instrument!") She came home and serenaded us in the backyard as I mowed and the kids ran around. She slept with the case. The hard thing with Georgia right now is that she gets migraines. If she's too hot, hungry, tired, any extreme can trigger a bad headache. It breaks my heart to see my little bird suffer.
Millie was very worried about going to school all day but is doing great. She is my lifesaver with Bea. She is so kind to her and will spend lots of time playing with her. As a result, "Mowee" is Bea's favorite sibling and every time Bea hears a bus she says, "Is that my Miller? Let's go get her!" The girls begged me to take the bunks apart so now their beds are side by side and for whatever reason that makes Millie feel more grown up. She lost another tooth this week and I had to have two different people promise to call me after 10pm to make sure there was $ under her pillow. Dave does tooth fairy duty so I was terrified I'd forget and have to use my cousin MaryAnn's story about the tooth fairy being a single mom who can't always find a sitter to watch her kids while she takes care of lost teeth.
Bea is such a crack up right now. She has no intention of being potty trained and is always trying to get us to carry her. With a four year gap, she is definitely the baby and mostly loves it. She loves her friends, going to nursery, chocolate milk, and her new obsession is to dress up in G & M's old ballet clothes.
Here is Georgia with her dear friend Ellie in their matchy matchy dresses.

As for Dave being gone all week, for his 40th birthday I sent him off to tracker school in the woods of NJ. As most of you know, over a year ago Dave embraced his inner Hobo and when traveling for clients, instead of staying at the Marriott he'd pitch a tent in the forest and cook over a stove made out of a Coke can. So he decided he wanted to really go primitive and convinced his buddy Jim to go with him on this New Jersey "walkabout." After months of prep (ie buying gear gear and more gear--in fact, I'm convinced it all about the gear), they took off last Sunday and returned 7 days later smelly and hairy and happy as clams. They carved bows out of wood and then make fires from them; they built shelters; distilled water; tracked animals; foraged for edible roots; ate deer one of them "harvested" ("hunt & kill" are not part of the eco-mother earth vocabulary apparently). And no phone calls the whole time. Honestly, I don't know when I've seen Dave so pumped by an experience. I awoke this morning to find Dave in the backyard, everyone but Bea with a knife in hand, carving fire-making tools. I'm married to a nerd version of Grizzly flippin Adams.

And me, well, I'm getting ready for Dave to take off for another week and to come home just in time for me to leave for the Exponent Retreat on Friday. That will mean going 2 weeks with only one day overlapping. At least when he's gone on business he won't be radio silent and I won't worry that he'll be attacked by a rabid raccoon. While he's been gone I've painted the side entry, done endless loads of laundry, drunk lots of Diet Coke, taken a friend's senior portraits, relied on the kindness of Lindy, and highlighted my own hair. This week is filled with 2 Back to School Nights, dentist & ortho appointments, soccer, birthday party, apple picking. Just the usual manic stuff that comes with mothering. As long as the weather holds their is no flooding in my house, we'll all be fine.

Confessions of a Barbie Lover

2008-09-16T19:56:00.000-07:00

Kids, like adults, cycle through their toys. My son phased through dinosaurs, superheros, Star Wars. And though he won’t admit it, he still loves his bin of Legos and his glow-in-the dark light saber (ah, boys and their swords…). My girls had Little Pony and Polly Pocket obsessions. One flirted with American Girls but it never went anywhere. But the thing my daughters keep cycling back to over and over is Barbie.

I know, I know. I’m a feminist. I should HATE Barbie. I have lots of friends who loathe her waspish waist, her platinum blond cornsilk hair, not to mention her slutty little shoes and micro mini clothes. And I can see why lots of moms might want to banish Barbie and her "Made in Taiwan" bootie from their daughters’ toy chest. These friends feel Barbie sends a terrible message to girls: beauty=skinny and big chested, happiness=clothes and Ken. I admit they have a point. She is a freakish Glamazon with her 36-18-33 figure. In recent years Mattel has attempted to make her more of role model by creating "Astronaut Barbie," "Dr. Barbie," "Teacher Barbie" and a host of other career themed dolls. They even gave her plastic surgery in 1997, widening her waist to make her more “real.” Even so her very name still conjures images of a blandly attractive and vacuous woman.

Why, then, do I LOVE Barbie? I still walk down that Flamingo Pink aisle of Toys R Us with a strange combination of desire and reverence. Part of it is nostalgia. I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have a Barbie. One of our first ones was a hand-me-down from a much older cousin. She had short reddish brown hair, plastic protruding eyelashes, and no smile whatsoever. My older sister and I agreed she looked just like Lucille Ball when Lucy was mad at Ricky for not letting her sing at the Copa Cabana. Since then I’ve had dozens of Barbies and played with them long after it was "cool" to play with dolls. My favorites were the non-traditional Barbies: Christy with her Foxy Brown hair; my Hawaiian Barbie in her sassy hula skirt; and Donny and Marie in their shimmery purple unitards.

I just don’t see Barbie as the anti-Christ in stilettos (that would be Brat Dolls who look just like some prostitutes from Vadivostok I once saw—I know, I’m a hypocrite). Mostly I like Barbie because she could be whatever I projected onto her. My Barbies were Superheros, adventurers, detectives, Olympic athletes. Okay, so I never pretended they were nuclear physicists or Rhodes scholars; that doesn’t mean I didn’t create fun and intelligent imaginary worlds that may or may not have contributed to my current status as a pretty good person (hey, I may not have written the great American novel, but I have read all of Shakespeare thank you very much). And as for Ken, Barbie’s life does not revolve around that 12" dude with a washboard belly and a plastic coif. Mattel even had them “break up” a few years back. For every Ken doll, we had at least 4 Barbies–and no, never once did we play "Brigham Young Era Barbie" where Barbie, Midge and Skipper were sister wives to polygamist Ken. On the contrary, Ken was an accessory, like her white go-go boots or the little sombrero my aunt brought me back from Tijuana.

Growing up Mormon, I always wanted children but didn't spend a lot of time playing "little mother." And though you could buy tiny plastic babies, my friends and I never made Barbie the Mom. Was it that she seemed too young (we could have played "Teen Pregnancy Barbie" but that wouldn’t have been fun)? Was it that the Magenta Corvette had no room for a carseat? Certainly I was too ignorant to know that of course Barbie has never had kids because even if she managed to maintain that itty bitty waist, no one’s chest could stay THAT perky post childbearing. Barbie was not about caretaking. She was her own woman, defined neither by men nor children, changing careers like she changed those trampy shoes, free to explore and create her world. Is that really so wrong?

I’ve watched my girls play Barbies, and sometimes wonder if I am encouraging materialism, immodesty, selfishness. But mostly their play makes me happy. This summer Barbie did lots of skydiving from our tree house with plastic supermarket bags as parachutes. Millie has had Barbie catching and training wild mustangs. Currently, Georgia spends hours designing dresses out of baby wipes and rubber bands. Honestly? Some of her designs rock. And Bea likes to make her swim in the tub. So while Barbie may not be an ideal role model, as long as she fuels little girls’ imaginations, she’ll always have a place in my heart.

Nanny v. Britney

2008-09-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

How I long for the good old days of my childhood when one had to go looking for porn. Sure, when you were babysitting and flipping thru channels maybe you came across a racy show on Z-Channel, but it's not the same as today when one wrong click of the mouse can pull up images that would make Hugh Heffner blush.

This first happened to me several years ago when we were going apple picking. I couldn't remember how to get there and thought I'd Google the farm, Honey Pot Hill. You can just imagine the smut that flooded my screen. Dave had the same problem when Jonah went thru a superhero phase and wanted to find some "X-Men" games. Don't search for "X" and "Men" together. Bad bad stuff my friends. So to help weed out the smut, Dave installed some Larry Flint recommended software called "Safe Eyes." And it worked pretty well. So well that I became complacent.

Last week, right after I went to Girl's Camp, I decided I needed to share a funny story on a friend's blog. I'd had a conversation with two women from Revere who were talking about their oldest girls heading off to college. "Things sure have changed," said one. "Yeah," replied the other, "when we were that age only the easy, slutty girls went to college." I am still smiling about that one. Anyhow, I write the post and go to add a picture, imagining a shot of Britney Spears in her skimpy school girl attire. So I, being the overly confident idiot that I am, Google the words "slutty college girls" and hit return. OH. MY. GOSH. I burned my corneas as image after graphic image popped up. And because I was simultaneously burning pictures onto a disk, when I tried to close out the page it took forever as I'm sitting there with my hands over my eyes like the monkey desperate to see no evil.

When Dave returned from his business trip, I told him what had happened and we shuttered at what could happen with the wrong stroke of the keys. He spent the evening loading new software onto the computers. [Side note: as he is doing this and I am doing dishes, the A/C in the attic breaks and water floods it, seeping into the floor and then to Jonah's room. Jonah goes in there to find it literally raining. I'd been in there an hour earlier, before the water had started to drip, noticed a foul smell and berated Jonah for being a stinky 11 year old who needed to find whatever awful thing he'd left in his room to rot. In my defense, this is the boy who will leave a soaking towl in a duffel for weeks or put a ham sandwich in a drawer.]

But the new software is a little paranoid. Two nights ago I was window shopping on line and the Net Nanny refuses to let me go to a shoe website because it contains "intimate apparel." I try all our regular passwords to override it but none work. I give up and go to check my email and find I have 226 messages in my Spam. Obviously I hate Spam becuase it's useless junk, but I mostly hate it because it is the easiest way for slutty college girls to get in my computer. But when I go to trash them all, the Nanny pops up and accuses me of trying to access inappropriate material and refuses to let me by so that I can dump that crap. How dare she! But then I calm down. Nanny is just doing her job. She is trying to keep me and my family safe from nude co-eds.

The next morning Dave gives me the password ("Oh THAT password. Duh!") and I have a little chat with Nanny about allowing me to expurgate my Spam. [Meanwhile, our fridge dies. I discover this when I crab at Millie about not finishing her milk and she tells me that it tastes funny. I smell it. Ew. I open the fridge and it's 54 degrees in there, the same temperature as certain people's houses--you know who you are Lindy!]

Tonite I decide to check out Landsend and see if I can get a long sleeved rash guard on clearance for Georgia who always gets burned the first hot week of the year (And I admite I have a swimsuit addiction, for me and my kids. That's another story). Guess what Nanny did? She REFUSED to let me get onto Landsend. LANDSEND for heaven sake, not Victoria Secret. Fine fine. I enter the password, but is that good enough for Nanny? Noooooo. She has to shove her "access denied, request override" message in my face everytime I try to look at a long sleeved rashguard, which is basically a swimsuit for Hutterites and the Taliban. Every time the white box pops up I can see her dour face and haughty stare, accusing me to lasciviousness. "Don't you judge me you Damn Nanny!" I shout at the screen.

I'm calm now. But I am torn. I do not want anyone in our house to access sleaze on the internet, intentionally or otherwise. But I cannot support Nanny's behavior. I need to be able to shop with impunity. I shop therefore I am. So if anyone can recommend an anti-porn software that's slightly more enlightened than Church Lady, let me know.

P.S. After writing this post I tried to access my blog to proofread it and guess what Nanny did? Yep, tried to deny me access to my very own blog. That's crossing a line and I'm, well, I'm just so hurt.

