Animal Enrichment

When will I learn to stop saying yes? This time, my daughter Sugarplum’s (this is for JM, who complained about me using initials in my blogs; I named my child for you, JM, but I am not naming you) teacher called after school. I immediately assumed my daughter did something bad, as if that sort of thing occurred frequently, but no, she called to ask a favor. The class had a field trip the next day, and two of her chaperones backed out at the last minute.

She already knew of my reputation, so no doubt she called me first, knowing that I would agree to fill in, as I did. My rationale? Well, Sugarplum is in the fifth grade, and next year she moves on to middle school. How many more field trips would I be able to chaperone? My older daughter, Edwina (again, for you, JM) has no interest in me stepping foot inside her school, let alone settling into a seat on the bus and accompanying her  and her friends anywhere. What if Sugarplum turned on me too? This had the potential to be my last field trip ever. So I said yes.

Plus, the field trip was to the zoo. I love animals, not in that creepy way, but more because I just like to see them. I drive through my neighborhood in the early evening sometimes in the hopes I might catch a quick glimpse of a bunny. At the zoo, animal sightings are all but guaranteed, and the possibility that those animals might do something weird or disgusting was worth the part where I had to go with other people’s children.

I wasn’t even chaperoning my own child; rather, I had a group of five kids, from first grade through fifth classes, whom I was to escort. This wasn’t just a run of the mill zoo trip either; the kids from all five grades had been working as a group on a research project. Each group was assigned a different animal to study, which culminated in observing that animal in the zoo habitat and comparing it to the wild habitat that they researched. The chaperones were then responsible for videotaping the group making a presentation about their animals, with a script that the group had prepared prior to the field trip. In between the observing and the recording was some free time to look at all the other animals and a quick thirty minutes for lunch.

The morning of the field trip, I woke up with what I thought was a cold, complete with sore throat, sinus congestion, and the flop sweats. Rather than also back out, I parked my car in the school lot and went inside with Sugarplum, where I sat outside the classroom waiting for the big song and dance. That’s when the teachers threaten the children with their very lives, that they will behave if they ever want to see their families again, before we boarded the buses.

I forgot that school buses don’t have air conditioning or seat belts, except for the driver, and what made him so special? Before we even left the school, my shirt  was stuck to my back from that dark green vinyl seat. Only about three of the windows could be lowered, the rest having broken about fifteen years ago. I blew my nose and tried not to complain even as my hair grew three sizes in volume and I developed a sweat bead mustache and goatee.

Once at the zoo, each chaperone held up a sign with their group’s animal, so that the kids could get into their groups. I was assigned the lion, which was so much cooler than some shitty snake. One by one, all five kids walked up to me. It reminded me a little of the Golden Ticket winners from “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” only none of these kids were going to win anything. There were two little girls, two medium sized boys, and a girl from Sugarplum’s class. And it was not just any girl; it was Sugarplum’s nemesis. This is a kid who had spent most of fifth grade making sure my Sugarplum felt badly about herself. She called her stupid and mean and fat and even developed a nasty little anti-Semitic streak, which I’m sure made her parents proud. I wasn’t going to let my feelings towards this mean girl get the best of me, but I also had no real interest in helping her succeed.

Immediately the third grade boy, a rather tall kid whom I had never met, grabbed my hand as we walked into the zoo. When your kids are young, you don’t think anything of holding another child’s hand, but that was some time ago, and this boy’s hands were bigger than mine.  We walked, hand in hand, toward the lion habitat, the rest of the group straggling behind us.

Once there, I encouraged the children to study the space and how the lions interact, which was pretty stupid on my part. The lions, two young males, slept atop Pride Rock from “The Lion King,” and the rest of the relatively small enclosure looked like someone’s overgrown backyard. There wasn’t a whole lot of interacting going on, unless you count the occasional stretch or swatting of flies with lion tail. After the kids burped and pounded on the glass, we walked around the rest of the zoo, my new little boyfriend’s hand in mine.

