I have come to the realization that I am not much of a dog person. It’s not that I don’t like dogs, exactly. I like them just fine. I like to look at cute dogs, and to pat their heads, and to throw toys for them, or perhaps to watch them enjoy their toys all by themselves. But beyond that, I really have no use for them.
Picking up small dogs is awkward because of the possibility of accidentally touching canine genitalia. The big ones don’t have that same risk, but instead you just have to look at their junk. Jesus, put on some pants, would you? Think of the children. And when you aren’t looking at their stuff, they are nose deep in yours, sniffing. I don’t really want anyone sniffing my goods, thank you very much. I haven’t even gotten to the other things that make dogs a deal breaker, like picking up poop, waiting for them to poop, hoping they don’t eat some other dog’s poop. Dogs are too natural for me, with all that genitalia and poop. And don’t even get me started on the way they smell.
I know dog people will say that you have to have a dog to truly learn to love a dog. I grew up with a dog, so I have had some experience. His name was Gus, G-d rest his soul, and he was the kind of dog that everyone else in the neighborhood hated. My mother didn’t believe in responsible pet ownership, so she would just open the front door and let Gus roam free. He used this opportunity to knock over garbage cans like trash day was an all-you-can-eat buffet. He would stand in the middle of the road, staring down oncoming traffic. He pooped wherever he wanted to, and when feeling randy, would screw anyone or anything, the neighbor’s dogs, my mother’s dates. He was a humping machine. Once he even pinned down our male cat, who was even more confused than we were.
I could go on and on about Gus, but that’s for another day. After he passed away, my exposure to dogs was spotty until I started dating my husband in college. He had an English sheepdog with a skin condition and a stupid poodle named Cookie that his mother had driven crazy. Cookie’s diet consisted of Vienna sausages and Mighty Dog, essentially the same thing in a different shape, with the occasional pimento cheese covered Wheat Thin for color. She was fond of pissing on the den carpet, masturbating with a slipper, and going through my bag and removing articles that did not belong to her. Her acts of sabotage started small, like dragging out my toothbrush and chomping on it like a teething biscuit. Another time she raided my bag and extracted an expensive makeup brush. She upped her game when she went through my dirty laundry and dragged my black lace panties unto the middle of the den for my mother in law to discover.
The worst was the time we returned to my in law’s house after a dinner out to find Cookie chewing happily on something on the den floor (Cookie really liked the den). My mother-in-law moved in for a closer inspection, then hurriedly grabbed a Kleenex, picked up the offending item, and tossed it in the closest trash can. It turned out that Cookie had been rooting around in the bathroom trash can earlier that evening and had produced a used tampon that I thought had been wrapped and buried well, a used tampon that surely would have clogged an already feisty and temperamental downstairs toilet. I hated that freaking dog, probably as much as my mother in law hated me for menstruating at her house.
My friend MJ, on the other hand, loves dogs. She has a rescue Papillion that lives with her and a rescue Borzoi that lives with her ex-husband, since he kept the house and the accompanying large fenced –in yard. He doesn’t seem to mind, since her Borzoi keeps his rescued greyhound company. These folks are their own no-kill animal shelter.
Her Papillion, when not pooping on the floor and shaking nervously, is also a fan of the search and rescue mission. MJ just returned from a trip last week, and before she had a chance to unpack, her little dog liberated all her dirty panties. Being the thoughtful and intelligent creature that he is, he not only inventoried them, he even washed them thoroughly by hand, er, tongue. He lovingly and painstakingly went over every bit of fabric, making sure that the entire pantie was inspected and licked clean before discarding it and moving on to the next, ready to be put back in the drawer for another day. Think about that the next time someone's dog greets you by licking your mouth.
My cats are far from perfect. Sure, they knock glasses over and claw my furniture and chew on the girls’ toys and wake me up every night and scratch my hardwood floor tearing through the house after one another, but they are not interested in my genitalia at all, nor I in theirs, which is the way I like it. I would rather find that they left me a dead mouse, which means they are doing their jobs, then a used tampon, which means they are just nosy. And if I want to pick up their poop, I know exactly where it is. I don’t have to go looking for it. They might act like they don’t know their own names, but I do, so it’s a win-win. What they lack in loyalty they make up for in good-natured aloofness. I don’t have to walk them or bathe them or entertain them. They don’t require day care or sweaters or chew toys. I can leave them at home alone, and know that the furniture and my shoes will still exist when I return. And never once has either of them tried to fuck anything. They may not slobber all over me with wet kisses, but then again, they don’t slobber all over me with wet kisses.
So yes, I can see the alleged charm of a dog. By looking over the neighbor’s fence. Where, I am sure, there is a whole minefield of poop waiting for a child’s sneaker to discover.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tie One On
I never thought that taking a walk on a Sunday morning would involve dressing a teenage boy. Fresh air, maybe, some nice conversation with my walking buddy, some semblance of physical activity, although, let’s face it, we are not walking at any kind of clip that results in sweat. But teenage boys? I don’t even have one of those.
BD and I took our normal walk this past Sunday, after I dropped my daughters off at Sunday school. The air was warmer than it should have been on a November morning, and the acrid stench of burning leaves hung heavy in the air, respiratory issues be damned. BD lives in a neighborhood that is so white bread Middle America that you think you are walking on a set in Hollywood. It’s like being on Elm Street, only without Freddy Krueger. Cats are sunning themselves on front steps. Dogs are wagging their tails and chasing butterflies. The squeal of children and the hum of leaf blowers punctuate the air. Any second, you expect the Kool-Aid man to come bursting out of a garage, screaming, “Oh Yeah!” In fact, to further cement the illusion, BD leaves her older school age children at home and carries a walkie-talkie through the neighborhood in case they need her. Which begs the question, why not a string and two tin cans?
