birthday as cultural commentary

Isaac's birthday will be here in less than a month. He really wants a party. To date, I have managed to avoid any controversy or heartache over his lack of parties. Of course, it's not that we haven't celebrated.

When he turned one we had just moved and had a combination house-warming, bring your one-year-old over too kind of day.

When he turned two, we had – eh-hem – just moved again and served the friends that helped us some carrot cake with a candle on it.

At three, we tried a very small at home thing where a couple kids and Isaac dug in dry beans to find bouncy balls and took home seeds in clay pots instead of goodie bags.

Four was the new adventure of roller skating topped off with some ice cream and shared with our friends' twin girls.

I billed five as his big family/snow birthday, two things he doesn't usually experience. We spent that one at his grandparents' house in Massachusetts where grandma made him a strawberry topped cake to order and his cousins pulled him around the ice outside on an inflatable tire.

All in all, not bad, I'd say. And now we approach six. I thought I had this one in the bag – six is the year they are allowed to do behind-the-scenes tours at the aquarium. I mean, dude. Pick a friend, hit the tanks, twenty bucks later call it a birthday. Only problem is, it's not flying.

You must understand, I am contending with the insidiousness of things like the pony party, the bounce house blow out, and what I call the “drag net birthday” - invitations handed out to every flipping kid in the class before their parents even get a say, invite ev-er-y-one, doesn't matter what you think of them, what they mean to you, collect your present and eat your cake, too – which undoubtedly has been bought from Costco and contains five-inch thick day-glow green icing, and then send them home with gender specific goodie bags filled with plastic dollar store crap and candy.

Truth be told, I keep Isaac home from every birthday party I possibly can. I'm a proud evil mom. And he still goes to plenty...with Mike. I have no tolerance whatsoever for these fiestas or the idle chit chat that circulates among the parents during same.

The other day Isaac had in hand his second invitation in a week. There would be ponies. There would be lunch (MAJOR red flag – Capri Suns and pizza if you get off easy. Or else burgers and hot dogs your veggie kid can't eat at all served with Hot Cheetos and soda. It's like a psychedelic trip down the river of processed foods brought to you by your guide and companion: high fructose corn syrup.). We planned a family day and told the birthday boy's mom we'd be out of town. That Friday, the family brought cupcakes to school and the ponies were all the buzz. “I wanna go to Duncan's party!” came my boy's well-practiced whine.

The morning of the grand event our plans had shifted and I could no longer be a part of the family day. Isaac hadn't mentioned the party since his token whine, but Mike and I were careful not to let it get past the time of the soiree without directly addressing the fact that we wouldn't be there, lest it prove meltdown material later. We reminded him that we'd already told Duncan's family we couldn't make it and that maybe he could do something really special with Daddy that day. He was quiet for a minute, then he asked Mike to play “ice cream truck” with him (You have to walk up to the windows of the car as different customers and order.). No mention of ponies. Nothing. They went on to have a day involving a hike and homemade cookies.

When I think about this little incident, it's not unlike the triumphant feeling I had over the holidays when, killing time during intermission at a concert, Isaac sat oblivious to the two young boys in the row in front of us playing games on their parents' iphones while our family played several rollicking rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Look, I've got nothing against ponies or iphones, not exactly... It's just, well, those birthdays? They'll fly by faster than we're ready to admit. We live in a complicated world. Why drag our kids into it before we have to? Let's skip the bounce houses and ponies and let them take it one birthday at a time, with their feet firmly on the ground.

almost six years old

In a week that included discussions of who Martin Luther King, Jr and Cesar Chavez were, and why grandmom was cremated and not buried, and how anyone knows what the center of the earth is like, and if dogs or cats can see better, and why hurricanes don't come to where we live, and are we sure?, and whether alligators are omnivores... there was also the following conversation, which reminds me once again that children require simple answers, not because they are simple, but because there is just so much freaking else to get on with.

"Do Lily and Emma have a dad?"

"Nope. They have two moms."

(concerned look, big sigh) "So, I have a question..."

"Yes?"

"Do computers know EVERYTHING in the whole entire world??"

the hummingbird that watches over our house

"I guess when we leave here he'll move on," Mike says matter-of-factly one day watching him perched in the tree outside our bedroom window.

"Why would he do that?" I ask.

"Well," he says turning, as if the answer were already obvious, "because he's our hummingbird."

I'd like to be a frog

It's almost Christmas. A holy season
some say. The evidence, I suppose,
is around us indeed: Gloved hands clasped
at the steering wheel, "Please, turn over."
The cat worshipping at the altar of the heater.