We walked past several animal exhibits, the animals staring at us with complete and total boredom, which was the same look the kids gave back. After stopping at every water fountain so Sugarplum's nemesis could have a sip, we worked our way to the farm animals. Our zoo has a small area of farm animals: evil goats, a disgustingly frothy mouthed black pig, some fancy chickens, and regular ducks. My little boyfriend read the sign about the chickens, which are unusual and thus zoo worthy because they have a crown of feathers atop their heads that they toss around like a wig when they peck at bugs in the sand.

“Plush chickens,” he read to me.

“Actually, they are Polish chickens,” I said.

“What makes them Polish?” he wanted to know.

“I guess they came from Poland,” I said.

“You sure do know a lot about animals,” he said, and his hand sweat all over mine.

The other kids started screaming, which is an annoying thing children do frequently. I looked and saw a black snake slithering its way along the fence behind the ducks. It was a good five or six feet in length, and the kids wanted to know if I should inform a zookeeper that the very lives of the water fowl were in danger. I pointed out that the zoo had many black snake crossing signs and they probably already knew about a snake in these here parts.

The snake bypassed the ducks and went straight for the water bowl and began to drink, not unlike Sugarplum’s nemesis. Have you ever seen a snake drink? It’s disgusting, about as gross as the inside of a turtle’s mouth, which looks like a portal to the Underworld if it were conceived by Tim Burton. The snake hung its head limply into the water dish, like a broken bendy straw. I gathered my group and headed for the picnic table farthest away from the snake.

By the time we sat down to eat, it was around ten thousand degrees. All the kids were actively sweating which just enhanced their natural musk, not yet covered with more pleasant deodorant fragrances, which reminded me I forgot to encourage them to wash their hands before lunch. I sat down and sipped from my plastic bottle of water, the cold long gone from it, when I realized Sugarplum's nemesis had nothing to drink. She ate her mushed sandwich and chips, staring longingly at my water bottle the whole time. So I did what any other parent would do; I offered her my bottle. I disclosed that I had taken a few sips, but she was desperately thirsty, took it from me without a thank you, and drained it.

Is it a good deed to share your water with a thirsty child? Possibly. But what if the child is horrible to your daughter and you have a cold and drank out of your water bottle first? Is it still a good deed? To me, it seemed like the right thing to do, on many levels. Besides, how many colds have you gotten from other people’s children?

After lunch, we went back to the lion enclosure so my group could practice their little performance before I was to videotape them. After a bit of food, though, they were all over the place.  One of them literally tried to climb a wall. Don’t tell me that Oscar Meyer Lunchables don’t have a little something-something in them. A couple of run-throughs later, they were ready for me to start taping.

Now, I’m no Martin Scorsese, but even I knew these kids needed some direction. After the first take, I had to remind them to speak clearly and loudly, to look towards the camera and not the floor or the sky, to not talk backstage while we are filming, and to stay still before I got motion sickness. During the second take, which was by far the best, an old redneck grandpa interrupted the last line of the whole thing by shouting “Lookit that there lion!” while walking in front of the camera. The third take involved one of the lions stretching, and then getting up to pee. The fourth take had the remaining lion on his back atop his rock, his hind legs splayed, revealing what was the poorest excuse for male lion anatomy. My neutered house cat could put him to shame, but that didn’t stop him from getting aroused during the taping. Which meant that the fifth take was of five kids flubbing their lines with a lion boner over their left shoulder in the background. They voted on attempting a sixth and seventh take, and by the eighth take, I said no more.

“It’s not going to get any better, guys, so why keep trying?” I said. “Can't you edit from the footage we have or something?”

Like I said, it’s probably my last field trip.

Dancing Queen

You think the winter holiday season is busy? Try May. Nothing compares to the nonstop clusterfuck that is the end of the school year. It’s one thing when your kids are little and you have to go to school to watch them “graduate” from kindergarten. Just wait until they get a little older, like my kids, or even worse, high school, with proms and graduation and going away to college and  sweet Jesus, slow it down.