Anyway, the walk was a normal walk. For us, something odd always happens while walking, so expecting the unexpected is our norm. We had passed maybe three houses when I noticed the biggest slug to ever ooze out of the grass was working its way across the road. I am not talking a slug the size of a cocktail weinie. This thing was longer than my hand from middle finger tip to wrist. BD almost stepped on it because she thought it was a stick. We stopped walking and looked at it for a while, amazed and disgusted at the same time. BD decided that we couldn’t leave it in the road to get run over, as a slug of this size had clearly been alive for a while. For all we knew, that slug could have been the same age as one of our kids, certainly as old as someone’s kid. We couldn’t just leave it there to die.
But how to move it? Neither of us was interested in touching it, because, yuck, it’s a slug. BD suggested I get a stick. So I did. A small stick, a twig, really. I tried to scoot it over to the side of the road, but all it did was ball up to the size of a mini Three Musketeers bar. I couldn’t scoot it with the stick. I was merely taunting it. BD suggested a bigger stick. Notice BD had no interest in getting the slug out of the road herself, preferring to supervise my actions instead. The yard next to us, however, had no sticks, certainly none the size of, say, the slug. I found another twig, and calling upon my prowess with chopsticks, plucked it off the ground like a piece of sushi and flung it in the closest yard.
“That was my good deed for the day,” I said proudly as I tossed the sticks into the yard as I had the slug moments before. And we continued walking. We covered the usual topics, our children, our husbands, our in-laws, with an occasional rant on politics or religion. BD and I like to think we can discuss the bigger things as fluently as those from our own spheres. We thought no more of the slug, and kept walking at a less than brisk pace.
When we approached the mid-point of the walk, we passed a house where a mom and her teenage son stood on the front porch. She stood behind him, so I don’t recall what she had on, but he was wearing a suit and dress shirt. He called out to us, “Do you know how to tie a tie?” BD yelled back, “No, I don’t, but she does,” she meaning me. Now, I need to point out here that BD’s husband wears a tie every day to work. Mine, on the other hand, wears one maybe once a year. In fact, he specifically chose his career based on the fact that a tie is not required. (He wants me to clarify that the previous statement is not entirely true.) So while neither of us might know how to tie a tie, she certainly has more exposure to the process. I also did not grow up with a father at home, so there was no tying history from which to draw. I had to search the far corners of my memory’s attic for how to tie a tie.
“I’ll give it a try,” I said, walking across his lawn. “It’s been a while, but let’s see if I remember.” The teenage boy walked over to me, but his healthy dousing of cologne got to me before he did. I stood on my tip toes and tried to remember, around, around, up from behind and dive down the middle. I did what I remembered, and the poor boy looked like a hobo. BD suggested I try again, since it sort of almost maybe possibly looked like it was close to being right. I undid the whole mess and tried again. Around, around, up, then down. Pinch, tug, push. Voila. I tied a tie.
“How’s that?” I asked him.
“Pretty good, thanks!” He answered, then bounded back across the lawn and into his house.
BD and I continued our walk. I was filled with a sense of pride at my tiny little slice of community service.
“Who knew I could tie a tie? That's two good deeds in one day!” I said.
“I did,” she said. “You know how to do all sorts of things.”
I smelled my hand, which was covered in teenage boy cologne, then held it up to BD's face so she too could smell the folly of youth.
In some strange way, BD is right. I can do things that I wouldn’t think I could. Or that I don’t realize I can. I am sure we all feel that way, but when called upon to serve, we can conjure up a decent tie knot.
“Only in my neighborhood would someone stand on the front porch and wait for people to walk by to tie ties,” BD said.
“Yeah, in my neighborhood they would just go without, like loafers without socks at the country club. Besides, in my neighborhood, we never lay eyes upon one another. It helps us to imagine we are living on estates rather than in peeping distance of one another.”
I don’t know what you see or do when taking a walk, but me, it’s slugs and neckties and small opportunities for public service.
BD and I took our normal walk this past Sunday, after I dropped my daughters off at Sunday school. The air was warmer than it should have been on a November morning, and the acrid stench of burning leaves hung heavy in the air, respiratory issues be damned. BD lives in a neighborhood that is so white bread Middle America that you think you are walking on a set in Hollywood. It’s like being on Elm Street, only without Freddy Krueger. Cats are sunning themselves on front steps. Dogs are wagging their tails and chasing butterflies. The squeal of children and the hum of leaf blowers punctuate the air. Any second, you expect the Kool-Aid man to come bursting out of a garage, screaming, “Oh Yeah!” In fact, to further cement the illusion, BD leaves her older school age children at home and carries a walkie-talkie through the neighborhood in case they need her. Which begs the question, why not a string and two tin cans?
Anyway, the walk was a normal walk. For us, something odd always happens while walking, so expecting the unexpected is our norm. We had passed maybe three houses when I noticed the biggest slug to ever ooze out of the grass was working its way across the road. I am not talking a slug the size of a cocktail weinie. This thing was longer than my hand from middle finger tip to wrist. BD almost stepped on it because she thought it was a stick. We stopped walking and looked at it for a while, amazed and disgusted at the same time. BD decided that we couldn’t leave it in the road to get run over, as a slug of this size had clearly been alive for a while. For all we knew, that slug could have been the same age as one of our kids, certainly as old as someone’s kid. We couldn’t just leave it there to die.