For my part, I am applying make-up - going for
the sun-kissed look, but an easy slip
ends me looking more bruised than anything,
a truer vision for sure.

Somewhere deep, deep in the muddy earth
there are frogs asleep, dreaming of sun,
creatures that have no use for Nutcracker
tickets, or a spot with a good view
of the lighted boat parade. They wait
for better times, do not, like the humans
tromping above over the slick skin of their heads
have to move through the cold to catch
a ray of hope on the other side.

shadow shot - succulents

detail of a succulent wreath I've been tending since May as a Christmas present for a friend. interesting that the succulent with the most prominent piece of the shadow isn't itself visible in the picture.

Thank you to Tracy for hosting another Shadow Shot Sunday.

house hunting

We spent a week at my in-laws' house hunting in nearby towns. It's a strange and curious base camp, my in-laws' house, where all the pens advertise prescription meds and my father-in-law's hearing aid whistles feedback, a fragile trapped bird.



At one point we are having lunch with our real estate agent, discussing how Mike grew up in the area, how his parents are watching Isaac at the moment, etc. etc., when suddenly he turns on me. "And do you have parents?" he blurts innocently.



For those first few moments I am balancing my thoughts on the question like the intricate rock piles I've found on occasion on the beach, then, a wave, and they topple, granite chunks falling unceremoniously with soft thuds to this side and that.



"They're both gone," I say after a long time, and at that a black space extends out in front of me though this otherwise innocuous man in a green wool hat, tunneling beyond the diner booth, beyond main street bustling along outside the window, to somewhere that belongs to me but that I cannot fathom, that I do not know all the corners of, like the basements I've spent the morning creeping down to, poking around in, a foundation of some mystery, a less than usable space, cold and musty. One can drop into this arena with little warning - it might be the door off the kitchen, or sometimes the front hall. Headroom can't be guaranteed, the steps down can give way at any time, the things stored there stuff you can't yet deal with.

magical futures

Already out of place in the early morning of the parking lot blitz, I take in the population of grungy men climbing from the cabs of pick ups squeezed into spots marked "compact" and slamming their rusty doors one-handed while they sip steaming coffee and head for the entrance.

To his credit, the man in charge of Home Depot's plumbing department did not get on his radio and call security when I approached him and noted plainly, "I want to make a magic wand."

We look at each other for a while.

"Maybe PVC pipe?" I offer. "Thin? Doesn't have to be black, I can paint it. And those white rubber stoppers for the ends? Like on the legs of metal chairs? Or step stools? What are they called?"

Ah, but in the aisle of  pipe we discover the thinnest pipe is not thin enough. My box store shepherd has an lovely island accent (The Isle of Pipe?) and informs me, "All we 'ave is dis size 'nd oop." Though he's already gotten big time gold stars for not having me hauled away, for listening to my magical needs with more regard than most of my closest and dearest would ever dream of, he continues with serious intent: "Does de flexibilidee mattah?"

We look at hoses. Good potential, but I'd have to buy the whole coil. I consider my prospects, while my host takes a call from another customer - something about warranties, normal as all get out. I congratulate myself for adding spice to his day - the crazy lady whose son wants a magic wand for Christmas. When he ends his call, I thank him in that way that means he's off the hook. He looks relieved.

When I was in college studying languages madly, my career advisor washed her hands of me early on. "I'm sorry," she said, pushing my resume back across the desk at me. "I don't think we can help you." While others reveled in summer internships, I found out that the way I move in the world, doesn't always have a name or a space.

Lately, we have been house hunting. I walk into a 250-year-old colonial renovation project and hear it screaming to me about its future as a writers' guest house. I call the planning board and they "can't find anything in the zoning bylaws that matches" what I'm talking about. "I'm trying to grasp exactly what it is you are wanting to do, ma'am." Me too, sir. Me too.

So Home Depot is not my resource for magic. Somehow this doesn't surprise me in the least. Neither are planning officers stewards of dreams. So what. What I've learned in the time since Egyptian hieroglyphs excluded me from employment, is that just because those in charge can't define you, and even when you can't explain what precisely that vision looks like yourself, it doesn't mean you have to give up your dreams of magic.

Chaos Code Orange

Kitty: I can't find the glue.

Mike: Well, isn't it next to the blender?

Kitty: Whaddaya know, there it is. Thanks.

shadow shot - dinosaurs

Waiting for the dinosaur phase to end is like waiting for the truck phase to end. In other words, waiting in vain. I don't mind so much though, I'm beginning to be able to tell my anchlyosauruses from my iguanodons quite well, thank you..