Bea-Attidue

2008-09-03T21:06:00.000-07:00

Summer is officially over and I am greatly relieved as I've run out of sunscreen, juiceboxes, goggles, and patience. All in all it's been great: no lice, airports, trips to Urgent Care. I've actually really enjoyed my pack this summer. Jonah is really funny and babysits from time to time. Georgia and Millie are wicked cute and fun to hang out with. But it's the one who should be the most trouble that has been the best. So in honor of the Olympics, I need to give out a gold metal to Bea for being the best 2 year old ever (bronzes for the rest of 'em).

Beautiful Scarlet Terry
(as if Sue could make anything NOT beautiful)

Take last week for example. Since Dave was off in Indiana & California (he got to see Sue's new baby), I decided to head down to New Jersey for one last summer fling with Steph & Co. The biggest motivator for my kids to drive for 5 hours? Milo, their cat. How pet deprived are my kids that they'll gladly endure half a day on the New Jersey Turnpike just to pet a kitty. On Wednesday we took all 7 kids (her 2, my 4 plus Beka) to 6 Flags. Bea was a super trooper. She went on every ride she was tall enough for and actually enjoyed herself. Even on the roller coaster that a certain 6 year old begged to go on only to cry hysterically and back out after she was strapped in. She was the only kid under 11 who didn't have a meltdown. As for the two 11 year olds, we hardly saw them. They just showed up periodically to get more $ and brag about having ridden Kingda Ka, the tallest, fastest roller coaster in the world.

On Saturday Uncle Jeff tapped into his Southern Utah roots and took us all tubing down the Deleware River. Heck, if George Washington can cross it in a boat, I can cross it on laytex. Bea is a bit like a cat around water (a normal cat, not Milo who tried to join her in the bath--see above) and so I expected her to ride in the raft w/ Steph and some of the girls. Instead, she spent most of her time straddling my tube, dangling her toes in the river and just being cute (when Georgia splashed her she shouted: "Hey! Stop getting my water wet!"). As a side note, if you are ever in NJ you really should go tubing on that river as half way during the 3 hour ride, you park your tubes on the shore of "Hot Dog Island" and have lunch. Yup. Hot Dog Island, a little bump in the river where you trade your wristband in for 2 hot dogs, soda, chips and candy. It was a tiny slice of white trash heaven and I loved every minute of it.

This picture is from our Cape Cod trip. Rachel & I took the kids on a ride every evening. Noelle & Bea were perfectly content as long as the bikes were in motion. Bea never complained. Even when certain people who were supposed to be holding my bike didn't and the whole thing smacked onto the pavement. Not a whimper. When I asked her later what her favorite part of camping was, she said, "I love bike and tent." Lest I'm painting a perfect picture of Bea, let me add that she, Noelle & Buddah popped my new airmattress the first nite in a jumping contest where I was the loser. Below is a shot of Buddah, her other partner in crime, giving her a boat ride at Nickerson.

This last shot was taken today. She came upon some ghetto-licious fake teeth and popped them in and started hamming it up for us all. She reminded me of that Jaws character from the Roger Moore James Bond days. Yesterday she was trying to get into our hard to open our fridge, pulling with all her might shouting "I can't do it! I can't do it!" and then boom, the door opens and she screamed, "I DID it, I'm Superman!!!"

I'm sure soon enough we'll hit the skids again when I decide to potty train her or she decides that she needs to be velcroed to me and I have to seek a restraining order. But for now, I'm loving my Bea.

Happy Happy Birthday David Dear!

2008-08-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

Dave & guitar with little brother Scott & scary clown...

Dave on his 40th

Last Saturday Dave turned 40. We were camping at the Cape, and I was a little stressed out about how to make things festive. I shouldn't have worried as his sister Stephanie & co. came up from Jersey with half the contents of Party City AND Party Depot in their van. Stephanie has a PHD in party paraphernalia. And games even. She orchestrated Olympic games for kids (crab racing at the beach, best bike trick, best boogie boarding) complete with gold medals. The Snows brought a Costco cake and friends had gifts for him. But for Dave the day was made perfect thanks to PapaBaka taking him surfing at 5am.

In honor of Dave I want to list a few of the reasons why I love him so much:

-He is sooooo smart. It never ceases to amaze me the stuff he knows and how excited he is to learn more random stuff all the time. His nerdiness is an aphrodisiac.

-Dave is one of the most compassionate people on the planet. You have to really suck for Dave not to care about you. (For all you vampire people out there, he's Carlisle Cullen.)

-His kids worship him with just cause. He takes them for bike rides, teaches them how to clean bathrooms, and love the snot out of them. In the words of Cesar Milan the Dog Whisperer, Dave is the perfect Pack Leader. He is "calm & asserta" and engages his pack with "exercise, discipline & affection."

-He's funny. Not as funny as I am, but still, he cracks me up on a regular basis.

-Dave is a hard, hard worker. I learned this when we were engaged and he worked overtime in a basement print/sweat shop. I learned it again in Arizona when he worked for the gas company driving around in 118 degree heat in a truck with no A/C. He's not afraid to suffer to do what needs to be done.

-He gets more handsome every year. Not that it matters. But it's still nice.

-He's happy to go shopping with me. As long as it's not Christmas Tree Shop (nobody's perfect).

-He appreciates my family and friends and is never poopy about my need to go visit or hang out with said people.

-I love what a hobo he is. Half the time when he travels for business he forgoes the Courtyard in favor of a camp ground. He once called me to tell me he was "bathing" in a Starbucks bathroom.

So there are a few reasons why I think I'm the luckiest person around. If you know Dave, you know what a gem he is.

Winter Heather vs. Summer Heather

2008-07-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

As I am in a break between company and trips, I've gotten a big manic. It's all "Winter Heather's" fault. When school is in session and I am racing from activity to activity for kids during the day and then church and school and everything else at night, that Winter me starts making lists of all the things "Summer Heather" is going to do. Winter Heather thinks it will be so easy to repaint the kitchen cabinets, fix the treehouse roof, grow a flower garden, catch up on babybooks while watching Pride & Prejudice. But now that I am Summer Heather, I know how deluded WH is. WH is like certain of my friends' husbands who wonder "what do you DO all day and why isn't the house spotless and dinner already made?" Questions, if I'm honest, I ask myself from time to time...

As soon as school lets out I know exactly why so few projects get done during the break. Kids go to bed too late, sucking up any productive night work; we are either washing/packing/prepping to go out of town, out of town, or washing/unpacking/de-messing from being out of town. Now substitute "company" for out of town (we are addicted to company--it's such a great excuse to have fun).

This last week, right after my sister left, I felt the full judgment of Winter Heather and decided I'd take on the kitchen which Summer Heather flaked on last year. Well, to be honest, WH and my sister-in-law Stephanie ganged up on Summer me. This spring they ordered all the replacement knobs & pulls, bought the paint, and changed the walls from a tired terra cotta to a lovely "Dried Sage," knowing that the cabinets, by contrast, would look so hideous that something would have to be done. Thanks guys. So I stayed up til 2 or 3 for four nights to get my cabinets out of the '80s. One friend said, as nicely as she could, "Hello, Millie Vanillie called and want their kitchen back."

One day I made the mistake of working on stuff before the kids went to bed. Millie sobbed, not because she got "Edwardian Linen" all over her new shirt but because I went all Crazed Mama on her. How hard is it to not lean against the door frame when you have just been told, "Don't lean against the door frame"?

I also repainted our deck chairs, scrubbed clean the basement door, weeded and fertilized the roses I'm trying to grow, got Dave and some boys from the ward to chop down some giant oak limbs that were bugging our sad Italian widow neighbor, sanded the deck railing, prepared a Relief Lesson for Sunday, and reread New Moon.

SH is so elated by the altered kitchen, she made Jen come over to see my cabinet progress. She walks in and there I am covered in paint and baking cookies. The simultaneous aromas of new paint and chocolate chips made her shake her head at me. "You are the Good Mom," she said. "Not only do you transform your kitchen, you still find time to make treats for the kids." And I hate the look on her face because I AM NOT THAT PERSON. If not for Hotpockets & Mac & Cheese, my kids would starve. And I'm not transforming a kitchen. That would involve actual money, granite, cabinets not made of particle board, and a floor that didn't look like dirty mop water. Luckily Georgia walked in the room to grab a cookie.

"Georgie," I said, "what did you have for dinner?"

She stops. It's 9:30pm. "Um, I guess this cookie is dinner."

I stared at Jen, daring her to pursue this as I KNOW she had made some healthy & spectacular meal that probably involved veggies from her garden. Jen later told me that she had made dinner that night but that in kids' eyes healthy meals still pale in comparison to Tollhouse cookies. "Nothing says 'I Love You' like a zucchini fertata," she added with a shrug.

I mowed the lawn & worked on the treehouse today but my energy is spent. I still have the entryway to paint and the upstairs hall is beyond dingy but there's no way I can tackle them now. Instead, I plan to go to Home Depot, buy all the paint and stuff and let it be Fall Heather's problem. I mean, once the kids are back in school, there will be TONS of time to get all sorts of projects done...

"Mamas, Don't let your babies dress up like cowboys..."

Mine & Dave's secret plan to train the kids to do all the work so that we can sit around and eat bon bons may just work after all.

Family Reunion & Book Prison

2008-07-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

I just returned from one of the most pain-free family reunions ever. No big drama. No bad fights. No nasty sunburns. No lice. Just lots of swimming and eating and hanging out and lots and lots of reading. Margaret's house really is magical. I swear we only left the place to periodically restock the freezer with icecream.

The best barometer for me of a vacation is how many books I got to read. In four days I read two good sized books. In my daily life, I have to work hard to read. It means staying up late and paying for it the next day, or trying to get the kids occupied enough for me to sneak away and devour a chapter or two before the next diaper change. This is tough when you're reading a novel that puts you in "Book Prison." You know what I mean. There are some books that suck you in and try as you may, you can't extract yourself until you're done. Several years ago Dave & I went to Hawaii and I brought along The DeVinci Code. At one point when we were going to dinner, Dave just sent us along without him as he sat in a parked car reading.

Harry Potter books do that to me. Last summer when the final book came out, my fellow Potterheads Jen and Coco decided we would kill our families if we tried to read the book with our kids bugging us ("Mom, it's noon. Shouldn't we have breakfast?" "Mom, I think my arm is broken. Mom? MOM!") so we rented a hotel room and quarentined ourselves. This also protected us from those irritating people who feel compelled to spoil things for others. Some dumb teenagers blurted out about Dumbelore's fate at church when I was only half way thru number 6.

Last summer I was also incarcerated while reading those fun Stephenie Meyer Vampire books. I sent the first to my 15 year old niece Kate for Christmas. Apparently, the day before the reunion when she knew she'd be seeing me, she felt guilty for not having read it so she started it...and read until 3am when my brother made her go to bed. So until she finished it, she barely showed her face. Meanwhile, my sister & I reread our copies of Twilight since the fourth and final one comes out next month. And my sister-in-law Lisa was tied to her copy of New Moon*.

The second night of the reunion, once the kids were in bed, we all found our way to the living room and instead of playing a game, watching a movie or talking, all of us still awake were reading. It made me so happy to be part of such a bookish family. And it's a variety of books. Lee usually has something on African phonology, Dave had a Marine memoir, my mom a British mystery. We aren't book snobs. If books were cheese, we devour Monterey and Muenster, Velveta and Valencay. This freaks some people out.

