the joy of discovery

"I just discovered something, Mommy. Wipe-off markers don't wipe off wood."

I can remember being on a flight once – pre-kid – when I was looking forward to viewing a movie, or, as they always like to suggest, to “sit back, relax and enjoy the flight.” Woe was me when I discovered the movie choice. A little flick by the name of “Lilo and Stitch.” You might be remember it. An animated film set in Hawaii about a freaky little alien beast who lands on Earth and tries to pass itself off as a pet dog. The young girl it attaches itself to is smitten and despite the penchant for trouble and insane habits of this repugnant creature, falls in love.

I was pissed off that this was going to be my movie, to the tune of an eye roll and an “Aw, geez! A kids' movie?!” Eighty minutes later I was wiping away a tear mumbling something about “Ohana means family (sniff)...”

Now I am not going to sit here and tell you that I have fallen in love with the evil poodle. Nor would I be surprised to discover it had connections to alien life forms. But I will admit that after eight days of feeding her and throwing her ball around the yard, she is almost, kind of, a little, cute when she bounds back with the slimy tennis ball and her ears bouncing; she likes to sit in my lap; and she's stopped barking so damn much. Mrs. Johnson is home. My flight has landed.

school search, part II

farmer's market day: an economy all its own

"It's really cool, Mommy, how when you give the farmers money, they give you back MORE money, so you can buy more things!"

animal aberration

My neighbor, the famous cream puff-making, Isaac-spoiling, 83-year-old Austrian lady, is in the hospital. She fell hard on her knee in the yard and got one of those kick ass fractures reserved for people over the age of 65. She'll be in the hospital for a couple more days or so and then in a brace for six weeks. Kind of sucks, right? But it's at times like these that you find out things about yourself and others.

My neighbor's friend, Rose, has been over and under and all around helpful. Rose called Mrs Johnson's niece in Salzburg so she wouldn't worry when she made one of her twice weekly calls and didn't reach her aunt. Naturally, Ray will have to be notified. He'll be concerned about her. We also called Rich, a man who used to live in our house here and whom Mrs. Johnson has talked about many times. He has his own contract business and Mrs. Johnson needs a railing. He came over to access the job right away. This morning, its not yet 9:00 am and he's been there an hour already working on the project. “I'll always make time for Mrs. Johnson. She's good people,” he told me. And, of course, here I am right next door, obviously I'm going to do whatever I can to help. It's so interesting to witness what someone has built in their life. Looking at the trail of people waiting to assist this woman, I only hope I have a treasure chest equally full when I'm that age.

And help we will, even if it involves ... the dog. My widowed, childless, foreign-born neighbor's sole companion in the house that forever smells of those long brown European cigarettes and knitted afghans, is a white toy poodle.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I love animals. Except my neighbor's dog. That pretty much goes for our whole little crew.

The last time Mrs. Johnson was in the hospital, for something more serious, Rose took the dog home with her. “I'm not having that animal in my house again!” she says. “Crazy-ass dog,” Rich mumbles, shaking his head and trying to walk forward without crushing the hyper nutball under his boots. “If she keeps yipping like that, I'm afraid someone is going to shoot her!” I tell Mike, as I go to put her from the yard back in the garage again. “And I'm afraid it's going to be me!”

In a matter of 24 hours, she's crapped all over the garage, despite a doggie door, and covered herself in mud trying to tunnel her way out under the fence. I can't let her in the house because she'll eat the curtains. I can't let her in the front yard because she'll plot more ways of escape. She has an ear-splitting bark, no ability to stay still whatsoever, and no redeeming qualities at all, but for the fact that Mrs. Johnson loves this stupid dog like she's her daughter.

I always find this phenomenon curious. How people we otherwise think are great have some bizarre habit or desire, some passion or affiliation that we consider completely anathema to our own ideas or the rest of our lovely friend. Humans are multifaceted, that's for sure. Somewhere there is a man who knocked off a liquor store last night kissing his children goodbye at the school gates. (Yes, I have compared the love of a poodle to a life of crime, I would have gone farther if I thought I could get away with it. You have not met this beast!)

It's more than a little pressure trying to take care of something that is stressed out, prone to escape, and WON'T EVER STOP JUMPING.

At this moment, she's been quiet for 10 seconds and I'm worried she's dead. She's probably shimmied under the fence and burst into morning traffic, all 4.3 ounces of her poodley self, and run right under the wheels of a large square bread truck. But enough about my fantasies. I am praying for Mrs. Johnson to come home soon. Because I know she hates the hospital...and because cleaning up urine-soaked newspapers are not my favorite way to be neighborly.

school search, part I

I take in the scene and mumble under my breath. “Well, look at us now.”