Luckily, my kids aren’t quite ready to fly away. My teen, E,  is just finishing up seventh grade while my tween, S,  is three weeks away from leaving elementary school, but let me tell you, the older they get, the more pressure the merry month of May brings. Final exams. Last minute projects. Sports tournaments. And recitals.

Yes, May is recital season. My children are not exactly the sports tourney type, what with their pervasive fear of catching, throwing, and kicking, but recitals they can do. In fact, we had the pleasure of attending two on the same day last weekend, piano in the morning and ballet at night. Both my daughters performed in the morning at the local unaccredited Christian college, which makes up for its lack of scientific education by having a pretty stellar music one. They have an acoustically amazing auditorium and a rare grand piano, and even though driving on the campus gives me cold sweats, I can appreciate the quality of the venue.

Piano recitals are definitely not my favorite part of May. After listening to my children play the same two songs daily for about six weeks, I’m more ready than they are to hear a new piece of music. Add to that the other twenty five kids who are also sick of playing the same one song over and over, and you have a recipe for a seriously long hour. Surviving is just a matter of counting the songs until it’s your child’s turn, and then counting the songs that are left. I understand the purpose of recitals, but I don’t want to hear your kid mess up Bach any more than you want to hear my child butcher Beethoven.

The evening dance recital, on the other hand, was so much more than I even expected. You may recall a number of years ago, my daughter S used to take lessons from a dance school that had a very different focus from her current one. I could say that her current ballet school emphasizes classical technique while her old school concentrates on more contemporary and mainstream dance styles, but that is much nicer than the way I see it. Her new school is artistic, and her old school teaches preschoolers how to grind. Both teach dance in the same way that Sunny Delight is orange juice.

I obviously wanted to see my daughter perform in her dance recital, but I had to give up something I really wanted to do that night. My temple hosted their centennial gala at the same time and missing it was a big disappointment. If I’ve been there for so many of the less fun aspects of temple membership, I wanted to be able to enjoy, finally, something that had the potential to be a blast. But a mother’s work is never done, so I put on a smile and went downtown to support my daughter.

The recital was simply amazing. I mean it; I am being totally sincere, for a change. The costumes were tasteful, the choreography was challenging in an age-appropriate way, and the children demonstrated what they had learned for all those hundreds of dollars spent on dance instruction. The younger kids were fun to watch because they are so damn cute, but the high school students? Damn. They dance with so much skill and talent that you forget it’s a recital and not a professional ballet. And the best part is no one humped the floor or took off part of their costume.

One of the first performances was by three dancers, two girls and a boy, all young teenagers. The boy wore tights and a kilt. He is so gifted in dance that in addition to being able to leap and spin gracefully, he also can lift the girls, which is no small feat since both of them were taller than he was.

My older daughter, who hasn't danced in six years,  turned to me and said, “As if dancing in tights wasn’t bad enough, he has to wear a skirt too?”

“It’s called a kilt,” I said.

Plus, he was dancing with two girls. He had his hands on two girls’ waists, and their boobs were in his face for a large part of the number. That kid is seeing more action that most boys his age. I especially liked that the piece was a love triangle. In a way, it was his first threesome. Way to go, dancing boy! Take that, jocks!

My daughter S, to be honest, is not the strongest dancer in the class. She started pointe this year, and it’s been a struggle the whole time for her. She has loved dance since she was three, and looked forward to the year when she would finally get those satin slippers with the ribbons, to finally look like a real ballerina. What you don’t see about real ballerinas is how their feet end up like a witch’s, all gnarled and corned and callused and sad. And until your feet adjust to that level of abuse, well, it hurts. A lot.

I knew pointe class could be the breaking point for her love of dance, and to some extent, it has been. This is the first year that she hasn’t said she wants to be a dancer when she grows up. The minute she stood on her toes for the first time, she finally understood that not everyone can be good at everything, and that’s not an easy lesson to learn.