Last summer I was talking to a very smart acquaintance about books. She mentioned certain French feminist stuff and I chimed in as I read a lot of that in grad school and found Kristeva very compelling. I had my "smart Heather" cap on. So I could see her debating something in her head, sizing up my intellectual cojones. She leaned in and in sotto voice she told me about her "very exclusive" book group and would I like to join. She mentioned several texts they'd be reading and I nodded, familiar with most of them. Worthwhile books all. And I had a split second internal debate. While I have the grey matter necessary to discuss erudite crap, I just don't have the energy for it at this point. And if I do want to change my fancy pants for smarty pants, I don't want to have to expend all that mental energy reading something someone else chose so that I can feel "intellectual." In many ways I view my masters degree in English as my permission slip to subscribe to TV Guide. I'm smart enough, and I don't have to prove it to anybody anymore. That's a good thing. But I like this woman and if I didn't spend my days wiping counters, mouths, and butts we'd probably have lots in common. I do not want to offend her by declining her generous invitation, so I realize I need to just let it all hang out and make her run from me. Screaming. I know just what to do. "Oh, I love book groups. What do you think the chances are of us reading those Mormon Vampire books? They are so awesome! Edward, the vegetarian vampire, is so HOT! I'm leading the discussion in my ward bookgroup on Twilight this month." She backs away in horror, as if I have fangs and am about to bite her neck. "Sounds like you have a lot on your plate, so if you can't make it, I'll understand." She smiles politely, hand to her throat and flees. I felt bad, but right at this point in my life, I need my books lite. In March I read The Ministry of Special Cases and almost had to medicate myself afterwards. I'm still haunted.

Tonite Dave let me know that he secured a hotel for me and Coco & Sande (we'll be thinking of you Becca...). It's a Courtyard with an outdoor pool that he got using frequent sleeper miles or whatever. This way we can get tan AND get our Vampire on. We'll be there on August 2 when Breaking Dawn comes out. Will Bella stay with Edward or go with werewolf Jacob? Will she become a vampire? Don't bother calling. They don't allow phones in Book Prison.

*(go to http://youtube.com/watch?v=aevFv5-v55w for the best new moon parody--I'm a dork but that doesn't mean I can't laugh at myself. Or go this one which rocks http://youtube.com/watch?v=WTMnZzofxtA because he's such a better Edward than that dork Cedric Diggory guy)

"We're Still Cooler Than You"

2008-07-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

Starting tomorrow, me, my 3 siblings, their spouses & kids, and my mom will meet in the Berkshires for a family reunion. Our last reunion was 3 years ago at a beach house in Oxnard and my mom had these very cute beachy T-shirts made for us all. Of course we had to reimburse her, even if your shirt didn't fit or made you look fat because of the boxy cut. I'm just saying.

My sister Angela & clan arrived earlier this week and I told her I wanted to do a wacky T-shirt. I showed her the above image and she said it was fine, except for that part about our family being "fun." And our Mom would DIE if I publicly said we were dysfunctional. Everybody thinks our family is perfect and we need to work very very hard to make sure they keep thinking that. It was very thoughtless of me to imply otherwise even if it was a joke. So I scrapped that design and moved on to the one below:

I liked this one because it was so white trash and groovy. Angela pointed out that this pic is both atypical and typical of our family. First it's atypical because we are on vacation, something our family rarely did. Vacations cost money. Why not just pile all the kids into the stationwagon and drive 12 hours to Provo and stay in Aunt Donna's basment? Every few years we'd go to a non-Utah relative destination. 1971 was one of those years. Now, the typical part is that if we go on vacation, you have to find someone to freeload off of. Why pay for a condo when you can borrow a friend's trailer? The Scotch thriftiness is in our blood and the few reunions we've had as adults we've managed to sponge off our friends. Ange's buddy Karen loaned us the beach house, and my friend Mags is lending us her Berkshire place. So when we plan stuff, it's a real challenge. It's not "Where do we want to go for the reunion" but "Who has a place we can free-load in a cool location..." And just so you know, if I DID have a great cabin/beach house/condo, I would oh so happily lend it out to all of my friends.

Anyhow, we decided that the above picture was ultimately misleading our kids into thinking that their kin were the vacationing kind, and that falsehood is not exactly "keeping it real." Angela liked the picture below best and so we added some Star Wars font to enhance the 70s vibe. This was a very Bickmore thing, taking pictures on the doorstep the first day of school. Vacations were low on the priority list, but school along with Church & Family were the top 3, and usually in that order. Please note that I am 3 in the picture and not headed off to any school but had to be part of things and grabbed the "Flipper" lunch box for authenticity. We all look so goofy and are each in our own way trying to be "cool:" Lee & Danny in their Hang Ten shirts, Ange in the Heidi-esque dress w/ knee highs, and me just desperately trying to be one of the big kids.

So I'm eager to go enjoy someone else's vacation home with my mom who is wonderful (even if she makes me crazy), and my 3 wonderful siblings. Thankfully, we are all very comfortable in our own skin, which to me, is the very definition of cool.

Service With a Smile

2008-07-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

This week we had some dear friends relocate to California and I got the chance to help with the move a bit. When you really love people, it is so easy to serve them. You can stay up til midnite wrapping framed paintings in blankets or watch their kids or bring in a meal, all with a smile and a happy heart. There's nothing I wouldn't do for a friend. But the true test of my Christianity comes when I am asked to serve people I don’t love, people, who, if I am really honest with myself, actually make me crazy. That's a different story.

Every ward has their wackos, their needies, their hoarders, their chronic movers, their easily offendeds, and our ward is no exception. Many years and 3 children ago, there was a woman who was all of the above. I have come to put her in that unique category of "F-BOHN," or Freakin' Black Hole Of Needs. Some people just suck the life out of everyone around them. This sister, let's call her Bhonnie Leech, preyed on new ward members who didn't know to run from her. One set of friends mistakenly let her stay in their apartment for a week until their sister who was to sub-let it arrived. In that short week Bhonnie had filled the entire apartment with her thousands of boxes and would not leave. These same kind souls let her use their car while they were away. When D got in the car he started to gag and choke. There were vapors and toxic smells of the rat juice variety emanating from the trunk. When D opened it up, there were dark red stain all over, like she'd been carting body parts around. When questioned, Bhonnie said, "Oh that smell. Well, it MIGHT be from the time this summer when I bought 10 lbs of ground beef--it was 60% lean and such a bargain!-and forgot about it in the trunk for a week." 90% of the ward had similar stories. Some even worse. She's bounced around the area for years and when she lands in your ward, the Relief Society president feels like the doomed character in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" who is "chosen" to get stoned to death.

I had miraculously eluded her until the following summer. She calls on Dave's birthday as I am preparing for about 25 guests to arrive any minute. After 10 minutes of chit chat and hemming and hawing she confesses that she has "a tiny favor." She has signed up with a program to host foreign exchange students. She has to house and feed them dinner, but she is in California and forget to arrange food for them and could I just whip a little something up and take it to her house and feed the foreigners? I said I was in the middle of throwing a party and unfortunately could not help her. I got off the phone, so relieved to have dodged a bullet but also feeling a tiny uneasy. I knew she'd go down the list of ward members until she found a sucker to help her, someone much nicer than me. I felt guilty, like the survivor of a car accident where every passenger dies but one guy walks away without a scratch.

So when Bhonnie calls a week later, obviously needing "a small favor," I knew my number was up. "Hi, Heather, how was the party? California is beautiful. I'm having such a nice time." She gasps a little, like she's out of breath; I'm holding mine. "Well things were nice but you see I got a call today from the foreign exchange people and I guess my tenants aren't happy. Well, the FRENCH ones aren't." Two Parisian students were staying in her room and said it was not fit to live in. If the situation wasn't fixed at once, they'd leave and Bhonnie would not get paid. This takes her 20 minutes to explain. I finally say, "Bhonnie, do you need me to go over to your house and clean?" "Um, yes. That would be lovely." At this point I think cleaning can't be worse than her rambling conversation.

Getting the logistics taken care of made me want to pull out my hair.

Me: "So how do I get in?"

Bhonnie: "Oh, Masuko is always home. But she's deaf. So knock loud."

Me: "Where are the cleaning supplies?"

Bhonnie: "Cleaning supplies...cleaning supplies...hmmm..." I'm already siding with Pierre.

Me: "I'll bring my own. "

Bhonnie: "Now you may need to find a lamp for the bathroom, the light wasn't working."

Me: "Where would I find a lamp?"

Bhonnie: "Um, well there's this one part of this one room with this closet..."

Me: "I'll leave right now and go to your house and you call me in a half hour and can walk me thru anything I need then."

Bhonnie: "Okay," and then she blabs about how picky "those Frenchies" are and how lovely California is in August and how she'll just die if they take her money away and on and on. For 15 minutes she holds my ear hostage as I scramble for cleaning supplies.

By the time I pawn my kid off on my upstairs neighbor, fearing Jonah might get scabies if he so much as touches the floor of her obviously dilapidated house, and head to Chez Leech where I bang on the door until a shadowy figure unlatches the bolt and disappears before I enter.

I find Bhonnie's room and am sicked out by the mustiness and thick layers of dust on everything and the piles and piles and piles of boxes and junk. I am paralyzed in there and so I move on to the bathroom. There are 3 non-working lamps in the bathroom. I hunt around the house for one that isn't broken and though there are several in the living room, only one works. I steal it and put it in the bathroom so I can see what I need to do.

I turn it on and immediately wish I hadn't. The bathroom belongs at a truck stop, or a really bad Taco Bell. The sink had a grime ring and a hair clog. After trying to clean the soap holder with a sponge, I resorted to my key ring attached Swiss Army knife and proceeded to scrape soap scum an inch and a half deep that must have started collecting in the Carter Administration. I won't talk about the shower. Some things are better left unsaid.

It's at this point that I start to get really resentful of Sister Leech. This is not a friend in need, this is a nut job slob using me just like she uses everybody in her path. "Why on earth am I doing this?" I asked myself. Honestly, I know that if I hadn't volunteered, some other, most likely kinder person would have been roped in. I imagined her visiting teacher who is so good to her, having to leave her 4 kids to come over and do this. I thought of all the woman in all the wards who had served this woman and thought, "I'm taking one for the Relief Society." Okay. I can live with that.

The toilet was my undoing though. I was so frustrated and the phone is ringing again. Bhonnie keeps calling asking how things are going and to tell me how much she appreciates me doing it and that she will make me dinner when she gets back, but not that first week because she has a lot of stuff to do and did she mention how much she appreciates it? Ring. Ring. I am racing to finish, to be done, to run back to my little apartment that didn't make my skin crawl. I pre-flush and start scrubbing the bowl with Bon Ami, my cleanser of choice. The Frenchmen have terrible aim and there is dried urine all over the rim that requires me to really use force to loosen the stains and before you can say "sacre bleu," I lose my leverage and the brush bristles ricochet off the rim and yellow toilet water sprays me full in the face.

I am dripping in eau de toilette. I try to come up with a single good reason to stay and finish cleaning. Let them banish Bhonnie as a host family. No one deserved to pay for her inhospitality. I want to be a good person. I do. But I need a way to justify this. And then it hits me. I'm cleaning for Jesus. "I'm...cleaning for...Jesus," I say it out loud, trying on this bizarre worldview that allows me to be covered in a stranger's piss, cleaning for a woman I don't like, and somehow still be okay with it. I'm feeling rather pentecostal but oddly at peace as I pick up the toilet brush and say again, "I'm cleaning for Jesus" and get the last of the ring off the bowl. I spray the mirror with Windex and chant, "I'm cleaning for Jesus" with each wipe. "I'M CLEANIN' FOR JESUS!" I shout this mantra as I dust and and tidy, thankful that the only person within earshot is deaf. My voice is hoarse by the time I leave.