But how to move it? Neither of us was interested in touching it, because, yuck, it’s a slug. BD suggested I get a stick. So I did. A small stick, a twig, really. I tried to scoot it over to the side of the road, but all it did was ball up to the size of a mini Three Musketeers bar. I couldn’t scoot it with the stick. I was merely taunting it. BD suggested a bigger stick. Notice BD had no interest in getting the slug out of the road herself, preferring to supervise my actions instead. The yard next to us, however, had no sticks, certainly none the size of, say, the slug. I found another twig, and calling upon my prowess with chopsticks, plucked it off the ground like a piece of sushi and flung it in the closest yard.
“That was my good deed for the day,” I said proudly as I tossed the sticks into the yard as I had the slug moments before. And we continued walking. We covered the usual topics, our children, our husbands, our in-laws, with an occasional rant on politics or religion. BD and I like to think we can discuss the bigger things as fluently as those from our own spheres. We thought no more of the slug, and kept walking at a less than brisk pace.
When we approached the mid-point of the walk, we passed a house where a mom and her teenage son stood on the front porch. She stood behind him, so I don’t recall what she had on, but he was wearing a suit and dress shirt. He called out to us, “Do you know how to tie a tie?” BD yelled back, “No, I don’t, but she does,” she meaning me. Now, I need to point out here that BD’s husband wears a tie every day to work. Mine, on the other hand, wears one maybe once a year. In fact, he specifically chose his career based on the fact that a tie is not required. (He wants me to clarify that the previous statement is not entirely true.) So while neither of us might know how to tie a tie, she certainly has more exposure to the process. I also did not grow up with a father at home, so there was no tying history from which to draw. I had to search the far corners of my memory’s attic for how to tie a tie.
“I’ll give it a try,” I said, walking across his lawn. “It’s been a while, but let’s see if I remember.” The teenage boy walked over to me, but his healthy dousing of cologne got to me before he did. I stood on my tip toes and tried to remember, around, around, up from behind and dive down the middle. I did what I remembered, and the poor boy looked like a hobo. BD suggested I try again, since it sort of almost maybe possibly looked like it was close to being right. I undid the whole mess and tried again. Around, around, up, then down. Pinch, tug, push. Voila. I tied a tie.
“How’s that?” I asked him.
“Pretty good, thanks!” He answered, then bounded back across the lawn and into his house.
BD and I continued our walk. I was filled with a sense of pride at my tiny little slice of community service.
“Who knew I could tie a tie? That's two good deeds in one day!” I said.
“I did,” she said. “You know how to do all sorts of things.”
I smelled my hand, which was covered in teenage boy cologne, then held it up to BD's face so she too could smell the folly of youth.
In some strange way, BD is right. I can do things that I wouldn’t think I could. Or that I don’t realize I can. I am sure we all feel that way, but when called upon to serve, we can conjure up a decent tie knot.
“Only in my neighborhood would someone stand on the front porch and wait for people to walk by to tie ties,” BD said.
“Yeah, in my neighborhood they would just go without, like loafers without socks at the country club. Besides, in my neighborhood, we never lay eyes upon one another. It helps us to imagine we are living on estates rather than in peeping distance of one another.”
I don’t know what you see or do when taking a walk, but me, it’s slugs and neckties and small opportunities for public service.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Better Than A Poke in the Eye
I survived my eye appointment. If you read back a year ago on my blog, you will see exactly how I feel about going to the eye doctor. Lucky for me, this year’s appointment was a routine one, with no dilation of anything. I barely even had to wait before my name was called, which disappointed me because I was all set to make a dent in the book I am struggling to read, and I also had not yet finished sneakily gawking and passing judgment on the other patients in the waiting room.
After being seated in the exam room, I perched atop the chair on my sitz bones, wondering how the office staff keeps things sanitary. Do they wipe the chair down after each patient? Just curious. I didn’t ask because I didn’t need an extra reason for them to think I was nutty. Instead, I answered all the history of me questions enthusiastically and mostly honestly. I even admitted I had dry eyes yet did nothing about it. I never use eye drops, which surprised her. What I didn’t say was that I opt instead to rinse them in my mouth and pop them back in my eyes, but then again, she didn’t ask me about that. She had me read the lowest line I could on the eye chart, which somehow always feels like entrapment. Then the optical assistant took my glasses to read the prescription and left me in the room, with its soft mood lighting and disturbingly accurate posters of eye anatomy and disease processes.
After a few minutes, she came back with my glasses and Dr. S. We went through the usual routine, where he starts by asking me the same questions the technician did. Wouldn’t it be faster to hook me up to a lie detector and just ask me once? After that fun, we got down to the nitty gritty, with that Victorian eye contraption with all its little lenses and gadgets. The only thing missing is a handlebar mustache and middle part with lots of Brylcreem, a look I think Dr. S could pull off. He again made me cover my eyes one at a time and read my way through the eye chart that I couldn’t see. Every letter I said aloud sounded wrong even to me. I really hate failing a test. After a while, he stopped me, then got up close to my face with the bright light.
“You have a dot on your left eye,” he told me. I was petrified. What did that mean? Cancer? Glaucoma? Macular degeneration? Oh wait, one of my contacts has a dot on it. The right one. The right one, which was floating around on my left eye.
“Oh, Jesus,” I muttered. “How embarrassing.”