When S came out on the stage in the back row of dancers, she wobbled. She faltered. She struggled. In a class of graceful gazelles, she stood out for all the wrong reasons. But I couldn’t be more proud of her, because she didn’t quit. She knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but she kept her end of the bargain. She went in front of that audience and tried and held her head up high and did what she could, the best she could, with a smile on her face.

In my eyes, she was the most beautiful girl on that stage. I knew how hard she worked, how what the rest of the class did easily reduced her to tears every week. And yet, she stuck with it, even knowing she could not do it. She didn’t give up, not because I forced her to dance, but because it was important to her. Even as my heart ached for her, I loved every minute of it.

I heard the gala at the temple was a brilliant success, but I was so happy being where I was, watching my child succeed in a way she doesn’t even know. She even wants to give pointe another year, to see if she can improve and find her way on those wooden toe boxes. If she does decide to stop dancing in a year or two or less, she hasn’t failed. She could teach a lot of adults, including me, a thing or two about perseverance and character. Now if only I could figure out what to do with that collection of recital costumes. 

Pillsbury Bake Off

I think I accidentally got high with my teenager.

We were in the car, driving home from her guitar lesson. Normally the drive home after guitar is uneventful, except for the scrawny teen holding an arrow-shaped sign outside of an oyster house. He wears a hoodie and has a rattail, which is very retro of him, and he holds a sign to the restaurant which he twirls in such an expressive way that you can feel his angst and boredom with every spin. We refer to this tormented soul as my daughter’s "boyfriend," and he is usually the highlight of the drive home.

Last week was unusual, and not just because we got stoned. Most of the time there is some afternoon traffic, but last week it was at a standstill, the kind of traffic that screams major car accident.We had no choice but to sit in it, inching slowly forward, moving maybe one car length per five minutes.

My daughter and I had already exhausted our conversation options. How was school? Fine. Do you have homework? Yes. Anything interesting happen today? No. After an obligatory fight over who controls the music, we settled on the next best thing, which was to study all the cars around us for anything amusing.

In front of us was a big fan of the Second Amendment, which we knew from his giant automatic weapon second amendment window sticker. I don’t know if it’s even a sticker, but whatever it was, I don’t understand how the driver can see with the entire rear window covered in guns.

To the right of us was a tricked out former police car, still with its spotlight on the driver side. It was a Ford something, navy blue, with oversized wheels, overly tinted windows, and a little personalized sticker that said “Mr. Fresh.”  The car vibrated with the excessive bass from whatever music was blasting within.

“Look, it’s Mr. Fresh,” I said to my teen.

As if on cue, the darkened driver side window rolled down, revealing a man with a ball cap and chin length cornrow braids. In his left hand was a thin cigar with a plastic filter on the end. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out of the window, in my car’s general direction. Then he began to dance. His braids swayed to the beat of the music, as he did this little shrugging thing with his shoulders, looking left and right, a giant smile on his face.

“Is that a blunt?” my teen asked me.

“How do you know what a blunt is?” I asked her.

“Wiz Khalifa. Plus, I’m in middle school. So, is it?” she said.

I was a little shocked, but with no good reason. When I was in middle school, I saw someone snort cocaine on the back of the school bus. One of my good friends in Gifted got suspended for possession of marijuana and had to go to that scary middle school, the one that was a minimum security version of juvie, the alternative to an outright expulsion. My high school had monthly visits from the Feds, complete with drug sniffing dogs that would smell every locker inside and every car in the parking lot. And that was the 80's. So what if she could identify a blunt? She could also identify a meth head. The more times change, the more they stay the same.

“Yes, it is. I guess that’s one way to deal with this traffic. Not that I am condoning drug use behind the wheel, because I’m not.”

“Mr. Fresh sure looks happy, “she commented.

“Indeed,” I replied.

We were trapped there, with the other cars’ exhaust mixing together with Mr. Fresh’s second hand smoke, until I kid you not, everything became really funny to both of us.