This epiphany has stuck with me over the years and made me a better sport when called to serve people I'm not lovin'. When I send Dave off to help move families whose income is triple ours, I think, "Well, he's movin' for Jesus." Or when I want to kill a visiting kid who hollers at me from the bathroom that they need "help" even though they are 5 years old, I remind myself that I am wiping for Jesus. Over the years I've cooked for Jesus, cleaned up cat poo for Jesus, babysat for Jesus. Once I even waxed arms for Jesus.

I ran into Bhonnie about a month after that incident. She was tan, the Frenchmen were satisfied, but she might have to move out of that house soon so it would be a while before she could cook me that dinner. I tell her it's all good, no repayment necessary. Honestly, I'm happy to clean for a Friend.

Rat Juice

2008-06-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

I have all sorts of home related complaints to make. I could, for example, go off on the fact that my A/C died last week when it was 104 and I had a pregnant sister-in-law visiting. And almost two weeks later, the HVAC place claims the new unit hasn't arrived yet...

Or that we keep getting poison ivy. It is growing up THRU the black Hefty bag-esque supposedly impenetrable weed blocker that we laid out last year. Joe had it so bad on his face that he had to go on Prednisone. Twice. My baby is on 'roids... Next Georgia got it on her back, arm & legs. Camille, who we call "Me-Too-Millie" because she hates to be left out, was delighted to get a single rash on the back of her knee, and proceeded to let everyone know that she too has "the ivy." I have it on my right arm because when I see some, I compulsively pull it out. Without gloves. And sometimes forget to wash with the Tecnu. So according to my own rules, I can't go cryin to anyone about it.

But I will cry about the next debacle. There was a weird smell in the office for a few days last week and I finally identified it as wet plaster, which meant the gutters were blocked and leaking into the ceiling. This I put together at midnite last Wednesday and proceeded to climb onto a rickety table on the deck and siphon out the vile gutter water, which after the fact, Stephanie told me is certainly lace with rat juice. Everything was fine until something slimey got stuck in the hose and I yanked it loose and tossed it into the bushes below. Thank heaven it was too dark to see if it was leaves or a bird carcass or a rodent. But when I re-started the siphon, I got the giantest mouthful of the vilest liquid ever. Really, don't swallow. I hurled over the deck and went back to work. Finally I got the gutters empty and went inside and cried a little to my sisters-in-law that our house traumas always happen when Dave is out of town. I composed myself and went to clean myeslf up as I smelled toxic and my throat was literally burning. As I opened my mouth to brush my teeth, I could see that I had some mysterious black stuff lodged in my gums. Oh. My. Gosh. I swear I need therapy after "servicing" my house.

This week Dave suspected there was a rogue diaper in the basement and tracked the smell to a certain corner that it turns out, was soggy and the smell is mold. Black mold. I was so happy to not be alone in the aftermath that I didn't even mind working with Dave to tear up carpet and scrape rotten padding off the linoleum.

I'm now waiting for termites. Or radon. Or both. As long as there's no rat juice.

"Royal Fun"

2008-06-13T18:49:00.000-07:00

Last week one of my foodie friends had a cookie emergency at 10:30pm and so Aunt Sue and I made a house call. Imagine my horror when I walk in to see this master chef KILLING the shortbread dough. It took me a minute to figure things out, but she had tried to "roll" the dough out directly onto the cookie sheet with her hand and then cut directly onto the pan with the cookie cutter. "It's going to be okay," I said as calmly as I could, "just give me the pan, and walk away from the dough." Sue and I had such fun being the cookie whisperers that we decided to make a ton and use them as party favors for Sue's shower this week.

Sue is expecting a baby girl in August and she has visited us so much over the last 6 years that she has bonded with most of my friends. We're her remote Relief Society. When people found out she was having a baby Coco suggested we fly Sue out and give her a Belmont Shower. Lindy & Al insisted on hosting, even though they had another giant event right after. I love that my friends are so ready to love & embrace my family.

Dave & Sue's sister Stephanie drove up from Princeton for the week and cookie decorating was all the excuse we needed to go all "Fancy Nancy." We used royal icing with meringue powder, Mexican vanilla, and 10 tons of sprinkles and edible glitter. I ordered cutters online that reflected Sue, so baby stuff, dachshunds (she & Quay have 2 and they are their babies), and tools (she & Dave built our tree house, installed our dishwasher, cut the counter to fit the new stove).

We made 50+ cookies. Sue was speedy fast decorating. Steph very methodical. I only decorated a couple as I used the chance to work on the game for the party, but I did a few saws, bottle tops, and bees.

How sweet is this onesie? Sue, by the way, is the one that coined the term "Hobo Baby" and helped us all embrace our inner hobo-ness, though she did NOT go vagabond at the shower. Could she glow any more?

Sue's favorite were the prams and the pink & green weiner dog.

I commissioned Rachel in Arizona, who should make a career out of her quilting skills, to make Sue a dog quilt. She did one for a friend before she moved and it was the most darling thing ever. And I hate dogs, so that's saying something. She had me send pix of Cami & Finna, Sue's pups, so that she could match the fabric. They are top R and middle L and spot on (ha ha, spot on). The underside of the ears are silky and the noses are leathery. It's like a huge touch and feel book. The back is lavender silky and elaborately quilted. Sue cried when she saw it. It was Frankie's Orange.

Sitting there, looking at all that cute stuff, the tiny dresses with smocking, glittery shoes, the drill (okay, so not the drill), the blanket, I waited to feel that "Awe, I want another baby" feeling, and it never happened. How great is that. Maybe I am more of a grandma after all....

Here are Lindy & Al, the best hosting team around. And Al, you better not love Sue's baby more than you love Bea. Just a warning from the Hobo Mama.

Abuelita

2008-06-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

So I had a nutty weekend and really need to "blog it out" as my sister-in-law Steph says. But things are too hectic so I may have to do it in pieces.

We were in NJ visiting Steph and went to church with them on Sunday. She teaches the Sunbeams (3 yr olds) so her daughter Cece is in the class. Millie was too shy to join the 6 yr olds so she made us join Steph and Cece on the front row. When it came time to introduce people, first they had this little guy Antonio stand up, also in the Sunbeams, and then Millie. The woman conducting welcomed them and then said, looking at us, "It's great you could be here with your mom. Or grandma." Grandma? GRANDMA! I cannot believe my ears and I start to giggle. Stephanie's jaw drops. Bless her for being so mortified on my behalf. Then I start doing the math. "If I had a kid at 17 and she had a kid at 17, then I could be a 40 yr old grandma." Then, "Really I'd need to be late 40's to have Millie be my grandkid--do I look like I'm pushing 50?" I just turned 40 and while I'm happy to own every year I've lived, I don't like the idea that I look a decade older. Then, "Who is this woman to judge my appearance when SHE is the one wearing suntan panty hose with a reinforced toe AND white sandals?!" So I spent the rest of opening exercises silently eviscerating this mean, insulting woman.

After class, as we are walking back to the Primary Room for sharing time, I ask Steph about Antonio, if he's new or just visiting. "Oh, his Grandma's a member and brings him...." As soon as the words are out of her mouth, the lightbulbs went on and we realize Sister Suntan Hose was referring to HIS grandma, the sweet abuelita who brought him. And then I am mortified again. At myself. At my meanness and need to "get even" mentally with that woman.

And I do this. I am "mature" enough that when offended I usually have enough control to not have to make a public scene. But internally...I can be so petty. I have arguments with people all the time. In my head (more on that another time--I got in a whopper of an imaginary fight over McDonalds recently). In my defense, I went in leary of Steph's ward. The Saturday before Easter they had a primary party and billed it as an egg hunt. But when Steph showed up with baskets in tow, the Primary President CONFISCATED them and gave her "pure white bags" instead (because colorful Easter baskets are "Satan's Satchels?!). Then the missionaries gave the kids (18months-11) a 30 minutes talk on the atonement. Then the Primary president spoke. Then there was a crucification slide show that, according to my brother-in-law Jeff, "would have made Mel Gibson proud." I'm not sure if they ever got candy. If they did, it was probably sugar-free and made from someone's food storage. Their next event is called "Carnival of Parables." I'm picturing face painting booths to make you look like a leper and games like "throw the stone at the harlot." Not that I'm judging anyone or have an attitude or anything. But I'm eager to get back to our ward this Sunday where the average age of mom's with six year olds is not 20 and where we know how to throw a good party.

Of Gerbils & Georgia

2008-06-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

Last night Jonah begged to have the gerbils "sleep over" in his room so we moved the tank in there. Georgia went in to say goodnite to Cotton and she shouted, "Mom, mom, Cotton fell asleep in my hand! Isn't that sweet?" I got the knot in my stomach as I approached them.

Cotton had seemed rather subdued yesterday, and frankly, she's always seemed a touch Tiny Tim but I just attributed that to her being the runt. I looked at her and though she was still breathing, this was not a well critter. We put her back and as the implications dawned on Georgie, she collapsed into sobs. Millie, in true sister solidarity, joined her in the crying.

I told Georgia I'd take Cotton back to the pet shop so she could be with her mama, and we'd get her another of the sisters. "But I don't want another sister, I want Cotton, she's the only white one. What if the other sister looks too much like Millie's and then we can't tell them apart? (wail)" Next, "Is she gonna die?" How do you respond when the answer is yes, but that's only going to accelerate the meltdown? "If you take her back to her mom and she's okay can she come back to us?" Tricky one. What I was trying to do, chicken that I am, is somehow have my cake and eat it too, convince Georgia that Cotton could be okay if she returned to her mom, but somehow not okay enough to return to us. So I reminded her about Timothy P. in our ward, a sweet baby born with lots of complications who is doing great, but may always need to be cared for by a parent. That sort of helped. Until Millie started saying, "Every time I see something white, I can only think of Cotton. The pillow is white--Cotton! That blanket is white--Cotton! That webkinz is white--Cotton!" Wailing all around.

Meanwhile, Jonah kept coming in trying to report encouraging things. "She just drank a drop of water" or "She's just moved," and then made a really awful imitation of jerking limp paws. He pulled me aside and broke my heart when he said, "The trick is to never get attached, never let yourself care too much and then you can't get hurt." What a sad, sad thing for a kid to say! After Sticky II's demise, I offered to let him try again and he said no, it was too hard to lose them. My jaded 11 year old.

Finally I had to separate the girls to get them to calm down enough to fall asleep. But I coudn't. First I did some internet searches and figured out that she most likely had a respiratory infection. If I can just get her thru the night, I reasoned, I can go to a pet shop and get some Ornocylene (bird antibiotics) and start treating her. It'll be hard, but we can do it I told myself. And I prayed, wanting this to work out so that when Georgia's faith in a merciful God wavers I could say, "Remember that time Cotton was sick but we prayed and then she got better?" So I kept vigil, checking on little Cotton every few hours using a flashlight. At 3:30 she was still breathing, but her sister Minky had left her alone which I took as a bad sign. By 6 she was gone.