Dr. S laughed. “I was wondering why your prescription changed so much. You’ve got the right contact on the left eye. No need to be embarrassed though. You are the second patient to do that this hour.”
“So you only treat morons here? Ugh. And I sat here with the nerve to complain about them being dry. No wonder I can’t see anything.”
“Really, you aren’t that special,” Dr. S said. Could he not have chosen a different way to say that? “I have patients do that all day.”
“He does,” the assistant said. “I do it too. I came in here last week and couldn’t see a thing. I had them in the wrong eyes the whole time!” So his staff is idiotic as well.
Dr. S went on, “No lie, I had a patient in here a month ago, complaining about how bad her right eye hurt, and how she couldn’t see anything out of her left eye. She went on and on about how I gave her bad contacts and how she couldn’t see a thing and her eye was killing her. I sat her down and had a look, and sure enough, she had four contacts in one eye. She just kept putting them in there. She had two on top of one another on the cornea, and then two more folded up like tacos kind of behind her eyelid."
I sat quietly, thinking, gee, Dr. S, it’s a good thing you’re not a gynecologist. But then I didn’t want to have to explain my comment to him. I saw myself describing the whole new tampon shoved in after forgetting to take the old one out, and even I had the sense to keep my mouth shut.
“So, you see, it’s not just you, I promise. It happens all the time around here. You’re the second one today, this hour. I have a long way to go.”
Dr. S left the room, and I said to the assistant, “You know, I can’t even see the dot when I put my contacts in. That’s why I get them switched around in the first place.”
“Just leave your glasses on to look for the dot,” she said. “Then take them off and insert your contact.”
Why didn’t I think of that? And at the same time, ugh, another step in the morning routine. As if leaving my glasses on for ten more seconds will make everyone late for school. I am so rigid in my routine that I can’t allow for a little extra help, even from myself. “Thanks,” I said. “That’s a good idea.”
The good news was my prescription hasn’t changed in years, and I still don’t need reading glasses. Finally, one part of me is stable. The bad part was that I made a fool of myself before I got get the good news. Oh well, it could have been worse. I could have said tampon to my eye doctor.
After being seated in the exam room, I perched atop the chair on my sitz bones, wondering how the office staff keeps things sanitary. Do they wipe the chair down after each patient? Just curious. I didn’t ask because I didn’t need an extra reason for them to think I was nutty. Instead, I answered all the history of me questions enthusiastically and mostly honestly. I even admitted I had dry eyes yet did nothing about it. I never use eye drops, which surprised her. What I didn’t say was that I opt instead to rinse them in my mouth and pop them back in my eyes, but then again, she didn’t ask me about that. She had me read the lowest line I could on the eye chart, which somehow always feels like entrapment. Then the optical assistant took my glasses to read the prescription and left me in the room, with its soft mood lighting and disturbingly accurate posters of eye anatomy and disease processes.
After a few minutes, she came back with my glasses and Dr. S. We went through the usual routine, where he starts by asking me the same questions the technician did. Wouldn’t it be faster to hook me up to a lie detector and just ask me once? After that fun, we got down to the nitty gritty, with that Victorian eye contraption with all its little lenses and gadgets. The only thing missing is a handlebar mustache and middle part with lots of Brylcreem, a look I think Dr. S could pull off. He again made me cover my eyes one at a time and read my way through the eye chart that I couldn’t see. Every letter I said aloud sounded wrong even to me. I really hate failing a test. After a while, he stopped me, then got up close to my face with the bright light.
“You have a dot on your left eye,” he told me. I was petrified. What did that mean? Cancer? Glaucoma? Macular degeneration? Oh wait, one of my contacts has a dot on it. The right one. The right one, which was floating around on my left eye.
“Oh, Jesus,” I muttered. “How embarrassing.”
Dr. S laughed. “I was wondering why your prescription changed so much. You’ve got the right contact on the left eye. No need to be embarrassed though. You are the second patient to do that this hour.”
“So you only treat morons here? Ugh. And I sat here with the nerve to complain about them being dry. No wonder I can’t see anything.”
“Really, you aren’t that special,” Dr. S said. Could he not have chosen a different way to say that? “I have patients do that all day.”
“He does,” the assistant said. “I do it too. I came in here last week and couldn’t see a thing. I had them in the wrong eyes the whole time!” So his staff is idiotic as well.
Dr. S went on, “No lie, I had a patient in here a month ago, complaining about how bad her right eye hurt, and how she couldn’t see anything out of her left eye. She went on and on about how I gave her bad contacts and how she couldn’t see a thing and her eye was killing her. I sat her down and had a look, and sure enough, she had four contacts in one eye. She just kept putting them in there. She had two on top of one another on the cornea, and then two more folded up like tacos kind of behind her eyelid."
I sat quietly, thinking, gee, Dr. S, it’s a good thing you’re not a gynecologist. But then I didn’t want to have to explain my comment to him. I saw myself describing the whole new tampon shoved in after forgetting to take the old one out, and even I had the sense to keep my mouth shut.
“So, you see, it’s not just you, I promise. It happens all the time around here. You’re the second one today, this hour. I have a long way to go.”
Dr. S left the room, and I said to the assistant, “You know, I can’t even see the dot when I put my contacts in. That’s why I get them switched around in the first place.”
“Just leave your glasses on to look for the dot,” she said. “Then take them off and insert your contact.”