We are standing in the middle of a 14-acres campus. There is an arch from nowhere to nowhere, bedecked with vines and sunflowers – all of them real and grown on the property. Plastic bottles have been cut into flowers and strung above the field. The play structures are adorned with colored ribbons; there is a maypole in the center, it's extended streamers of red, gold and green braided at the ends and awaiting small hands to dance with them around and around. People stand at tables making wreaths of cut flowers, selling all-natural popsicles for four tickets each. Most of them are wearing flowing, layered clothing and strappy sandals or no shoes at all. They give off a feeling vaguely reminiscent of a Renaissance Faire, only this is their everyday attire. Here and there a hand-painted sign is tacked up that reads something like “Kindness” or “Equality.”

Have we cracked up completely? If US Airways didn't still owe us to the tune of another $800, I swear I'd race to the nearest airport and fly east until I was safely over territory in which the people drop their r's from the ends of words adding them inexplicably to the ends of other words, where any idiot knows what it means to order a coffee - regulah - where sarcasm and snarky humor would take this scene, chew it up, and spit it out right along with their Coke: through the nose. I would para-freaking-chute down into that world, the one that's perfected the “Don't even think of talking to me” look and walk and forget this every happened.

Are we seriously considering sending our son to this freak hippie school?

Meanwhile, Isaac, notoriously reticent in new environments, skips ahead of us, watching uninhibited while eight-year-olds make enormous bubbles; the child even speaks to one of the teachers of his own volition. There are goats; there are trees to climb; he wants to surf the see-saw again.

It's pretty much on my list of goals in life: up there with my vow never to rent a bounce house for my son's birthday and to release all bowel movements into a functioning toilet. Though before today I gave it only peripheral attention, my list of goals includes never to be associated with any event or organization at which a maypole dance is danced around an actual maypole.

They've worn me down. It's been almost 13 years. Thirteen years out of 40. I'm no math genius, but that's more than a quarter of my life, over fifty percent of my adult years, living in California.

I think about getting Isaac registered here just for the endless writing fodder it'd provide me. I'd be a spy for the other side. But what is the other side? I thought that motherhood was the dawn of my identity crisis, but silly me, it'd happened years before that, when my life officially began as someone forever more bicoastal.

Someone hands me a petition for farmers to be able to grow hemp. I am light-headed from the smell of redwood; I am starting to cozy up to the idea of a patchwork prairie skirt, or growing my hair to my waist. They are dancing the maypole now, the colors are spinning. This must be how they do it. I thought it was hemp, but maybe I just signed my soul over to their cult. People are singing; Isaac wants to see the turtles again; the crystals are so shiny in the sun...

Happy Mother's Day

my mama moved among the days
like a dreamwalker in a field;
seemed like what she touched was hers
seemed like what touched her couldn't hold,
she got us almost through the high grass
then seemed like she turned around and ran
right back in
right back on in

Lucille Clifton
(1936 - 2010)

Somewhere in Time

When you visit a town, it's always interesting to imagine if you could live there. I recently had the experience of being simultaneously drawn to and repelled by a locale. It was a small town, something of a throwback if you will, and charming, as small towns tend to be, and horrible, as small towns tend to be.

Mike made a stop into a locally-owned stationery store – an establishment one could refer to as a “corner variety” -- and emerged again, eyes bugging out of his head. “That place closed 20 years ago! It's just that nobody told them!” A serious time travel kind of place where you might expect to find Christopher Reeve (young, whole and alive), meet up with Jane Seymour (always stunning), just don't reach into your pocket for any pennies...Nearby on the street, we watched as a man in a long white beard, reflective vest, shorts and brown knee socks stopped traffic in the main intersection in order to pick up trash in the road.

Food joints are always telling. No matter the place, I can almost always find my cafe – it just takes one – the one with the community journal, the postcards for sale by a local artist, the killer avocado salad, and, if I'm really lucky, even the gluten-free options. I was in one of those cafes recently and while awaiting my tasty treat, a woman of no more than 30 walked in pulling behind her one of those shopping cart-type things which contained one straw hat, one newspaper, one banjo, and one copy of Magic for Dummies. I gasped audibly and clamped my hand over my mouth so that nothing else more offensive would escape. A wave of compassion for the town and this resident in particular rose to engulf my being. A spot that could accommodate this person as well as the tattooed, deep-voiced woman slapping my order on the counter was okay by me.

Dinner is another matter. Often I just give up. In my general experience, if you are following a sandwich board sign and descending stairs to a restaurant, you are headed for some meaty “American” food and a 17-year-old named Tiffany who will be-your-server-this-evening. In other words, you'll be hungry. The wave that engulfs me when Tiffany still hasn't brought the water I asked for 20 minutes ago to wash down the “food” in front of me is pure irritation, which interestingly, banjo-playing magician women forgotten, usually begins to extend to the whole of the human race.