When the pet shop opened I called and Loretta was very kind, saying the white ones tend to be more fragile and that she'd happily give us another one. Though Dave had promised Georgia she could pick one out, I decided I needed to. What would Georgia say when she saw the cage with the mom and kids but no Cotton? The truth is I can't handle that. I started to cry and called Sande who loves pets and knows my history with them. As I'm crying to her I say, "What is wrong with me that I am losing it over a gerbil we had for 3 days!" Sande, ever wise, kindly reminded me that there are a lot of layers going on. Losing the two Stickys coincided with me losing babies. I truly felt I could not keep anything alive and channelled a lot of my sadness into the gecko's death. And my daddy grief is just under the surface, waiting to bubble over. My sister is in the same state. She attended a concert Saturday nite and when the soprano sang "Danny Boy" (which was sung at my dad Dan's funeral) she lost it big time.

I gently wrapped Cotton in some tissue and buried her in the backyard under the rosebush Shelly H. gave me when I lost that last baby and thought about all the things that die that we love, pets and babies and parents, and sang some Danny Boy in my head: "But come ye back when summer's in the meadow, Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow, 'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow, Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so."

I dried my eyes and went to the pet shop, with a lie for Georgia freshly formed in my head to explain why I didn't wait for her to pick one out: "There was only one sister left so I got her." And the lie turned out to be wonderfully true and Loretta boxed the final sister, frisky and healthy. Driving home, I remembered that Georgia's class was on a walking fieldtrip and on impulse I drove to what I thought their route would be. As if on cue, Georgia's class crossed the street and approached the corner where I had just pulled up. I rolled down the passenger window and shouted, "Hey little girl, wanna pet my gerbil?" No, no, I didn't say that. Instead I hollared to her teacher that I needed to see Georgia for just one second and as she ran over and saw a small cardboard box, her face lit up and she screamed, "My new gerbil!!!" I let her peak in the box and then shooed her back to her class. I don't know who was more excited by the new sister, Georgia, or Minky who literally jumped and chased and had the happiest of gerbil-sister reunions.

I've decided that if Georgia asks where Cotton is, I'll tell her I returned her to her mother [earth]. If she pushes for more, I'll tell her, but if she's content to leave it at that, so am I.

Georgia & "Emma"

Of Mice & Men

2008-06-01T21:05:00.001-07:00

Sticky #1

"Jeremy" the Snake

On Friday Georgia went to her friend Natalie's house to play. When we called to say we were on our way, Natalie's mom told us that the girls found an empty robin's nest with a young robin in the bushes below, hobbling around. Georgia caught it and was ecstatic. Two years ago the kids found a dying bird and the girls adopted it until it died an hour later. She still talks about that bird. In fact, when she was "Star of the Week" at in her 2nd grade class this year, the major thing she talked about was her "pet bird Joey." It took me a while to figure out that she was not making it up, but referring to that dying sparrow from 2006. So finding this robin was major. Driving over, I told Dave she could keep for a day or two and try to nurse it until it could fly (or die). But when we got there, they'd already let "Barry" go. When Dave told her we would have let her hang onto it, she crumbled. Georgia doesn't throw fits. Millie throws fits the way Dice-K throws baseballs, fast and frequent. So when Georgia has a meltdown, I take serious note.

When we got home she sat in the kitchen crying, "All I want is a pet. Just a pet of my own. Could I please just have a goldfish? You can get rid of it if I don't take care of it." She was so rational about it. Millie, on the other hand, had to join in on the "all I want is a pet" bandwagon and was soon sobbing at my feet, "I just want a pug! Just a pug! Maybe two!! Is that too much to ask?!"

That night, I made Dave get on the interwebs and scout out easy pets. Those of you who know me well know that I HATE pets. Well, I dislike pets; I HATE dogs. I've relented a few times: Jonah kept a pet spider for ages; we had brine shrimp (3 year old Georgia accidentally dumped them down the drain to which 6 year old Jonah replied, "You murderer, you murderer. You killed my sea monkeys."); a beta fish & a translucent water frog; and two geckos, Sticky I & II. And I don't have good luck. Every pet we've had has died. And once, Jen T. was moving and needed me to fish sit for 3 days. THREE days. I killed it. We still can't talk openly about Sticky without me or Jonah crying.

So we start going down the list. Fish? Too cold blooded & too much murky water. Cats? Dave & I actually love cats but then some of our allergic friends could never visit, thank you very much Sande, Bret & Andrew! Hamsters? Nocturnal and I can't take that "whir whir whir" on the wheel at night. Snakes. Dave is always advocating snakes but I just can't do it. I let Jonah keep a garter snake for a week and had bad dreams the whole time. Besides, I need an herbivore. I hated having to go buy crickets and try to keep them alive too. Birds? Dave, the birder, says, "No way. They're loud, nasty creatures." Then Dave comes across a website that touts the attributes of Gerbils. I resist making a Richard Gere joke and listen as he informs me they are not nocturnal, their cages need cleaning only once a month as they rarely pee, they could live in a certain gecko's old tank, they are pretty cheap, and they like to live in pairs. One for Georgia, one for Millie.

We bought two sisters at the local pet shop and spent the rest of the day considering names. Georgia's is white, and after nixing "Snowball" she settled on "Cotton." Millie let Jonah name it "Ginzilla," but can't remember the name so she started calling it "Georgia" but I am calling it "Minky" because it looks and feels like a mink with it's dark silky coat.

Dave has been the good guy through all this, telling the girls they could get a pet, setting up the tank. And I've been the rule setter. I swear I am scarred from reading Steinbeck's "Of Mice & Men." Every time I see a kid "loving" a little critter too hard (be it a puppy or a newborn) I think "Oh No! It's Lenny!" and start to panic (I've been told there's a similar scene in "Tommy Boy"). So I tell the girls the gerbils need some space at first to adjust to their new home, not to hold them much the first day or two, and not to let them down as they run fast and once hidden, will most likely be gone forever. So I come into the girls' room to find Millie has Minky in the Barbie house and is trying to make it pretend to cook. And Georgia is watching a movie with Cotton, letting it skitter around the bed. Mean while Bea is obsessed with the "mice" and keeps trying to get them out of the tank. AHHHH. What was I thinking?

This morning Minky got her revenge. Millie was mauling I mean holding her and trying to make her climb up her fingers and Minky sank her teeth into Millie's thumb. Millie started to bleed and freak out as much from "owie feelings" as anything else. She works herself into such a fit that she barfs. Like a Victorian herion who dies of heartache, Millie vomits from rodent betrayal.

Thankfully tomorrow is school and those little sweet sisters will get a break from the big not so sweet ones. I'm gonna rue the day.

"Happy Anniversary Baby, I Got You on My Mind"

2008-05-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

Dave & I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary yesterday and, inspired by Rachel, I thought I'd scan in a wacky big-haired freshman year foto, our engagement foto and a wedding pic to amuse you all. But my scanner is on the fritz so here are 3 pix of us over the past 11 years that I already had on file.

First, 1997 when Jonah was born. Look at that cute baby face...on Dave! (And yes, we were married 7 years before we had a kid, veritable freaks in Mormondom.)
The next earliest already scanned foto is of us in January 2000 at Georgia's birth.
Finally, here is one from fall 2005 when I was 9 months preggers w/ Bea. I love how my peroxide dependence waxes and wanes over the years and how Dave NEVER ages. Is there a portrait of Dave in attic somewhere, aging in his place ala Dorian Gray?

When I get my scanner working I'm going to have to post some of those oldies but goodies. We were so young in 1990 (22 & 21). I had a 2 year old sister-in-law for heaven's sake. But we were lucky we found each other. Dave is my favorite person, and even though he's not as funny as he thinks he is, he is smarter and kinder than he knows. And we still love each other which is really, really nice.

The Mix Masters

2008-05-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

My mom is here visiting and brought cookie dough scoops for the Georgia & Millie. I've been making cookies on my own since I was tiny. My Sunbeam teacher at church thought it would be funny to have a class make a cookbook to give to parents for Christmas. So she asked all the kids to contribute recipes, transcribed what they wrote and let the hilarity ensue. There were lots of "Take 10 gallons of flour..." or "use forty-eleventy bags of rice and..." Mine was an absolutely accurate recipe for peanut butter cookies. The only part that stumped me was cooking temp & time. So I said, quite cleverly, "Put them in the oven until the buzzer rings."

My point is not that I am a virtuoso cook (those who know me are "amening" right now), but that a)my mom gave me free baking reign as a kid and b) as a result my cookies kick butt. So it sort of disturbs me that none of my older 3 have ever made cookies on their own. They help me, but I never let them take over. So armed with my mom as Bea patrol, I gave each girl their own bowl and measuring cups and let them thru the Tollhouse Cookie recipe, letting them do it all. They did a great job.

Things (literally) got sticky when Bea appeared from a nap and demanded to "make cookies!" [Sidebar: Bea is in a playgroup and when it's my turn, the only real activity we do it is I make cookies and let them taste and feel every ingredient (excpet the eggs) so Bea thinks she's Betty Crocker.] I put her in her chair and gave her a bowl and flour and sugar, thinking she'd be happy. Well, when the big girls started cracking the eggs she was outraged and demanded one of her own. My mom looked at me like, "Surely you aren't going to give an egg to a toddler! Think of the Salmonella! Think of the mess!" So of course the rebellious kid in me hands Bea an egg. She was scared to crack it, but once it was open she had so much fun mixing it with the dry ingredients.

So here are my pointers for good chocolate chip cookies:

Butter is yummy, but tricky. A safe bet is butter flavor Crisco. Foodies, as long as they don't know you've used it, oh and aw over Crisco's resulting taste and appearance (no flat melty ones from too soft of butter nor do you have to smash them down when they get too cakey). Do half and half if you can't live without.

Mexican vanilla is bueno bueno bueno.

Hand mix. You heard me. No electric mixers or food processors. Use your hand and a spoon. Overmixing is the biggest problem. It leads to tough cookies.

Ghiradelli extra dark chips are my favorite. The dough is so sweet, it provides a good blend.

Freeze any cookies you don't eat in the first day. Less than fresh cookies are not worth the calories.

Don't overcook. Put them in the oven until the buzzer rings.

Paging Dr. Kovac

2008-05-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

Dave is out of town this week on business. He hasn't traveled in a while so I should have known that the Consulting Wives Gods had been saving something special for me. Georgia came home from school white as a sheet and complained that she was too hot. She gets heat exhaustion easily, so I handed her icewater to cool her off and a bucket, just in case. Of course she hurled. Her reaction to too much heat, stress, excitement is to puke. I can count on her barfing the first day of every trip we take. So when she is sick, I have to figure out if it's "RGV" (random Georgia vomit) or if she has some bug. An hour later when she hurled again, I had my answer.

I put her in the bath and set Millie & Bea outside with finger paints to keep them busy while I dealt with Georgie. She tends to be easy going and not a whiner so I sometimes have to make conscious efforts to attend to her lest she be Jan Bradied in our family. Meanwhile Picasso & Van Gogh had decorated themselves from head to toe with paint of questionable washability. After everone was scrubbed, it dawns on Millie that Georgia is sick and won't be going to school. Enter "Me-Too-Millie," who has to have EVERYTHING just like Georgia. She suddenly complains of a head and stomach ache and I'm ready to toss her out the window when she insists I take her temperature. The thermometer reads 102 and Iwonder how she WILLED herself a fever. I can't tell if Georgia is upset that once again Millie is usurping her moment in the spotlight.