Why didn’t I think of that? And at the same time, ugh, another step in the morning routine. As if leaving my glasses on for ten more seconds will make everyone late for school. I am so rigid in my routine that I can’t allow for a little extra help, even from myself. “Thanks,” I said. “That’s a good idea.”
The good news was my prescription hasn’t changed in years, and I still don’t need reading glasses. Finally, one part of me is stable. The bad part was that I made a fool of myself before I got get the good news. Oh well, it could have been worse. I could have said tampon to my eye doctor.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Let's Do Lunch
I had lunch with my daughter E's class last week in honor of her tenth birthday. I had a tough time picking out what to wear, as if it were a first date and not a lunch with twenty-seven children. I knew if I didn't make the right choice, it might somehow negatively impact E's social life, and Lord knows she doesn't need my help to make socialization more difficult. Two outfits later, I found the right combination of motherly but not matronly, colorful but not gaudy, with no sign of cleavage. I had in hand a tray of twenty-eight pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, E's favorite birthday treat (and yes, I made them from scratch), along with my own lunch, a turkey and Swiss on egg bagel with crisp romaine lettuce and thinly sliced campari tomato (I just committed the cardinal sign of describing my lunch on my blog; apparently, it has come to this.) I had on a tasteful amount of makeup and my volunteer ID badge.
After checking in at the front office, I walked over to the fourth grade pod and waited patiently at a table for lunchtime to commence. E's classroom door opened and the class trickled out, some greeting me as E's mom and asking me if I was really a writer. Clearly, I was not a surprise visitor, since not only had she told them I was coming, but she expressed some level of pride in what I do. How validating! E came out of the room in line, all smiles because she felt so special. I followed behind her class to the cafeteria.
No matter how many times I walk in the lunchroom, I am never prepared for the old sandwich smell that lingers. The last time I was in the school cafeteria, it was for the room mother's meeting at the beginning of the school year, and was just a bunch of moms sitting around. This time, it was chock full of students, most in third through fifth grade. These kids were big, and some looked like they could easily pass for 8th graders. I bet the 8th graders can pass for 11th graders these days. There's nothing like a room full of giant kids to remind you that your own children are growing up, and fast. I do remember wearing a training bra in fifth grade, but not make up. Then again, my role models weren't Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears.
E could not contain her delight at having me join her for lunch. She saved me a seat, and we sat next to each other and waited for the kids who bought their lunch to join the class at the table. The cafeteria lunch, by the way, was an odd assortment of chicken fingers, refried beans, and Italian breadsticks. I know it's November, but isn't it kind of early to be using up all the leftover food before the winter break?
What stood out for me about her class was how different it was than at her last school. This is E's first year in the public school near our home; she spent the last six years at a Montessori school. That school was very ethnically diverse in a way that always sounded like the start of a joke: a Jew, a Buddhist, and three Hindus walk into a classroom... E tended to make friends with more boys than girls because, well, there were more boys than girls. Half the kids were Asian, and the rest were such a mix of other cultures that a white American kid was the minority.
In contrast, her new school is so white, I thought I had moved back to Phoenix. Not only were there no Indian kids, there was only one African American girl. Where was the diversity? Oh right, I live in the suburbs in a town that has yet to learn about integration.
The boys and the girls did not mix at all, except for one boy who sat right in the middle of all the girls, either A. to bug the crap out of them; B. because he likes them; or C. because he wants to be one of them. Whatever the reason, his choice to sit in the girls' section cause a fair amount of eye rolling followed by mass shunning. I liked him immediately, because that kid had balls!
The other thing that freaked me out about E's class was that, with the exception of maybe four kids out of twenty-seven, they all had the same hair color. Dirty blond, light brown, you know, that shade that millions of women put tin foil in their hair to achieve? Well, I was surrounded by healthy straight Jennifer Anniston hair. It was like a cloning experiment. And the boys all had the same haircut, probably from the same SportsClips down the street. I know I will never be able to tell any of them apart. They were gingerbread boys and girls.
I passed out the muffins to the class, pleasantly surprised that most of the kids took them without being put off by the pumpkin. When I sat back down, E had helped herself to my sandwich, and smiled at me with bits of tomato hanging out of her mouth. We shared my sandwich and her Sun chips, like friends sometimes do in the school cafeteria.
The best part of lunch, however, was how happy E was. She was excited it was her birthday, and was pleased I was there to join her. She wasn't the least bit embarrassed when I kissed her forehead. She threw her arm around me and leaned on me and whispered in my ear, and she even wanted me to walk back to the classroom with her so she could say good bye one last time.
It might be her birthday, but that lunch was a gift for me. She is ten now; in a matter of a few years, she's not going to want me to come to school, or to sit next to her, or to throw my arms around her. I fear I will feel the same way about her, that just being together makes us both insane, as her head spins around and I screech loudly like a turkey vulture. Until then, I have to take advantage of these lovely opportunities and not concentrate on how many pairs of shoes she leaves all over the house. Happy birthday, baby!
After checking in at the front office, I walked over to the fourth grade pod and waited patiently at a table for lunchtime to commence. E's classroom door opened and the class trickled out, some greeting me as E's mom and asking me if I was really a writer. Clearly, I was not a surprise visitor, since not only had she told them I was coming, but she expressed some level of pride in what I do. How validating! E came out of the room in line, all smiles because she felt so special. I followed behind her class to the cafeteria.