Pictured: Oviraptor and Isaac

Head over to Hey Harriet for all kinds of shadowy visions.

more audio: When a Teacher Goes to Jail

Okay, so here's my first attempt at a produced piece using the Audacity editing program. My friend, writer and teacher Paul Karrer, had a story to tell and so we recorded it and I put it here. You might want to give it a listen. And, hey, times are such that you might was to "share it" around. (It is also on my sidebar under Cool Stuff/Me Stuff.) Thanks.

And if anyone is an expert on Audacity, for godssake write me and give me all your tips.

Danielle Evans - Book Review

Weary of waiting for my buddy to get this up on his podcast, so...Here's my book review of Danielle Evans' killer collection of short stories, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. I've also put the link on my sidebar under "What We're Reading." Anybody prefer the text over the audio? Can create a link upon request.

(Beware, adult language in some excerpts I read...Just in case you feel like blasting it in surround sound and prissy Aunt Felicity is visiting.)

shadow shot - PG Museum

These pictures were taken about a month ago, when the sun was favoring us a bit more than it is now. Isaac and a friend were searching for plastic glow-in-the-dark bugs hidden in the rocks at the Pacific Grove Natural History Museum - an activity connected to an exhibit on bioluminescence. The spinning sculpture watched over them as they studied the ground.

I often think that children should be considered bioluminescent, as clearly they make their own light.

Hey Harriet has all the shadows to beat. Check it out.

These Days

Isaac: These days I've seen people with shopping carts. I mean, not at stores, just people have them, like they must have bought them. Have you seen that man that sits on the ground and he has like hundreds of blankets in a shopping cart?


Me: Yes. That man has those blankets because he doesn't have a home. He uses them when it's cold if he had to sleep outside. 

Doesn't have a home?


He's homeless. Some people choose that life, but other people are homeless because they are having a hard time. Maybe they don't have family to go to or the money to get somewhere to stay. 


He must have friends, though!


Let's hope so.


Because you don't need money to have friends!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. With much gratitude for all we have, for you and for my son whose wit, innocence, and intuitive intelligence knock me off my feet by the hour. And who has inspired from me so much writing.

failure

let's just see how much longer the kid can enjoy treats such as this popsicle...

So far we have failed to convince Isaac to vigorously wiggle his two front teeth (both loose) so as to aid and abet the departure of the little bones from his gum line prior to a certain upcoming holiday, antagonism which we would follow by then inciting him to sing the song apropos of the event while dressed in some elf-like costume that will embarrass him heartily in only a few short years, completing our parenting manipulation duty by posting the performance on numerous social networking sites.

But it could be worse. I could make him watch this video. (if you make it to the end, watch for the green Christmas pig.)

Shadow Shot - Fuchsia

A simple shadow shot this weekend from my garden.

Check out all the camera creatives this week at the blog Hey Harriet

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jeans circa 2010

It had been a VERY long time that I had been in a retail store looking for clothes. I buy a lot of my stuff second hand, and lately I don't buy very much stuff period. But after one more basic of my wardrobe was scarred with an irreversible flaw, I decided to take the plunge.

I can remember being in Hungary in the mid-nineties and thinking I needed to get home before this email “craze” got too out of hand. I didn't want to be too far behind in learning what was what. I was twenty-something with a lot more energy and no clue of just how fast technology was about to fly along the spectrum of new.

Apparently, technology wasn't the only thing to speed ahead. So, I let a bit too much time pass since I've pawed the racks. Now, there is a whole code to finding pants and I didn't get the decoder ring in my cornflakes. Jeans all have coordinates that refer to how long, how stretchy, and how fitted they are. Perhaps you are normal and know this already, but if you are a fashion outcast like me never fear – because it's all made simple by assigning each of these formulas a woman's name.

Let's just called them “Clarissa,” “Lexie,” and “Madeleine” - to protect the innocent. It's a little like being back in high school – and who wouldn't welcome something that fun! “Clarissa” is relaxed through the hips, boot cut. “Lexie” is slim in the waist and hips, fitted down the leg. (Bitch. We hate Lexie.) “Madeleine” sits just below the hips, regular cut.

But the award-winner was something called “the Boyfriend” - and I quote, “slouchy through the hips and waist, relaxed leg.”

One boyfriend to share around with all these women. Trouble.

So far I had survived mostly unscathed and under the radar with only a few “you doin' okays?” Next, I just had to battle the sales clerks at the registers. Mine was surprisingly tolerable, minus her distinctive overuse of the two-syllable descriptor “Sah-weeet!”