It was a long, long night as Bea, who I think is also trying to be sick to regain her foothold as center of the universe, kept getting out of her "big girl bed" and coming into the room and waking us all up. Every hour she did this until 5 when I put her in her crib/jail and she wailed and wailed. I waited til she was good and miserable before moving her back to the bed and informing her that if she cried or came out of the room, she'd be back in the crib for good. I got to sleep at 6, and got up 45 minutes later to get Jonah off to school. I hate nights like that.

During a Bea respite between 11 and midnite, I watched last week's ER on the tivo. I love that show. I remember watching the pilot (along with Friends) when we were in Tempe. I can't explain why, but the show often makes me cry. When I'm dealing with crap in my life and can't emote or I'll fall apart, they'll have some story line about someone losing a baby or a friend with cancer and out it all comes. A few episodes ago Dr. Kovac took a job at a nursing home and out came my daddy grief.

Today when I woke up, bleary and exhausted, I had a huge headache and really really wished I could take a bed at county general and have Abby Lockheart attend to me. She'd summon Chuney to take my kids to the family area and then she'd tell me to just rest. A nurse would give me two magic pills to make my head stop hurting and then I'd just sleep, knowing, for the moment, I had no responsibilities. If someone barfed, it was not my job to clean it. If someone was hungry, others would take care of it. I had to laugh, that the best I could come up with for an escape fantasy was to be in an illfitting nightgown at an overcrowded hospital. Why not dream of the beach? Or Paris? How sad that I know the most likely escape from a my temporary gloom would be if my body failed me in a non-threatening way!

Everyone is on the mend. I got a small nap. No more body fluids. Just fevers which will keep the girls home tomorrow. Dave gets back on Friday, and with any luck, I can sleep thru the night without the aid of an ER.

Mothers Who Know Choose Rubies

2008-05-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

So today is supposed to be "my special day," but when your two-year old wakes up at 4am hurling in her bed, down the hall, and then on our bed, it kinda takes the shine off Mother's Day. But honestly, I have fairly low expectations: I need to sleep in, get a funny card from Dave, and not have to cook. Gifts shmifts. The kids made me breakfast in bed, pictures and coupon books, and were cooperative during picture taking which for me, is the greatest gift of all. Jonah even made me Jib-Jab tribute: http://www.jibjab.com/sendables/share_view/8SlWGbfbyjgMGwQnKCCVZAfI
Dave stayed home with the puker, rotating laundry and giving her diet caffeine free coke in a bottle (her white trash dream come true) and the big kids and I went to church. While no one quoted the irritating ruby scripture (see below), I did have to hear about Sister Beck and "Mother's Who Know" which made me want to hurl. But all in all, it's been a fine, fine day and I'm happy to be my kids' Hobo Mama.

Here is something I wrote a few years back regarding this special day:

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there and to all of you who "mother" people you may or may not have given birth to.

Mother’s Day is one of those holidays that all moms are supposed to love but some secretly hate. I have friends who stay home from church on this day, fearing they’ll hear another talk about Supermoms who never get mad and bake 50 loaves of bread and go running before waking the family for scriptures and prayer every morning. For me, I dread that scripture about "her price being far above rubies" because I know my price is more in the neighborhood of the semi-precious stones. Take your amethyst, aquamarine, or garnets, for instance. Now those are jewels one can more easily live up to. Other daunting phrases include (but are not limited to): "God gave us mothers because he couldn’t be everywhere," and "Mothers are Angels on earth." Recently a friend said that I was a "really good mother" and I had to stop her. "No," I said. "I’m a really good writing teacher, a fine maker of Tollhouse cookies, but I am just an ‘okay’ mom. Good enough but not ‘good’ in the way that many moms are." I was not being self depreciating, just honestly assessing where I am in this whole parenting ladder. Truth be told, I'm more nurturing and longsuffering and "maternal" with my friends than I am with my kids. If one of my friends came over and carelessly spilled juice on the carpet I would never say, "Now look what you've done, you naughty girl!" Of course, unlike with my kids, I’ve never had a friend come over and get so engrossed with an activity that she forgets to relieve herself in the proper receptacle, but I'd like to think that if she did, I would be kind and utter non-shaming phrases like, "That's okay, I'm sure you'll make it to the potty next time" or "Don't worry, a few wipes and some baking soda will make that wet spot good as new!" But as a mother, I lack many of the skills I have in spades where my friends are concerned.

This is not to say I am a Bad Mom ala Brothers Grimm or Joan Crawford. I just have a tendency to use phrases like, "Don’t come crying to me if you break your neck trying to slide down the hall on a dish towel." And when Jonah does end up in a heap of tears and dish towels he replies, "I’m not crying to you, I’m crying to myself." When I hear this I console myself that I am getting through to him.

So whether you’re a ruby or Cubic Zirconia, a long sufferer or a screamer, a maker of fine baked goods or a purchaser of Hostess products, happy Mother’s Day, and let someone else do the dishes.

"Vacation All I Ever Wanted..."

2008-05-06T19:52:00.000-07:00

So we got back from Sanibel a week ago and my duffel is still partially full. I think it gives me the illusion that at any moment we will all high tail it back to that magical island off Florida's Gulf Coast. This year, in addition to the Marshalls & Dava & Russ, two more families joined us. I was a little nervous, wondering if they'd be as enthralled with the trip as we are. Blessedly, everyone there loved the simplicity of the vacation. Really there are only 3 things we do: swim at the pool, go to the beach, and ride bikes. Of course there is a bit more to it than that as there is wildlife to be stalked. So while swimming you may spy a giant 4' green iguana that your husband then tries to catch using only a beach towel and his wit... Or you are in the ocean and something catches your eye...and it's a school of dolphins. Or you ride your bike thru the nature preserve and lose count of all the different birds. Here are some pictoral highlights:

Dave and Georgia hunting for shells

Camille takes a break from sandcastle building to grab goggles for a swim.

Mama CoCo shows off one of the many sea stars we find while snorkelling.

Jonah with the little snake found in the sea grass.

Bea-Zilla systematically smashing sand castles built by her sisters.

6 Happy Hobos jump for joy!

"This one goes to eleven..."

2008-04-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

Jonah turned 11 this week and I can't quite believe it. He actually babysat for us and did a great job, if you overlook that he left two half-gallons of icecream sitting on the couch, one dripping its mintiness all down the front... (cue the "Sunrise Sunset" music) Is this the little boy who was so attached to me that he wouldn't let me take a leak in peace but would pound on the bathroom door screaming, "I NEED YOUR PRIVACY!" Is this the tender guy who got scared by the "Snort" in "Are you my Mother?" When did Nacho Libre replace Superman as his hero? When did he start using air quotes anytime he says the word "Santa?"

Right after we gulped down his icecream cake on Thursday we headed up to the Church so to hear the "Rock On Singers" of which Georgia is a part. Just before the performance, Dave pulled Millie's very first tooth out and I got this picture. Bloody but darling. She was sooo excited to have joined the tooth losing crowd.

Here is Georgia singing away. She knew all the words to all 8 songs and has a lovely voice (thanks to her father's genes). But being an introvert, the whole thing wore her out and she was more than ready to go home after.

This last picture I took this morning as we were leaving for church. Grandma Dava bought Bea this bee dress and I had to get a shot of its debut. She was super excited about it and kept making a buzzing noise and petting the little embroidered insects.

We leave for Sanibel Island on Tuesday and I am so excited to get away and just have fun. I'm sure I'll have a tale or two to share when I get back.

"Dream a little dream..."

2008-04-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a dream. But first let me write about the dream I had Sunday morning, right before I was awakened by Millie bringing me breakfast in bed (bread pieces with butter on them and a dixie cup with Wheat Thins!).

So in my dream, Dave and I are with our friends Cliff & Nel, who happen to have a Portugeuse housecleaner. And they are raving about her. Dave says that he knows of a Mexican cleaner who is really wonderful. The three then get into a big discussion about who cleans better, Portugeuse or Mexicans. Dave, a quarter Mexican, is getting really defensive of "his people" and I try to assuage things by saying, "Well, I've never had a cleaner and never will so who cares."

But Dream Dave is silent. And Dream Heather KNOWS something is up and I light into him, "Oh-my-gosh! You've been using a cleaning lady behind my back, haven't you?!" He tries to deny it but I scream: "WHAT HAS SHE CLEANED FOR YOU--WHAT?!" He caves a bit and says, "Just my car--it was really messy--and just once--okay, twice, but I swear only two times, I swear!" And I launch back, "WHAT ELSE HAS SHE CLEANED FOR YOU, WHAT ELSE?!" And he balks and stammers about his office needing to be cleaned but it would never happen again. I'm raging at him.

And I wake up to and Dave is in bed and I just start laughing and laughing, and I tell him and he's laughing and laughing. Because I have such ISSUES with cleaners. It's not some political reason or because it would make me feel like a rich entitled white person (which I probably am), but it all stems back to childhood... [cue the dreamy harp music and picture a typical house in Southern California in the 70s] My mom is a clean freak and has major control issues. She Cloroxed the countertops nightly and could not abide any messiness. Think Bree from "Desperate Housewives." Once, and I swear this is true, my brother Danny's friend Jim R. came for a visit. He got up at 7am to go to the bathroom. When he came back into the guest room the bed had been made. KooKoo Bananas.

When I made my bed in the morning my mom would come in and remake it. So I stopped making it, because what on earth was the point? If I set something on my dresser and left the room, when I came back it would have been rearranged. If I hung clothes on the back of a chair for the next day and then went to brush my teeth, they'd be put away when I returned. If I loaded the dishwasher, she unloaded and reloaded it. When I folded laundry, she refolded it. If I cleaned the bathroom, she'd follow it up with more Windex & Bon Ami. It really depressed me. The message was, "Nothing you do is good enough." Actually the real message was "I am OCD, please get me help!" But as I kid I mistook it all for criticism. Each knicknack she adjusted, each surface she tidied, each toothbrush she put at right angles felt like all my decisions were being second guessed. Every alteration she made was a personal attack. Whew. I'm getting worked up just writing about it. Anyhow, so I've taken this with me. We had a sitter once who was by nature a tidier. I'd come home and all my surfaces would be bare (notice I don't say "clean") and my eyes would start to twitch and I couldn't wait to get her home so I could put my stuff back (ie return to chaos).

After Millie was born, Dave LIED to his Grandma and said what I really wanted as a gift was a cleaning lady to come in. I was postpartum and begrudgingly agreed. It was my worst nightmare come true. Sure the floors were glossy and smelled of Christmas. Sure the bathroom sparkled like a Vegas showgirl. But every inch of my house felt JUDGED. If the bedside lamp had been angled differently, I instantly thought, "Why did she move that? Was the angle I had it at not GOOD enough for her?" So irrational of me. As if the cleaners are supposed to take Poloroids of night tables and after dusting them, make sure the lamp is put back in the exact position. Can you say "paranoid?"

So I am messy and proud. I make imaginary bumper stickers for myself and one of my favorites is "A clean house is a sign of a wasted life." In my defense I am sanitary (the kitchen sink is currently covered in a layer of Ajax to ensure it's salmonella free). I lift things off the carpet to vaccum and then put them right back in the middle of the floor. My good friends understand my issues. Last month when I was out of town my friend Denise K's husband Jim knew I'd left in a hurry to help my mom and suggested that they go clean the house for me while I was away. Denise shook her head. She knows I'd appreciate it, but I might also have an internal flip out. Hence the dream. Of course, if you have no background on my nuttiness, you might read the dream differently. I shared it with two couples on Sunday over brunch. Lindy & Al were cracking up. They know how weird I am. But the other couple. There might as well have been a bubble over their heads saying, "Hello, paging Dr. Freud--Dave is OBVIOUSLY having an affair!" They are lovely people, but way too tidy, so I don't really care if she thinks Dave's a lying cheat and I'm in denial.