No matter how many times I walk in the lunchroom, I am never prepared for the old sandwich smell that lingers. The last time I was in the school cafeteria, it was for the room mother's meeting at the beginning of the school year, and was just a bunch of moms sitting around. This time, it was chock full of students, most in third through fifth grade. These kids were big, and some looked like they could easily pass for 8th graders. I bet the 8th graders can pass for 11th graders these days. There's nothing like a room full of giant kids to remind you that your own children are growing up, and fast. I do remember wearing a training bra in fifth grade, but not make up. Then again, my role models weren't Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears.
E could not contain her delight at having me join her for lunch. She saved me a seat, and we sat next to each other and waited for the kids who bought their lunch to join the class at the table. The cafeteria lunch, by the way, was an odd assortment of chicken fingers, refried beans, and Italian breadsticks. I know it's November, but isn't it kind of early to be using up all the leftover food before the winter break?
What stood out for me about her class was how different it was than at her last school. This is E's first year in the public school near our home; she spent the last six years at a Montessori school. That school was very ethnically diverse in a way that always sounded like the start of a joke: a Jew, a Buddhist, and three Hindus walk into a classroom... E tended to make friends with more boys than girls because, well, there were more boys than girls. Half the kids were Asian, and the rest were such a mix of other cultures that a white American kid was the minority.
In contrast, her new school is so white, I thought I had moved back to Phoenix. Not only were there no Indian kids, there was only one African American girl. Where was the diversity? Oh right, I live in the suburbs in a town that has yet to learn about integration.
The boys and the girls did not mix at all, except for one boy who sat right in the middle of all the girls, either A. to bug the crap out of them; B. because he likes them; or C. because he wants to be one of them. Whatever the reason, his choice to sit in the girls' section cause a fair amount of eye rolling followed by mass shunning. I liked him immediately, because that kid had balls!
The other thing that freaked me out about E's class was that, with the exception of maybe four kids out of twenty-seven, they all had the same hair color. Dirty blond, light brown, you know, that shade that millions of women put tin foil in their hair to achieve? Well, I was surrounded by healthy straight Jennifer Anniston hair. It was like a cloning experiment. And the boys all had the same haircut, probably from the same SportsClips down the street. I know I will never be able to tell any of them apart. They were gingerbread boys and girls.
I passed out the muffins to the class, pleasantly surprised that most of the kids took them without being put off by the pumpkin. When I sat back down, E had helped herself to my sandwich, and smiled at me with bits of tomato hanging out of her mouth. We shared my sandwich and her Sun chips, like friends sometimes do in the school cafeteria.
The best part of lunch, however, was how happy E was. She was excited it was her birthday, and was pleased I was there to join her. She wasn't the least bit embarrassed when I kissed her forehead. She threw her arm around me and leaned on me and whispered in my ear, and she even wanted me to walk back to the classroom with her so she could say good bye one last time.
It might be her birthday, but that lunch was a gift for me. She is ten now; in a matter of a few years, she's not going to want me to come to school, or to sit next to her, or to throw my arms around her. I fear I will feel the same way about her, that just being together makes us both insane, as her head spins around and I screech loudly like a turkey vulture. Until then, I have to take advantage of these lovely opportunities and not concentrate on how many pairs of shoes she leaves all over the house. Happy birthday, baby!
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Trippin' Fall
Looking out my window, I see the colors of the leaves changing on the branches of the trees. The air is still warm, as is normal here in early November, but the breeze holds a hint of chill, a promise of cold weather coming. Halloween is past, and on the occasional front stoop is a saggy jack-o-lantern, its wide gapped-toothed grin curving in on itself with the onset of rot. Across from my house, the big inflatable turkeys dot the lawn of the ostentatious neighborhood millionaires, replacing the five or so Halloween inflatables that were just there days ago. Never mind that they still have last year’s icicle lights up. It gives their yellow Victorian mansion a more gingerbready fairy tale appearance when lit, not unlike Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disney World.The air is neither too hot nor too cold, just the right temperature for playing outside.
My daughters rushed though their homework yesterday afternoon so they would have the rest of the daylight to play. Normally, I like to think of the after school outside playtime as an hour or two when I can stay inside, uninterrupted. But they needed my help. After all, someone needed to rake the leaves into a big pile at the bottom of the slide. I found the rake hiding with the rest of the unused yard tools in the storage room in the garage. I walked to the backyard and put my shoulder into some serious leaf pile making. When my children were younger, I would stand outside with the rake, neatening the leaf pile after each romp so that each fresh mound seemed like the first one of autumn. They are older now, and so am I, and all that raking and appeasing is a lot of extra effort that I don’t want to make.
The only way my daughters like to enjoy a good leaf pile at the bottom of the slide is, well, to slide into it. Which meant that in addition to my raking and pile making duties, I also needed to remove all the spiders that made the slide and the rest of the swing set their summer home. I am sure there was an easy way to do this, but I don’t know it, so I opted for the lazy way instead. I found a small twig on the ground and used it to poke holes in all the spider webs, swirling them around the end of my stick like creepy cotton candy. I worked first on the on the simulated rock wall, as each toe hold was inhabited, making the entire wall like an arachnid condo building. After I displaced all of those spiders, I used my twig to clean each step into the playhouse. There was a surprising number of spiders lurking on the steps. I realize that it was outdoors, but seriously? Can't the birds do a better job of eating?
I’m not a big fan of climbing up into the playhouse, for the same reason my daughters never play in it. It’s filled with spiders. I had at them with my twig, stick-sweeping all the corners and eaves. Pearl sized spiders dropped down like paratroopers and surrounded me. I poked at them with my kindling and yelped a few times, until they crab-walked close enough to the edge of the playhouse that I could flick them into the grass below.