I'm pretty sure that what makes an attribute for a town fall into the charming or horrible categories has much to do with whether or not you have, not just someone to share it with, but perhaps a community of folks to share it with. People who see things the way you see them. You gotta call kitsch kitsch. Otherwise, you may 1) go crazy or 2) loose all perspective and wake up one day to find your chic urban haircut grown out and in its place a bouncy side ponytail.

remember when you had all the time in the world?

"Mommy, I'm counting to infinity."

"Oh, yeah?"

"What comes after one million twenty-five?"

"One million twenty six."

(mumble, mumble) "Thirty-two..." (mumble) "I'm mixed up. I'm just gonna start again. One, two, three..."

the rule follower

My son is a rule follower. The boy was born with his very own caution meter.

He stops dead at corners and driveways. Passersby often watch in horror as my boy races ahead of me along the sidewalk, and just when they are about to move their gaping jaws to rip me anew one about my slack parenting, he puts on the brakes and screeches to a dead stop, averting danger. “Electric collar works every time,” I'm fond of saying to the would-be accusers while grinning a satisfied grin.

On the fateful day we went to register for track, we had been to the beach before stopping into the city recreation office. Both of us barefoot, I shoot a lazy gaze into the back seat. “You don't want your shoes on, do you?” I ask hopefully. “Nah.”

As we disembark from the Mazda, I make the mistake of noting to Isaac that we were “rebels” today – going in barefoot.

“What do you mean 'rebels'?” Isaac wants to know.

“Well, usually, we should have shoes on to go in the building.”

We are half-way up the walk, then, “Actually, mommy, I want my shoes.”

“Oh, Isaac, I was only kidding about the shoes,” I lie, still resolute in my laziness.

On our flight home from the vacation that wasn't, we had a rather bumpy ride skirting thunderstorms. At one point, the seat belt sign still lit but the current air smooth, Isaac announces he has to pee. We wait a while to see if the sign will turn off. It doesn't, and his subsequent reminders of pee necessity grow always more urgent.

“Let's go, then,” I suggest.

“But the light!!” comes my son's reply.

“Better than a puddle in your seat!”

I had to practically drag him down the aisle. I mean, we were in the back of the plane, as per freaking usual, and he's a boy for godssake - how long can it take? As long as it takes to push-pull 40 pounds of upstanding citizen into that two-square-foot space and jam closed the accordion door.

Then there's the 24-minute parking thing. Every city has its parking quirks, I guess. (If yours doesn't, just humor me here and make me feel better.) Touring comedians have chucked the entirety of their planned material to crack impromptu joke after impromptu joke razzing us about our green-painted spots where you are allowed to park for, yes, 24 minutes. How they ever decided on this amount of time, I couldn't tell you.

So yesterday, in trying to both get to the farmer's market and get home to meet Mike before he had to dash off to an evening meeting, we were short of time and not falling into the favor of the parking gods. Finally, I decide to settle for the dreaded green space, reasoning that we shouldn't dawdle anyway.

“Nooooo!” Isaac whines.

“Dude. What?”

“What if we don't make it back in time??”

He's five. What could be in that wild imagination of his? That the women in the stupid golf cart parking patrol cars, armed with their long sticks of chalk to mark tires will haul us away to be roasted by dragon fire should we arrive back to our vehicle 25 minutes after parking?

“Then mama gets a ticket.”

“And then what??”

The flames lick our chins and the spiky tail whips about with vengeance. Oh why??? WHY???? didn't we just drive around the block 30 more times? Or take the bus????

I like that he is attentive to law and order. And maybe it's just that a parent needs things to worry about. But, I worry.

Women and Food

Mike found this beaut of a “cookbook” during one of our trips to the dump. Copyright 1948. There is a photo of the back cover at the end of this post which explains a lot – don't cheat! No scrolling down! It's a little gem of a surprise waiting for you.

Been thinking a lot about food lately. What with my hot new one-stop tour almost ready to roll.

Been trying to write about food. Hypoglycemia and gluten-free don't ride smoothly into the stanzas of my poetry, though they are the biggest things on my plate (for future reference, puns always intended) at the moment. But I also realized how many of my poems leak food even when I don't intend it. Like the one about my grandmother. The grandmother I never met. It's an imagined scene, and intuitively, I set her among food, feeding people, among edible metaphors.

The poem begins:

Anna was in the kitchen

The windows were fogged,

pasta on the stove,

dough rolled thin on the counter,

more than enough.

A pickle crock figures prominently in the scene, a lunch pail. There is this bit:

after so many years, he, 
close to deaf, she, having to shout 
her love to him: Your shirts are pressed!
And the perfume smelling like cooking oil...

And on and on. Women and food. I have several unfinished pieces involving food that are neither here nor there in terms of prose or poetry. Like this snippet:

The cans of green beans in dubious liquid stocked my mother's cabinets like bomb shelter provisions. (Ed: To this day the woman prefers CANNED asparagus over the fresh version. Mom, I know you are reading this and let me announce to the internet that you are WEIRD, not to mention nutritionally challenged.) Food was what could be quickly made and quickly consumed off paper plates or flimsy silver trays where the courses were compartmentalized – even if the corn tended to trip here and there into its neighbor frame: the dark brown backdrop of the square of chocolate cake sitting still as a 70's game show prize.