That was my literal dream. My metaphoric dream on Sunday was that our family got two invitations to dine with friends--two--and they didn't even conflict. It meant not only did I not have to cook a single meal, but I didn't have to feel GUILTY about it. Now you all know what a failure of a housewife I am. I hate to cook and clean. My house is sanitary but chaotic and my children frequently have cereal for dinner.

First, Lindy had us for brunch and of course it was all so good. There were cheeses and ham and bagettes; carmel French toast with whipped cream; two quiches; homemade oatmeal that tasted like the crumble topping of a fruit pie. And for dessert, pain au chocolat, the yummiest French pastry ever. The best is that no matter how much she makes, there is never enough. Al gives her a hard time about this, but I swear she could make 7 dozen pastries and they'd still all get devoured.

For food intermission I went to stake conference. Go Gordon & Laurie!

For dinner Becca S. made a savory chicken, homemade rolls, asparagus, and strawberry shortcake for dessert with bisquits that were just sweet enough. I ate two plain after dessert, just because. Before we even got to dinner she made her bean dip that is so good, I just stood by the stove with a bag of Tostitos in hand. Instead of getting my own soda I made Danny do it because I didn't want to lose my prime dipping spot. So it was a great day. Good food, good company, and I had no church responsibilies. It really was a dream.

Eat Your Heart Out, Sammy Davis!

2008-04-11T16:18:00.000-07:00

A woman is our ward has started a kids' choir and Georgia has joined. She's delighted that this Monday they'll perform at a nursing home. The song she likes the best and keeps singing is "Candy Man." But I drive her crazy because I can't sing the right words anymore.

This is because every year at the Exponent Retreat they have a talent show, and what is my talent? To make fun of things of course. And even though I barely hum the hymns in church, so untrained is my voice, I belt out wacky songs that I've rewritten. The first one I did was a Mormon Brady Bunch ("It's a story of a special lady, who was bringing up 3 very special girls. All of them read the Book o Mormon like their mother, the D&C and the Pearl..."). Think of the primary song "I love to see the temple" and instead imagine 6 women singing "I love to nurse my baby" as they fling breast pads (courtesy of Denise) into the audience. Or perhaps you might enjoy my twist on the Sunbeam song: "Jesus wants me to take Prozac so I don't flip my lid!" I can't in good conscience publish the lyrics to "Called to Serve" without offending lots of people, so email me privately if you really must know.

Last year The Red Hot Mamas (as we are known), consisting of Coco, Rachel, & Jen W sang my version of "Candy Man" that I spun into a tribute to Mormon cooking. It's hard to picture without all the props (I lied to my farmer/neighbor to get the giant zuccini pictured above, used for verse 4--phallic imagery is a staple of mine). We also had flower shaped jello molds, groovy aprons, and baby marshmellows. Here are the lyrics:

Alright everybody gather 'round
The Mormon Mom is here
What kind of Meal do you want
Tuna Casserole?
Carob chip cookies?
Rice Crispy Treats?
Anything you want
You've come to the right gal
'Cause I'm the Mormon Mom!

Who can take some jello
Pour it in a mold
Add marshmallows and shredded carrots when it’s cold
The Mormon Mom
The Mormon Mom can
The Mormon Mom can
'Cause she uses recipes
From the Ward Cookbook

Who can take some Tuna
Add cream of mushroom soup
Put in raman noodles and heat it into goop
The Mormon Mom
Oh, the Mormon Mom can
The Mormon Mom can
Cause she buys it all in bulk
For the millenium

Chorus:
The Mormon makes everything she bakes
Economical and nutritious
Talk about the loaves and fishes
She fulfills all our food storage wishes

Who can take some icemilk
Add Homemade rootbeer
Include a bendy straw to make the kids all cheer
The Mormon Mom
The Mormon Mom can
The Mormon Mom can'
Cause she wants a wholesome treat
At the Pioneer Parade

The Mormon makes everything she bakes
Economical and nutritious
Talk about the loaves and the fishes
She fulfills all our food storage wishes

Who can take zucchini
Cover it with cheese
Sprinkle it with cornflakes and paprika if you please
The Mormon Mom
Oh, the Mormon Mom can
The Mormon Mom can
'Cause she grew it all herself
In her own backyard

Yes, the Mormon can
'Cause she mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good
A-Mormon Mom, a Mormon Mom

It was hysterical. We even peed our pants a little before we went "on stage." Yes, the Red Hot Mamas are incontinent. My point is, Georgia keeps getting mad at me when I join in as she practices, singing about soup and food storage and corn flakes. Try as I might, I can't go back to the original version.

The biggest draw back to this annual mockery is that some part of me is always hearing alternate versions to songs. Call it the Weird Al syndrome. It's all fine and dandy until the opening hymn is "Hold to the Rod" and I'm tee-heeing so hard that I'm in danger of soaking the pew. The Retreat is only 6 months away. If anyone has any good suggestions, please, let me know!!!!

Maxillofacial Mayhem

2008-04-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

Emmy & Bea lovin the rain.

As I mentioned previously, Jonah needs some major orthodontia. One look at his x-ray shows all sorts of permanent teeth desperately trying to get down, only to be blocked by baby teeth that have long overstayed their welcome. Georgia has lost more teeth than Jonah. So we were refered to an endodontist and had our appointment today to get 6 teeth pulled. Jonah was really stressed as he's never even had a cavity (due to good genetics not hygene, his front teeth look like Yedis). I, on the other hand, have had every dental procedure known to man. In 4th grade I had braces, neck gear, head gear, rubberbands, multiple teeth pulled; a root canal in jr hi; another root canal, a veneer, a front tooth pulled and a post screwed into the bone for an implant. So while I hate hate hate needles for blood work & shots (I nearly fainted when I got my ears pierced), I am very desensitized to dental stuff--and can I just say, dentists LOVE me because of it.

So I go over everything with Joe, how they'll use a long Q-tip with numbing stuff on it before they even get a needle near him, explain that he'll feel pressure, not pain, etc. etc. Poor guy is shaking when we get there and insists that I stay in the room with him. Dr. F was awesome. She uses nitrous oxide, aka "laughing gas." It was out of a movie. Jonah was giggling and laid back and waving his hands around, telling us "these so don't feel like my hands!" I love intoxicated Jonah. He handled it all so well, needing to hold my hand only for the last 2 teeth. I just chatted with him, making sure not to look into his bloody scary mouth. Pretty soon Dr. F was loving me too, because, like the fish in the tank on Nemo, I can speak "dental." Last month when I was visiting my mom she had to have an emergency root canal and I stayed by her side thru it all, schmoozing with the doctor. He even rotated screens so I could see how two of my mom's roots had merged into one. I was the Belle of the maxillofacial Ball.

Before I knew it this morning, Jonah was done and as the doctor is telling me about changing gauze and possible left over shards of roots, I yawn. And I see spots. And I know I am going to faint. Or vomit. Or quite possibly both. I stand and casually ask where the bathroom is and Dr. F sees right thru me. I think my green pallor gave me away. She won't let me leave, gives me a cup of water and says, "This is why we prefer the parents stay in the waiting room." I have gone from Best Patient Parent to Biggest Pain in the Ass in an instant. The water doesn't help and before I can come to my senses they have shuffled poor Jonah, still bloody from his surgery onto the hard chair and put ME in the big reclining dental contraption, have a cool washcloth on my forehead and are taking my blood pressure. I wanted to die. Hello--I'm supposed to be the parent and now Jonah has his hand on my ankle and is looking really stressed, all traces of laughing gas gone. I was mortified. But I was equally mystified. If they'd been stitching up a wound or lancing something, I'd get it. I freak out at purposeful incisions into flesh. I'd rather give birth than give blood. And that's not an exaggeration. But this is DENTAL stuff. MY stuff. I'm blase' about it. I laugh in the face of extractions. Root canal, schmoot canal. But for whatever reason, once Jonah was fine, I fell apart.

Once I was steady on my feet I took us to McDonalds and got us breakfast. I was fine after that, reinforcing my belief that there are few ills a McMuffin & Diet Coke can't cure. Anyhow, I hope none of the girls need oral surgery. Either Dave can take them, or they can go in the sterile room alone. Or if they really really really need me there, I'll go and bring a Big Gulp and prayer.

3 Years in the Making

2008-04-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I've been associated with the Mormon women's newspaper Exponent II since we came to Boston in 1996. I'd heard of Exponent before I came out (Feminists!! Bra-burning ladies who's temple recommends should be burned!!! Man Haters!). In our ward, two of the three women who were the most friendly and inclusive of me were Exponent--thanks Judy D. & Linda H-K. They invited me to read submissions, come to the retreat (definitely the most fun & spiritually stimulating weekend of the year), hang out. In 2000 Nancy D. asked me to be an assistant editor, a counselor to her bishop/editor role and I've been doing it ever since. Several years ago, I became aware of several friends who had husband's with pornography addictions,. Each one felt so alone. We have to talk about this, get this out there, I thought and knew that we needed to dedicate an issue of the paper to the topic.

I started working on it in earnest in 2005, getting Mari Mc to write an article and do a retreat workshop on the Addiction Recovery program that she helped shape. I can't exactly explain why it's taken 3 years to get the whole thing together, but it did. And I must say I'm mightly pleased with how it all came together and I encourage everyone to go to the Exponent website (www.exponentii.org) and check it out. It's such an important subject and affects so many people. Pass it on to friends and family. Honestly, you NEVER know who out there needs to know they are not alone in this.

On the lighter side, I thought I'd attach a couple pix. Bea is such a stinker right now, refusing to nap and refusing to sleep in her crib at night. But she is also so funny. She found some lipgloss of Millie's and when she put it on, she said, "Wook, Mama, I's a pwincess!"

Bea discovers the fun of dressing up. Even if she's more "Hobo-rella" than Cinderella.

This week our dear buddies Heather & Aidan visited from Seattle. While Heather & Aidan were visiting, we had half the world over for a playdate. It was heaven. Georgia just loved having Aidan here. When he left today she said, "Mom, the second Aidan got out of the car at the airport I already missed him." But it was Millie who really seemed smitten with him. I've never seen my Mills with such a crush on somebody. She just followed him around like a puppy. In fact, sometimes AS a puppy, complete with a leash that Aidan held as she PANTED for him. It all felt very Little Women and I suspect if they all end up at BYU together Georgia/Jo may lose her Laurie to her little sister. Thank heaven it's all far away for now. I am NOT looking forward to all the girl drama that boys cause.

The "Fune-cation"

2008-03-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

Here I am with my 3 oldest friends: Chalene (since birth), Amy (2nd grade), Stephanie (3rd).

Matthew, my nephew & Helen.

Stephanie attaches Dave's bouttonier.

My mom with Lydia & Jason.