The whole process of leaf raking and spider evicting lasted over thirty minutes. My daughters each sat on a swing, patiently waiting for me to finish so they could attack the leaf pile and frolic around in the playhouse. At one point, one of them went inside and got a Sharpie from the kitchen, which they used to write each other secret messages about how slow I was on sheets of river birch bark.
It’s not that I minded cleaning up. It’s just that I know all this playing outside excitement is a one day event. One afternoon of activities will bring us home too late to play outside. A day or two of rain will set in. Birthday parties and dance practice will have priority, and the next thing you know, the play set will once again be filled with spiders and the remains of their frequent meals. And who do you think will have to clean that mess up? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Daddy.
I complain about the cleaning, but honestly, we rarely play outside. In winter, it’s too cold to swing and slide. Gloves make the handles difficult to grip. Noses run and lips chap. Spring is also a no-go, with everything outdoors coated in a thick layer of greenish yellow pollen. All it takes is one innocent rub to the eye to make it swell shut for a few days. Summer is no better. All that sweating and dirt makes for an interesting skin tone, and no one enjoys that third degree burn to the back of the thighs from searing down the slide. And don’t forget the mosquitoes. Five minutes outside and it looks like they have the pox.
So fall it is. Leaves and spiders be damned, it is the perfect season for back yard play. Hopefully the conditions will stay right to allow a week or two of fresh air and free reign of imagination, of fluid movements and high pitched laughter, all of which I can observe from the comfort of my kitchen window. Until I am needed again, twig in hand, rake at the ready.
My daughters rushed though their homework yesterday afternoon so they would have the rest of the daylight to play. Normally, I like to think of the after school outside playtime as an hour or two when I can stay inside, uninterrupted. But they needed my help. After all, someone needed to rake the leaves into a big pile at the bottom of the slide. I found the rake hiding with the rest of the unused yard tools in the storage room in the garage. I walked to the backyard and put my shoulder into some serious leaf pile making. When my children were younger, I would stand outside with the rake, neatening the leaf pile after each romp so that each fresh mound seemed like the first one of autumn. They are older now, and so am I, and all that raking and appeasing is a lot of extra effort that I don’t want to make.
The only way my daughters like to enjoy a good leaf pile at the bottom of the slide is, well, to slide into it. Which meant that in addition to my raking and pile making duties, I also needed to remove all the spiders that made the slide and the rest of the swing set their summer home. I am sure there was an easy way to do this, but I don’t know it, so I opted for the lazy way instead. I found a small twig on the ground and used it to poke holes in all the spider webs, swirling them around the end of my stick like creepy cotton candy. I worked first on the on the simulated rock wall, as each toe hold was inhabited, making the entire wall like an arachnid condo building. After I displaced all of those spiders, I used my twig to clean each step into the playhouse. There was a surprising number of spiders lurking on the steps. I realize that it was outdoors, but seriously? Can't the birds do a better job of eating?
I’m not a big fan of climbing up into the playhouse, for the same reason my daughters never play in it. It’s filled with spiders. I had at them with my twig, stick-sweeping all the corners and eaves. Pearl sized spiders dropped down like paratroopers and surrounded me. I poked at them with my kindling and yelped a few times, until they crab-walked close enough to the edge of the playhouse that I could flick them into the grass below.
The whole process of leaf raking and spider evicting lasted over thirty minutes. My daughters each sat on a swing, patiently waiting for me to finish so they could attack the leaf pile and frolic around in the playhouse. At one point, one of them went inside and got a Sharpie from the kitchen, which they used to write each other secret messages about how slow I was on sheets of river birch bark.
It’s not that I minded cleaning up. It’s just that I know all this playing outside excitement is a one day event. One afternoon of activities will bring us home too late to play outside. A day or two of rain will set in. Birthday parties and dance practice will have priority, and the next thing you know, the play set will once again be filled with spiders and the remains of their frequent meals. And who do you think will have to clean that mess up? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Daddy.
I complain about the cleaning, but honestly, we rarely play outside. In winter, it’s too cold to swing and slide. Gloves make the handles difficult to grip. Noses run and lips chap. Spring is also a no-go, with everything outdoors coated in a thick layer of greenish yellow pollen. All it takes is one innocent rub to the eye to make it swell shut for a few days. Summer is no better. All that sweating and dirt makes for an interesting skin tone, and no one enjoys that third degree burn to the back of the thighs from searing down the slide. And don’t forget the mosquitoes. Five minutes outside and it looks like they have the pox.
So fall it is. Leaves and spiders be damned, it is the perfect season for back yard play. Hopefully the conditions will stay right to allow a week or two of fresh air and free reign of imagination, of fluid movements and high pitched laughter, all of which I can observe from the comfort of my kitchen window. Until I am needed again, twig in hand, rake at the ready.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Trash Talk
What’s the deal with people throwing trash on the side of the road? Every day I see a new bag of garbage abandoned on a curb or tossed in a lane on the highway. South Carolina used to be known for the amount of road kill left to ferment on the road ways. Lately, garbage bags are giving flattened opossums a run for their money. I do occasionally see the detention center suckers in their bright orange jumpsuits cleaning it up, with the port-a-potty on a wagon behind them. They aren't able to keep up with the mess the so-called law abiders are making.