You might imagine my shock then, when in the middle of college (after living on a diet of pizza, beer, local vodka, and Entenmann's banana chocolate crumb cake) I headed off to Mexico, in an "exchange" program for which there was no Mexican student with poor eating habits coming north to balance the transaction.

There, people picked lemons from their backyards; offered mangoes from branch to blender. It was my first lesson in eating from the earth. Mud pies no longer felt quite like simple child's play, but more like intuitive renderings of a life source.

Here, in California, years later, the roots of my dinner plate still astound. My friend offers me pears from her tree of which she complains, "It won't stop!"

And, here, in California, today, driving the highway, dodging merging flatbed trucks strapped with strawberries, I eye with suspicion, venom even, the new homes' serpentine line as it advances behind brown and green raised beds of seedling vegetables. Already it sits on land that used to reap food.

Food. Whole journals are dedicated to the stuff. And just when you thought it didn't matter anymore, it defines and redefines your identity for goodness sake...

Soul Food

A cluster of women

in traditional Korean dress

leaves the Mexican taquería

and crosses the street in front of the Ford pickup.

From high, bowed waists each skirt releases

its own soft color: mint, peach, custard, a velvety blue.

Their rich black hair is cut bluntly,

all just below the jaw line.

The wind billows their exaggerated skirts,

so that they look like bells or gumdrops

gliding along on the breeze.

I wonder where they came from

to appear here in the downtown crosswalk,

in the bustle of this

Saturday morning.

Perhaps the wedding food

left that much to be desired,

and they headed – in full regalia –

for the safety of a burrito and chips.

I picture those skirts

bunched into a vinyl booth

while a ranchera plays over the speakers.

I imagine them laughing together quietly,

as the Mexican hot chocolate arrives,

as they lick salsa from their fingers.

and, anyway, we've BEEN to Dublin, OHIO...

How different can it be?? Ireland, Shmireland.

circa summer 1998 - the kitsch tour east to west. Mike getting his geek on in a field of concrete corn. Who could resist such superior demonstrations of geekness? So naturally, I married him.

Check the cut-offs on us both. Smoooooth.

our foiled escape, part I

When I was a little girl, I used to adore those glass garden globes, the one's people put out on pedestals to reflect flowers or what-have-you. If I had one now, I'd gaze into it, playing the seer like I used to and, swirling my hands about its aura, ask into its depths, “Oh, Great Universe! Tell me your secrets. Reveal, Oh, Great One ... WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING???!!!”

We tried a second time to get to Ireland, five days after the first shot. That flight, too, was canceled.

I woke up the morning after we arrived home vacationless feeling lobotomized. I stared at the suitcase I refused to unpack like it were a dead man's closet. Touch nothing, you hear me? This denial will be here a while.

I have been trying and trying to think of something I could write that would be interesting and worth your time. No one is going to weep for us, the poor babies who didn't get to go to Europe.

No one really wants to hear the blow by blow about the airlines' series of screw ups that left me wishing I'd fought in the Battle of the Boyne rather than stood in line one more time at the US Airways ticket counter. (In the end, I'd managed to limit my orange wardrobe to one sweater that could really pass for a peachy-pink and one little hoodie for Isaac – surely they wouldn't harm the small ones – though the benefit of the doubt I offered our kinsmen of the Emerald Isle would go untested, or course.)

I could attempt to describe the look on the face of the man at curbside check-in when he asked if we needed assistance and I told him no, we were on one of the canceled Europe flights, and he sprung back from our luggage as if it were on fire and offered a head shake and a “Good Luck with THAT!”

Maybe you'd get a chuckle if I mentioned that on the second try, five days after the first, while driving the hour and forty-five minutes to the Philadelphia airport from my mother's house, as the traffic slowed in Mullica Hill, NJ, I caught sight of a rather prominent name on a rather large mailbox beside the road. “ASH,” it said. Ten minutes later my phone would ring and the robo-voice would regret to inform me of what I already knew was coming.

“I just want to eat donuts. Lots and lots of donuts,” Mike said at one particularly stressful moment.

Escape can happen in many ways, and so I've been reading. Reading, reading. Sidebar update forthcoming. For now, here's a poem, of sorts, not exactly about reading, but about reading book jackets and the descriptions they offer.

"From Out of the Rubble of the World We Rise, Thanks to the Praise on Book Jackets"

Infused with a clarity of vision,

our day-to-day is dwarfed under the masterpiece

of the book jacket praise. At once plain and melodic,

it is the human being at his best, shot through with

unmistakable intelligence and original voice;

they bring us a fresh source of inspiration and insight.