I thought I'd post a few things from the funeral. As far as funerals go, it was a lovely experience. All four of us spoke, and I took it upon myself to be comic relief. My dad, while not a huge producer of humor, was a giant consumer. He loved a good story and loved to laugh. The first story is from a time I visited them on their mission:

"My favorite food story with dad took place on their mission to inner city Detroit. They were scheduled to do their weekly shift at the soup kitchen and mom insisted that I go with my father, feigning fatigue, shoving us out the door. We get there, in the middle of the ghetto, with all manner of homeless people from the purely down and out to junkies and hobos. As the people came down the line, dad would greet each one uniquely, such as “Yo brother, what’s up?” or “Word to your mother” or “Give me five my man,” with accompanying hand gestures he’d probably memorized from thugs on Law & Order. I couldn’t watch. I admit I volunteered for kitchen duty so that I wouldn’t have to witness the looks on the faces of the people that my sweet dad was trying so hard to connect with. Truly the Lord was watching over him and keeping him safe."

Aside from the church (and Law & Order), my dad was passionate about Toyotas (a trait I inherited. He once said, "God gave us Toyotas so we'd know what 'forever' meant."). Here is the story I shared:

"Let’s talk about Toyotas for a minute. It seemed we always had at least 2 parked in our driveway. The most infamous was the fabled Corolla station wagon. He bought it used (do cars come any other way?) and its brakes made the worst sound imaginable. Pedestrians covered their ears at crosswalks and other drivers turned to stare at red lights. This was poor Angela’s primary mode of transportation. It was stolen one day when she was at work, and though there was panic, there was also relief. So if a car goes missing for a certain period of time, say two weeks, then the insurance company has to pay out. So the very day the time period was up, Dad got a call from the insurance company, “Mr. Bickmore, good news, the police found your car. It’s pretty thrashed, but the engine is fine.” To which he replied, “Excuse me, but they found YOUR car.” He collected his money. The end. Or so we thought. The next week he went to the police auction, bought it back and inflicted it on Ange until she went back to college and then it became mine…"

His Toyota legacy literally goes with him to the grave. My brother Dan picked out the casket, a brushed nickel that he chose it because it reminded him of a silver Toyota Dad once owned. On Friday when I went to the funeral home, I looked at it I thought, “Oh. My. Gosh. Dad’s in a hatchback…”

Being raised Mormon, there are certain funeral rituals you take for granted. On the way from the cemetary to the chapel for lunch, my girlfriend Stephanie (not Mormon) wondered aloud what they'd serve. Without missing a beat Amy (LDS) replied, “Ham, funeral potatoes, salad with creamy dressing, lots of jello, rolls and then cake slices on plates.” Of course she was right on the money.

Another interesting thing for me was to hear cousins compare and contrast my dad with his older siblings. As I chatted with one cousin, I remembered her dad's funeral so well, being struck at the contrast between the Bickmore kids who had either Mary Jane or Lettie raising them, and the ones who spent formative years motherless as this uncle did. He was short, toothless, uneducated, earthy. The exact opposite of my father. While I, dad’s youngest, was heading off to grad school, his youngest was heading off to Florida to train horses for a circus. One of his daughters grabbed my hand and said, “I always loved your dad and imagined that my dad would have been more like him if he hadn’t been a drinker.” How do you respond to such an honest, painful comment like that? I just squeezed her hand as she made her way to the next person in line…

Another revelatory comment came from my dad's oldest brother Lee’s daughter. She said that the funeral helped her feel proud of being a Bickmore, that the funeral service had been very healing for her in how she interpreted her childhood. Hearing all the stories of my dad, loving but remote, proud but demanding, made her understand that how her father was, was NOT about her, but how the Bickmores just are. I understand how hard it can be to not personalize the non-warm and fuzzy Bickmore parenting style, and I am so glad that the funeral helped her make some peace with her own upbringing. Anohter cousin made some similar remarks to me, that hearing all the stories reminded him of his mom, and that they were “brilliant but socially challenged Rain men” in a way. I laughed and amended that they were more like “mist-men” in that they could pass as normal in front of non-family members.

It all makes you wonder what your own kids will say when your time comes: "Mom took sure did document our childhood. If only she'd made dinner once in a while..."

Airing my neighbor's "Dirty Laundry"

2008-03-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

Since Denise is too busy on her Facebook to get a Blog, I thought I'd make her a "guest blogger" on mine. This is the highlight of her week:

"We had scheduled for a carpenter to come over and give us an estimate on doing some work on the outside of our house. He came and as we were standing outside, I noticed something hanging out of one of his pant legs. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that it was a pair of UNDERWEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! He must have take off his pants the night before, and left his undies in them, then forgot about it, and they fell to the bottom of his leg - OR, while doing laundry they got mixed up - I think it was the former.Anyway, as he was walking along, they kept falling more and more out of his pants, I was scared they'd fall out when we were both standing there and he would be REALLY embarrassed that his panties were sitting on the ground! I always walked in front of him incase they fell out and he noticed then he could pick them up without me 'seeing'. So they kept getting more and more out, then he sat at out table to write out the info, and when he got up, they fell out on my floor! Lucky for him, he didn't notice, and went on his merry way and was none the wiser. BUT, I had a gift on my dining room floor! The whole situation was so funny, I had to take a picture. " See below....

Gag Gifts of the Magi?

2008-03-10T18:50:00.000-07:00

Today I was both the giver and the recipient of gifts. One friend has just had a baby. Like I did with Bea, she has suffered a lot to get this little soul here. And Georgia is in 2nd grade with her son and while we were out shopping this weekend, we both decided we needed to get a present for this new baby. She and Camille picked out a super sweet, super soft blanket. My close friends know I have something of an obsession with soft blankets. A Linus complex if you will. So it seemed perfect.

After school we drove it over, handed over the bag and as I was oohing and ahhing over the baby, my friend opened the present, exclaimed with delight, "How perfect," she said. "Every new baby deserves new blankets," I commented. She kind of stared at me and then I see what she's holding. Not the green-yellow-blue blankie, but a remote control cop car. I GAVE HER THE WRONG GIFT! I accidentally grabbed the one meant for the party Millie is going to on Wednesday. Since I'm leaving on Tuesday for the funeral, I've been getting stuff ready and snatched the wrong bag. So I laugh and explain and she's so gracious. I mean, this is the woman who acted like a battery operated police car is a great gift for a newborn!! Later in the afternoon I handed off the intended gift and got an even more gracious thank you. I love this friend.

Earlier in the day another friend had given me a gift. She handed me a bag from Trader Joe's and said, "Comfort food." I was so touched. I could see chips and sparkling limeade and thought about how this friend gives such good, practical gifts. When Georgia was born she dropped by a huge Costco size thing of paper plates that EVERY DAY I was thankful for over those next hectic weeks. Especially since we had no dishwasher at that point. Later as I emptied the bag, I found a tube of mascara. Hmmm. I thought. I looked closer. Waterproof. I got teary just thinking about how prescient this friend is, knowing I'll be speaking at my dad's funeral and would never have thought to bring waterproof mascara. She called me later and as I start to thank her, she tells me that while she was driving, when she stopped at a light her mascara must have rolled off the seat, and could I look in the Trader Joe's bag as it was on the floor of her car. I laughed. And laughed. I told her it was there, what I had thought, and about the blanket-R/C car mix up and we just giggled. But I'm telling you, next time one of my friend's has to attend a family funeral, I'm putting a ribbon on a wand of cry-proof mascara.

The Call From Home

2008-03-07T11:59:00.000-08:00

At 1:30 pm today I got the call. My pop has passed away. He's stopped eating 8 days ago, so we knew it would be anytime. Most people go in 3-5 days under those circumstances. (I credit his stubborn nature and Pioneer heritage.) Angela was holding one hand, my mom, the other, and they said he seemed very peaceful. My heart is aching, but I am also relieved, mostly for my mom who has been diligently caring for him for quite a while, keeping him at home longer than she should have. It was his last best gift to her that he didn't languish endlessly in a nursing home.

As a sometimes writer, I've dabbled in many of the genres from poetry to reviews to theses to real estate copy. But until this week I'd never done an obituary. Here's my dad's:

Danford Critchlow Bickmore, 78, of Paradise Utah passed away March 7, 2008, peacefully in his sleep.

He was born October 16, 1929, son of Danford McArthur Bickmore and Georgina Bolette Critchlow . He was the youngest of 12 children, all raised in Paradise. From a young age, his parents instilled in him a love of learning and of the gospel, which would be the guiding principles of his whole life.

Upon graduation from South Cache High School in 1947, he attended Utah State University, and then served an LDS mission in the British Isles from 1950-52. In 1953 Dan graduated with a degree in business and inspired by his beloved older brother Lee , he attended Harvard Business School as a Baker scholar, class of ’55.

Dan then accepted work in Los Angeles, which became his home for the next 40 years. While living in Westwood, he met his future wife, Marilyn McFarland of San Gabriel, California. They were married in the LDS Temple in Los Angeles on March 11, 1960, 48 years ago this month. Over the next eight years four children were born, giving Dan one of the greatest joys of his life: fatherhood. Dan worked for a variety of companies and eventually started his own company as a financial consultant. This gave Dan more time to be involved in church and community affairs. Whether in capacity as a home teacher or temple worker, Dan executed his calling with dedication and enthusiasm. One of his dearest memories is the time he spent as Scout Master of Troop 147. All 15 boys he worked with became Eagle Scouts. Later he was called to be Bishop of the Canoga Park Third Ward, Los Angeles, California. Five years in that position gave him many opportunities to attend to the spiritual and secular needs of the congregation who loved and respected him. But no matter where he worked or what calling he had, Dan always found time to read, surrounding himself with all manner of books, a quality his posterity has embraced.

Someone once said “You can take a boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” That was true of Dan. In 1977 he found his slice of country in the small, hilly community of Bell Canyon. There he built the house on his dreams, planted a citrus orchard, and built stables for his beloved horses. Some of his happiest times were spent riding over the miles of scenic trails that wound their way through the Santa Monica Mountains with family and friends. But the call to return to Paradise was strong, and in 1994 Dan and Marilyn moved back to his childhood home where they have lived ever since. Though Dan retired from work when they moved back, he never retired from his spiritual duties serving a second mission with Marilyn to Detroit, Michigan in 2000, working in the temple, and with the Hyrum Stake Young Single Adults. He also never retired from his parental role as academic/career advisor and has encouraged his children and grandchildren to always seek knowledge, education, and hard work.

He is survived by Marilyn, his wife of 48 years; children Lee (Helen) Bickmore of Albany, N.Y, Dan (Lisa) Bickmore of Redding, CA, Angela (Tristan) Whitman of Agoura Hills, CA, Heather (David) Sundahl of Boston, MA; grandchildren: Matthew, Kate and Harry Bickmore; Jason and Natalie Bickmore; Lydia, Elijah and Jesse Whitman; Jonah, Georgia, Camille and Beatrice Sundahl; his siblings Jean (Steven) White of Farmington, UT and Barbara (Sterling) Sessions of Ogden, UT.

On Saturday March 15, 2008 a viewing will be from 10:00-11:30 a.m. with Funeral Services following at noon in the Paradise Third Ward, 9060 South, 200 West. Interment to follow at the Paradise Town Cemetery. The family wishes to express their thanks to Dr. Steven Salisbury and his staff; to our fabulous CNS Hospice team: Carol McDonald, RN, and Angie Theurer; and the Sunshine Terrace skilled nursing unit; and the many friends and neighbors who provided love and support.

And now I am working on a eulogy (which I hear in my head "yuh-googl-E" thanks to Zoolander) and trying to figure out flights, child care, Dave's plans, how to rearrange parent teacher conferences, etc. etc. Mostly I'm eager to hug my siblings, hear Beryl Smiley sing "Danny Boy," and hold my mom.