I hope I don't make a return trip any time soon, though I'm praying the information cache I've gathered won't devalue. I'm hoping this trip was education enough and that if I come back in another bazillion years it'll be kind of like a soap opera where nothing ever really changes except who's hanging next to the Boyfriend.

holiday greetings

 Every year since Isaac was born, Mike and I shun all those cool templates at Snapfish to make our own holiday cards. The wisdom of this tradition is under investigation and has some interesting predecessors – build your own wedding invitation anyone? Make it a size and shape that you are forced to also make your own envelopes? See bride and groom. See bride and groom fume. See bride leave in a huff. See groom finish envelopes alone. See this pattern repeat – For. The. Rest. Of. Their. Lives.

This year, I'm having more trouble than most working on the card. I had decided to do an original linoleum block print for the design after an old interest in the art form was recently rekindled for me. Months ago I snapped up some paper on clearance at the craft store. It was still spring and juices were flowing.

Oddly, my plan for a block print Christmas card was one of the few things I got to tell my mother the last morning before she died. I didn't tell her how beautiful she was or how I wished we'd stayed longer in April after our flight to Ireland was canceled. I didn't tell her about the miscarriage. But, as she lay bloated and laboring to breathe in a hospital bed in cardio-ICU: “Hey, mom, we're gonna do block prints for our Christmas cards!”

It was June. Did I think that might be the one thing to keep her hanging on? Maybe elect for surgery or heavy duty cardio meds so she could be around to get some winter wonderland scene in the mail pressed onto sale paper?

At the time, I think she nodded. With that, her job was done. Child number four had arrived at her bedside while she was still breathing. She'd beckoned the nurse, calling her into the room by name to show her the 11x14 print I'd brought of Isaac grinning out from a tangle of tree branches and subtitled “I love you, Grandmom! Feel Better!” What else was there to do?

I was starting to get the idea that our usual personalized greeting could become something of a tinder box this year when I tried to come up with a tag line...

“Hope maybe your mom is still alive this holiday season.”

“This year sucked, the new year should be better because at least my mom can't die again.”

“Wishing you joy – somebody might as well have it since it appears unavailable to me.”

“Keep family close this holiday season, unless of course your mom is dead, then, it'd be a little weird.”

I keep hearing from people how my mom “would have loved...(Fill in the Blank).” There's a block print in it for you if you can come up with a card slogan that she would have loved.

for the love of produce

“It's beautiful!” exclaims my son. “Look at it!”

He is referring to a carrot.

I am speechless. Overcome with joy and pride. It's worked. All that time other children spent at the park, or soccer practice, my boy was in training at the farmer's markets.

My work is done here. Thank you. Good night. 

We've come a long way, baby.

shadow shot - Seattle

This past September our family found itself in Seattle because of a conference Mike was attending. The first two shots below are me over a plaque in the sidewalk at the famous Pike's Peak Market and then the detail of that plaque.

Later in the visit we met up with friends that live there and Isaac got to reunite with his buddies - their 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. Wandering around with the kids on a rainy afternoon, we found ourselves at a (mostly) abandoned skate park where the kids had a blast racing around and sliding down the slanted sides.

For all kinds of shadows check out host Tracy's Shadow Shot Sunday at Hey Harriet.

 
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having kids is a series of ups and downs

The End of the Dinosaurs: a Shakespearean-like Tragedy, by Isaac

(Scene: Earth. Post-apocalyptic asteroid hit)

(Cast of Characters: Dinosaurs; Baby Frog)

And then, all the ones with wings started picking up the smaller, defenseless dinosaurs and taking them to safety!

Wow! That's so nice!.

But the dust was too thick (Cough! Cough!). They were choking. Then, another rock the size of (drops voice to a dramatic whisper) the whole entire Universe falls (raises voice to top volume again) CRASHING FROM THE SKY!!! KA-GUSH- BA-FOOOM!!

That sounds bad, dude.

But there was one baby dinosaur... (attempts to cram small dino into a plastic egg, but seeing it doesn't fit abandons it for a stretchy frog)...No, no! A baby FROG is left.

A baby left! Yay!

And the ash is everywhere! And the asteroid sucked away all the gravity and turned it into lava, and, and...

???

The baby frog hatches in the air.

Go baby frog! Way to survive!

But then, when it leaves the egg it lands right on top of the volcano and it burns up!

I think our days have evolved from Christopher Robin and Pooh to Calvin and Hobbes.

I don't know what you're talking about, Mommy, but get out of the way – the volcano is still erupting!!