And could we ask for more than a wildly funny, infinitely wise,

near to tragic tale?

Well, come to think of it,

I've always been partial to something that goes with everything,

a real foundational piece for the reading wardrobe,

and for those of you with me on this, why not something

audacious, controversial and hilarious.

So rapt in itself, each collage of words must outdo the one before,

and, moreover, the one inside, draped superfluously over 347 pages.

Anyone worth their salt knows that in telling one's truth

we have one chance and little space.

Our dear species. Fraught though we are

with our tangled loves,

our penchant for self-destruction,

with just a touch of help from book jacket verbiage,

we become

the most impressive collection yet.

two tickets to the next typhoon, please: a love story

Kind of gives the “blast off” that ended the last post new meaning, doesn't it?

Eyjafjallajökull. Right. But we're all friends here, aren't we? How about a nickname? Eyja? Kull? How about Ted. Let's go with Volcano Ted. So, while I would like to impress upon you how very little a vacation in New Jersey feels like the one I anticipated in Ireland, I'm also aware of what a better position I might be in over a couple other people. Ted, you rascal. And I think, truly, that if you have the means, you might consider getting yourself to an airport or the hotels in the vicinity and adopting yourself a European or two for the time being. I'm quite serious.

We tried to fly the day of the biggest blizzard to hit the east coast in I dunno how long. We tried to fly the day of the biggest air traffic groundings since September 11, 2001. We is ALL about timing, baby.
Perhaps we should just book now for the next typhoon season. And when I said that to my husband, he surprised my figurative ass with this story:

Mike is part of a typhoon project at work (that much I knew before) where they've asked for three shifts of volunteers to live on Guam for three weeks each waiting for a typhoon to spring up at which time they'd hop on a plane and fly directly into it. This would be repeated as many times as there were typhoons in the three-week period. Something about measuring atmospheric conditions and ocean temperature. He declined.

Allow me to point out that many people, myself included, would likely have come home after being propositioned thusly and told the story. It could have begun over the dinner table in the form of “You won't BE-LEEEVE what happened at work today...” But I am married to Mike. Captain Understated. Champion of Bedrock Emotion. Therefore, I may never have learned about his opportunity to play the ball in a large and experimental game of pinball had I suggested, say, tickets to the next UFO invasion or large-scale blackout. Let me go on record as thanking a certain volcano, and you know who you are, for this chance to blurt out sarcastic comments and, consequently, grow that much closer to my life partner.

Be well and stay out of the ash clouds.

international attire

Back in October, I dared try to have a long weekend with an old girlfriend of mine I hadn't seen in too long. Like a real live, off on my own, took a plane to get here, vacation. I felt awful the whole flight there and once I was snug in our hotel room, I proceeded to get violently ill and stay that way for most of our trip. This is where the “old friend” part comes in handy because I'm reasonably certain that she's still speaking to me. We can just chalk it up to another “remember that time when...”

On the way home – prior to the experience of coming within a hair of being bumped off the plane I had reserved months in advance because, well, I still don't know why really, they mumbled something about change of aircraft and wanting to screw over their paying customers, I think – I endured the wrath of the TSA agents. Okay, I'm lying, they were actually very pleasant; we just had a difference of opinion. Whereas I thought that the kitschy, yet age-appropriate snowglobe I'd purchased for my son as a gift posed no threat to our fine homeland, they thought the 2 ounces of water within it created a security risk.

And so I had a choice. (Have you noticed that whenever anyone states that you have a choice it means you don't really have a choice?) I could either throw it away, or dump out the water. I envision these same people saying things like, “You can either set the teddy bear on fire, or slice him open and tear out all the stuffing,” then smiling like the Grinch.

Fine. I'll dump the water. One problem. Couldn't get the rubber stopper out. After all, trashy tourist gift or not, the water is meant to stay IN the snowglobe. One of the kind TSA agents tried to help. When he couldn't get it open with his fingers he attempted it by using the dental pick he had in his pocket. (Apparently a drop of water in a toy is a problem, but not a red flag on hygiene issues.) No luck. Another agent came to see what all the fuss was about. He tried too. Nope. At one point, I had three TSA agents trying to release the water from my kid's snowglobe. People could have been smuggling palettes of dynamic by us, but by god! those agents were dedicated to their snowglobe detail. Finally, one of them managed to open the plug and there it all went in the trash, glitter escaping with the water.

At home, it was interesting to try to explain to Isaac why the people at the airport wanted to drain his globe. Nonetheless, we headed to the craft store to pick out some new glitter. We filled it with green and orange sparkly glitter that made it look a bit like an acid rain nightmare but pleased my son to no end. We then added that dastardly water and replugged. A gleeful Isaac carried it across the kitchen to dry it at which point it slipped out of the towel, fell to the tile and broke.