I understand that the cost of trash pick-up is ridiculously high. I too have to suck it up for my quarterly Waste Management bill, with its fuel surcharge fees and recycling fees and landfill fees. Remember when the fuel surcharges were added? I do. Gas was at an all time high, and what were companies like the airlines and the garbage collectors going to do? They passed the expense on to us, the consumers, as a fuel surcharge, and they made it look like it was a temporary thing, until fuel prices stabilized and we could go back to the normal rates. Well, I don’t know about you, but I am no longer paying over four dollars at the pump. But my fuel surcharge goes right on, more regular than the trash collection itself.
I don’t like it, but I accept it as part of being an adult. We have to pay for a place to live. We need electricity to run appliances in our homes. We need a form of transportation to get us from work and school and the occasional trip to the movies. And like it or not, we all make garbage and have to pay someone to haul it off for us. Now, if you choose to do it yourself, that’s great. Just make sure it actually makes it to the landfill. The road two blocks away from your shitty house, by the way, is not the landfill. It is the route I take twice a day to and from my daughter’s school, and I am tired of looking at your empty potato chip bags and pizza boxes. Ever hear of a vegetable? Try a little variety in your diet, for G-d’s sake.
The bag of trash that I pass daily never stays a bag for long. Like the long forgotten raccoon, it soon becomes entrails of waste strewn along the road, until a day or two later, when all that remains is a stain of what once was. Who knows what was in there? It could have been a body part or two, but now we’ll never know how close we were to catching the serial killer terrorizing our community.
Here we are, in the new century, and we still have folks discarding their rubbish like it is the Middle Ages. Remember back then, when everyone chucked their chamber pot swill and potato peelings and dead rats out on the muddy streets? Women wore long skirts that acted as mops for the gutters, swirling around in the muck before dragging it all back indoors. Well, I am pretty sure we attempt a more sanitary approach to waste disposal now, except for you, garbage infidel. I don’t want to drive my Volvo through your mess any more than I do my bullocks cart. Egads! We will all get the pox from thine waste, if thoust doesn’t tidy up a bit. Does thou havest a reason for disposing of your refuse in such manner? Pray, think of the children!
And another thing, enough with your cigarette butts being tossed out the windows. I just know it’s the same people. I bet you are the same fuckers who throw a pillow case full of kittens off a bridge too. I am very tempted at the next red light to get out of my car, pick up your filthy lipstick or gingivitis tinged cigarette tip, and chuck it back through your window, while screaming, “Oops! I think you dropped something!”
I am so over the dirty roadways. I don’t take a shit on your living room floor, so stop throwing your tampon wrappers and hamburger helper on my streets. As you can see, your mess is pushing some of us over the edge. The next time I hit another garbage bag on the interstate and papers go flying, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Not that I would do anything about it, other than grumble under my breath while I drive past. But in my head, it’s epic.
I understand that the cost of trash pick-up is ridiculously high. I too have to suck it up for my quarterly Waste Management bill, with its fuel surcharge fees and recycling fees and landfill fees. Remember when the fuel surcharges were added? I do. Gas was at an all time high, and what were companies like the airlines and the garbage collectors going to do? They passed the expense on to us, the consumers, as a fuel surcharge, and they made it look like it was a temporary thing, until fuel prices stabilized and we could go back to the normal rates. Well, I don’t know about you, but I am no longer paying over four dollars at the pump. But my fuel surcharge goes right on, more regular than the trash collection itself.
I don’t like it, but I accept it as part of being an adult. We have to pay for a place to live. We need electricity to run appliances in our homes. We need a form of transportation to get us from work and school and the occasional trip to the movies. And like it or not, we all make garbage and have to pay someone to haul it off for us. Now, if you choose to do it yourself, that’s great. Just make sure it actually makes it to the landfill. The road two blocks away from your shitty house, by the way, is not the landfill. It is the route I take twice a day to and from my daughter’s school, and I am tired of looking at your empty potato chip bags and pizza boxes. Ever hear of a vegetable? Try a little variety in your diet, for G-d’s sake.
The bag of trash that I pass daily never stays a bag for long. Like the long forgotten raccoon, it soon becomes entrails of waste strewn along the road, until a day or two later, when all that remains is a stain of what once was. Who knows what was in there? It could have been a body part or two, but now we’ll never know how close we were to catching the serial killer terrorizing our community.
Here we are, in the new century, and we still have folks discarding their rubbish like it is the Middle Ages. Remember back then, when everyone chucked their chamber pot swill and potato peelings and dead rats out on the muddy streets? Women wore long skirts that acted as mops for the gutters, swirling around in the muck before dragging it all back indoors. Well, I am pretty sure we attempt a more sanitary approach to waste disposal now, except for you, garbage infidel. I don’t want to drive my Volvo through your mess any more than I do my bullocks cart. Egads! We will all get the pox from thine waste, if thoust doesn’t tidy up a bit. Does thou havest a reason for disposing of your refuse in such manner? Pray, think of the children!
And another thing, enough with your cigarette butts being tossed out the windows. I just know it’s the same people. I bet you are the same fuckers who throw a pillow case full of kittens off a bridge too. I am very tempted at the next red light to get out of my car, pick up your filthy lipstick or gingivitis tinged cigarette tip, and chuck it back through your window, while screaming, “Oops! I think you dropped something!”
I am so over the dirty roadways. I don’t take a shit on your living room floor, so stop throwing your tampon wrappers and hamburger helper on my streets. As you can see, your mess is pushing some of us over the edge. The next time I hit another garbage bag on the interstate and papers go flying, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Not that I would do anything about it, other than grumble under my breath while I drive past. But in my head, it’s epic.
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