Which just goes to show...I have no moral to the story. None. It's pretty much like most every story I've encountered that begins and/or ends with the airlines. It reminds me of that Lewis Black routine about Starbucks which I quote often: “It's expensive, but at least the lines are long!”

In our recent dealings with the airlines I have had long heart-felt conversations with supervisors at multiple companies' 1-800 lines about things like seats. It's this crazy idea I have that I'd prefer to sit with my family on our trans-continental/trans-Atlantic flight. (Though to be honest, the last time I was separated from my boys I read a whole book cover to cover! A whole book! On the plane! When I informed the man next to me as we landed of this fact, he was not impressed, as I'm sure, dear readers, you, being empathetic, vibrant people must certainly be. Why are we so rarely placed next to empathetic, vibrant people when dangling 35,000 feet above the planet when they'd likely come in handy?)

So, we're going to Ireland. (Don't except bloggedy blogs for a bit.)

Now there are many reasons to want to go to Ireland and we've collected several of them, and we're going. There you have it.

As some of you may know, my favorite color is orange. I am the woman who, when glancing around her living room plotting decorations for Halloween, simply threw up her hands, since there was nothing she could really do that would alter the normal color scheme.

Some of you may also know, that there is a thing about orange in Ireland. Something to do with William of Orange (a Protestant) defeating King James (a Catholic) in the Battle of the Boyne 320 years ago. 3-2-0. We'll see if they let me squeak by. Cuz the countdown is on for this not-so-little adventure and once I am again on the ground and free of airline insanity, I don't need one more thing.
I'll leave you with this from Isaac, learning about subtraction:

K: So what's 10 minus 1?

I: 9

K: What's 9 minus 1?

I: 8

K: 8 minus 1?

I: 7

K: 7 minus 1?

I: 9...No! Um, 6?

K: Yeah, we're still working on that circle on the top, circle on the bottom thing, huh? Okay, 6 minus 1?

I: 5

K: 5 minus 1?

I: 4

K: 4 minus 1?

I: 3

K: 3 minus 1?

I: 2

K: 2 minus 1?

I: 1

K: 1 minus 1

I: Blast Off!!

Bon Voyage to us. See you all in a couple weeks.

more on that aquarium exhibit and beyond

I'll admit that I did not view the new exhibit very carefully this first time around. It was busy, and my guardedness around what Isaac might take in led me to steer more quickly through it than I otherwise might have. I'm also not in favor of the aquarium saying nothing on hard truths and thorny topics. But I am still troubled. It's kind of a “first do no harm” kind of issue.

Maybe it's a matter of what is presented in which form and in which order that needs review when we're thinking about serving a variety of ages and abilities to process this information. There may be, as the website quote I included in the last post suggests, lots more positive change stories enveloped in this new exhibit than were obvious to me. However, if they are mainly textual, that is not – even with a mama reading along – what my young child is going to take away from the experience.

There are all kinds of learners out there. But I'm going out on a limb here to say that a majority in our society might fall into the categories of visual and experiential. What you see and what you experience make the biggest, earliest impressions.

The same might be true for my college-age students. I critique the aquarium's exhibit, not from a place of knowledge, but from one of struggle. I battled how to present information for 15 weeks during my fall “environmental writing class.” For these kids, the dictate of the day is “save the planet.” And, believe me, they are over it. Yawn. Apathy is the top layer of all those other potentially negative outcomes like fear, hopelessness, etc. With the readings I required, it was a constant push/pull on looking for hard-hitting information and looking for uplifting outcomes. I can't be sure that any of it made any huge impression. But then there were the other assignments. The ones outside of the books.

I have a lot of doubts about teaching. A lot. Doubts that surface when I think about doing it, while I'm doing it, after I get my student evaluations, doing it in combination with real life lessons, in settings where grading becomes the salient carrot on the proverbial stick. I could go on. But I know a few things for certain that are good, solidly good stuff, the stuff they might even remember for years to come and that wouldn't have happened without the environment writing class we created together.

Things like two of my students touring Jeffers' Tor House guided by one of the most passionate, endearing local poets I know, who generously gave of his time to touch their lives. Like one of my students who wrote past her language issues and into a piece about a life-changing encounter with dolphins in a way that was so moving it brought both of us to tears. Like students using the “idle time” assignment to sit quietly and discover for the first time places and their own thoughts they'd rushed past for months. Like the students that found the thrill and vitality behind reading their own work aloud into a microphone for an eager crowd.

I know these things were good mostly because the students told me so. In weak moments, even these pierced angels of cynicism can admit when they've experienced something that has entered their hearts.

One day, I had made my class read excerpts from Edward Abbey and Bill Bryson on the same night. This was, one: curious because of their screamingly different approaches to writing, and two: dreadfully mean (according to my students) because they were each rather long passages.

One of my students, in discussing Abbey out there on his own among the rocks and coyotes, and Bryson with his page after page dedicated to his fear of bears along the Appalachian Trail, brought up the fact that nature for her is just downright “scary.”

“Pretty hard to save something you're afraid of, huh?” I tried. A stillness dipped into the room for a moment, a just-perceptible beat of quiet. The girl under direct address nodded slowly.

I would argue the same goes for climate change. If we are in a state of fear, we are much less likely to be able to do something about it. Far be it from me to argue for the All-American happy ending. Honesty is a bad habit of mine, truly. But it does seem like taking another look at “cheery” messages, might be worth our while.

Why I feel the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new exhibit is damaging to children and, consequently, their mission of ocean conservation

Isaac could hardly wait to see the flamingos. In the world of animal cool, tall pink birds standing on one leg are solidly in the range of “very” for my boy.

And there they were. A couple anyway, visible on occasion over the heads of the spring break crowd. And a couple of spoonbills – equally cool. And a scarlet ibis or two. The rosy feathers of them all announcing the nature's proclamation on fashion – gaudy is IN.

I didn't point out to him the water mark painted on the glass denoting the predicted water level in the near distant future that towered well over the noisy group gathered to capture these birds on their iphones.

Then there was the graveyard. An animated video spoke about the calamitous fates of various sea creatures while all around it were “tomb stones” etched with names like “sea anemone,” as if we'd accidentally wandered into a suburban Halloween display.

Isaac stood staring at the short loop of a wall-sized film about the domino disasters surrounding the lifestyle of the Inuit people and their natural resources three times through and would have stayed for goddess knows how much longer if I hadn't pulled him away. “Did you understand that?” I queried. “No.” he told me, and I did my best to fill in a few elements I felt comfortable enough explaining.

There were also some penguins. Isaac took note, but he can visit the ones on permanent exhibit upstairs most any time. There was the cow with the gas mask and the note about biofuel - relatively amusing and positive.

More screens flashed at us and pronouncements of doom writ large (literally) along the narrow passageways before we got to the two sea turtles swimming back and forth in an unadorned tank and Isaac whined that he was hungry.

Here is how the aquarium's webpage bills their newest exhibit which they've titled “Hot Pink Flamingo”: “Amazing animals will capture your heart in our new 7,000-foot special exhibition. Take a trip through our galleries—and across the globe—and discover how climate change is affecting ocean life. Along the way, you'll meet people and communities who are reducing their carbon pollution, and learn about the small changes we can all make to help the oceans.”

Hmm. Did we see the same thing? Cuz what I experienced had little to do with flamingos, or capturing anyone's heart. We've determined that I'm not against things political. Yet, when I view this from the perspective of a five-year-old, as best I can, I see the potential for instilling fear, confusion, hopelessness, resignation. Come to think of it, when I look at it from the perspective of a 40-year-old, I see potential for instilling, let's see, fear, confusion, hopelessness, resignation...

My son needs to fall madly in love with flamingos. Period. Step one in his generation saving anything. He's five. He does not need messages about drowning polar bears just yet. He can't do anything about it. And what he can do, believe me, he does. I have picked up more nasty garbage because my son has guilted me into it than I care to remember right now.

I feel strongly that the beloved world-class aquarium in our backyard as slipped off the track on this one.

So what is the solution? PG-13 aquarium exhibits? I don't think so. But I feel like before we can solve our planet's problems, we have to get together on how to talk about this.

I have more to say on the college-aged perspective after teaching “environmental creative writing” last semester, but, for now, enough. To be continued...?

political motherhood

“Look around—there's only one thing of danger for you here—poetry.” - Pablo Neruda to the armed forces searching his house after Pinochet's military coup in 1973.

So I recently added myself to The Mom Blogs directory – icon & link at the bottom of the sidebar. I'd like more traffic here. I'm experimenting. One must do that now and again, it seems, experiment, though one is mistrustful of groups and highly mistrustful of groups that involve parenting.

You are invited to include your blog in up to three categories. In theory, this seems pretty good. In reality, you are choosing from a limited pool you didn't have a hand in creating and it brings up some interesting conundrums. I put myself in moms blogging in California. Pretty straight forward. Then I put myself in something called “Beyond Motherhood.” Seems to be the catch-all for those of us whose essence is not represented there. And the last one I am in is “Political.” I couldn't help but notice that this was one of the smallest categories. Much smaller, for example, than the listings for “Scrapbooking” (currently 234 blogs listed), “Fashion and Beauty” (451), and “Shopping and Reviews” (941). And I ask myself, how can this be?

Yes, I do mean, how can this be that “Scrapbooking” is not only a major interest of so many people, but that parents have TIME to scrapbook AND time to BLOG about it??!!?? But these are minor distractions when I think about the question at heart here: Are you trying to tell me that parenting isn't political? Cuz, um...

If you don't think that labor choices and food choices and school choice are political, I'm not sure what to tell you. If you don't think that raising children in a world of climate change and war isn't political, then you are a lot different than I am. I mean, when you get right down to it, for godssakes, if you've ever taken your infant outside with or without a hat and been accosted by strangers with vocal opinions, you've dabbled in the world of political parenting.

But I don't just write about parenting, eh? And if you don't think poetry is political, well, where do I start? Let's start with these words: Pablo Neruda.

Poetry not political? Tell that to the poets who've been exiled from their homelands because of their ideas. Tell the poets who've died for their words.

And check this awesome site out that I just discovered Split This Rock. A huge thanks to my colleague and friend Diana García for turning me on to this one. It is a group of activist poets trying to help other poets take their place in the movement for social justice. Diana was just part of a panel at the STR conference in DC this past March. The panel was called BIRTH AND THE POLITICS OF MOTHERING IN CONTEMPORARY POETRY. Sorry, did I just write that in all caps? Yeah, well, there's a bug crawled up my butt on this one and, trust me, be glad you're at a safe cyber distance from me.

If it's too much for you to name choices in how and why you mother, or when and what you write “political,” fine, be a language coward and see if I care. A rose by any other name, lovies. Just do me a favor and don't call it “scrapbooking.”

Exactly.

living in a van down by the river

It's not that I am dying to take on a mortgage. Debt is one of my biggest fears. Mike and I are different in this regard. Not that he is dying to take on a mortgage either, but one of his biggest fears is that the cat will get into the dryer and we won't know she's there before turning it on.

People, I have A LOT of fears, but cats and dryers don't make the list. Marriage is a balance of unbalanced minds. But let's get back to the subject at hand.

Mortgage – not high on my list of dreams. Painting my walls whatever freaking color I want – extremely high, we're talking throw your BFF on your shoulders and you still don't have to bend to walk under this limbo stick, baby.

A simple thing, I know. The two issues – (if you haven't been keeping up I mean mortages and paint colors) seem to be a package deal and I'm at the point where I am ready to dive in. It's kind of like when I chose to have a homebirth. I didn't so much choose to have my baby at home as I chose to have a midwife, and where I live the former comes with the latter. And voila! it all worked out perfectly.

I miss the old days; I won't lie. There was a time when Mike and I could look at a place and know we could make it work, that anyway, it was just temporary. There is something delicious about working with all the weirdness that is already there. But those days are over. I have the worst case of house envy possible.

When we moved to Monterey in 1998, housing was tight. We had no jobs, no cell phone and we were living at the campground. Not quite a van down by the river, but not your ideal candidates to take on a lease.

And when we got as far as the apartment tour, things got ugly fast. And I do mean ugly. I want to believe that now, over a decade later, things are different, but when we were looking at apartments around here in the late 90s, virtually every one boasted a carpet the color and pattern of which I can only refer to as “puke.” It was the standard Monterey carpet. How on earth, we reasoned, could such a beautiful place be overrun with such hideous carpet? I still can't answer that, but let me just tell you that at a particularly low point in our search we nearly took one of the Monterey puke carpet apartments and as an added bonus it was located on a street by the name of “Dickman.” That would have clinched it for me.

Street names are curious. Makes you wonder what kind of karma they bring with them. In dreaming about buying a house we have come across a few beauts for street names: Lovers' Lane. Bliss Street. These are places I'd happily take up residence – a far cry from Dickman.

Bliss and Lovers aside, by my calculations there are about half a dozen street names total in the country. Seriously. Count with me: There's Main Street. Maple. Elm. And at most three more. Center, for example? Do you have a Center Street? Ours is Central, but close enough. Towns right the hell next to each other use the same names of streets. The human imagination limitless? Yeah, check your maps.

By looking at the houses, at least in my neighborhood, you'd think we were a chummy species, all neighborly an' shit. Porches overlook the porches next door, bedroom windows sport views of their neighbors' newly-built decks. Of course there are a few things to tip you off that neighborly isn't quite the descriptor for life in 2010 USA: Maybe it's the No Trespassing signs. Maybe it's the yards where the most prominent thing planted is the car – on the grass smack in front of the door, if there is grass, because just as often there is concrete – lots and lots of concrete. I've long held to the belief that if someone has a house and can't see fit to at minimum *pretend* to be grateful for the privilege, they should lose it and that house should go to someone like ME. Fabric softener showing out the front bay window? Sorry. You lose. Dead Christmas tree laying in the front yard in April? Hand over the keys, buddy.

We have a nice place that we rent here. It's cute. A little island of sweet. But it's not mine, and I'm tired, so tired of my view of dumpsters and chain link fences. I want my own damn place and it ain't gonna have any bloody rose bushes, and it's gonna take more than four strides to cross, and every damn wall will be a different color. And if that means mortgage, bring it on. I'm a big girl now. I'm ready to face my fears.