We giggled, which gave way to full laughing, until my teen said,” This is horrible. Now I know what weed smells like. I’ve lost my youth. My innocence is gone. Now I will know every time I go to a concert, every time I walk through a college dorm.”  She’s not dramatic at all.

I looked out my side window into the car on my left.

“Look at that guy,” I said. “He looks like an exploded can of biscuits.”

The teen peered over me to get a good look at the doughy man behind the wheel.

Then we laughed some more, with some snorting, and eventually a little choke, her, not me. She also had tears streaming down her face.

“Mr. Fresh to the right of us, and Poppin' Fresh to the left,” I shouted, laughing at my own joke.

“Who’s Poppin' Fresh?”

“That’s the Pillsbury dough boy’s name,” I told her.

“The Pillsbury dough boy has a name?” she said.

“You know what a blunt is, but you don’t know the Pillsbury dough boy’s name? Where have I failed you as a mother?” I said.

 

 

Traffic started moving, and we laughed our way home, slowing to a few giggles here and there by the time we pulled in the driveway. My teen ran inside and headed straight for the pantry, where she began to shove whatever she could find in her pie hole. This is commonly referred to as “the munchies.”

“Stop that,” I said, “It’s almost dinnertime."

We never did pass a car accident.

 

Knock, Knock...Who's There?

If I get a rare night off from being a mom, I want to enjoy some adult time. I don’t mean I want to be hogtied with a ball gag or anything like that, but I do want to be able to say the F word freely and maybe have dinner at a restaurant that doesn’t serve chicken fingers. Anything beyond that is pretty much icing on the cake, as they say. When my friend TA planned a little overnight stay in Asheville, I was happy to join in and get a break at the same time. I convinced my friend MJS to come along, since she needs a night off more than anyone I know, what with her almost two year old terrorizing her daily. That shit gets old.

We didn’t have a set schedule other than a late dinner and possibly some fun activity afterwards, which was perfect because MJS and I could just chill and visit before we met up with TA and all the other ladies later that night. We had a tasty lunch, tried on a gazillion overpriced shoes, and stared at the many freaks on the streets (it’s Asheville, people; I’m not judging, just accurately describing) before we went back to our hotel for a pre-dinner nap.

After a snooze and a little reading, MJS got in the shower and I scanned the television channels until it was time to slap on some more makeup and change my clothes. About the time MJS turned off the shower, the fun began down the hall.

It started with a loud yell:  “AAAARRRHHHHH!”

Followed by: “GODDAMN, BITCH!”

Then the door pounding: BAM! BAM! BAM! “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”

MJS peeked her head out of the bathroom and looked at me.

“OPEN THE DOOR, BITCH! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”

She went back in the bathroom and I stayed in my bed, listening. About this time I got a text from TA, who was not staying on our floor: Drinks in the lobby B4 dinner?

“OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!!"

I texted back: Yes! MJS is in the shower and I am putting on a new face. This old one looks, well, old.

Outside our room, the door pounding continued. BAM! BAM! BAM! "OPEN THE MOTHERFUCKING DOOR! OPEN THE DOOR, BITCH! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!"

I was glued to the bed, wondering what was going to happen. MJS popped out of the bathroom again, wrapped in a damp white towel, and pressed her eye up to the peephole.

“See anything?” I asked her.

“Redneck yelling,” she said.

“OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”

“She better not open that door,” I said.

Then variety, with less volume: “Please open the door.  You closed my hand in the door.”

“That would explain the scream at the beginning,” I said. “Should we call the front desk or the police or something?”

“Maybe,” MJS said.

Then shit got real: “WHEN YOU OPEN THE DOOR, I’M GOING TO PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE.”

MJS and I stared at each other all wide eyed. Clearly it was time someone did something, but who and what?

I texted my friend TA: There’s a fight going on right outside our room.

She texted back: Shit. Women?

I texted: Man and woman.

About that time, which was also when we decided we could not sit there and do nothing any longer, that action must be taken, the hotel manager and a security guard walked down the hall to where the man was pounding on the door. MJS reported all this to me from her peephole post. We could hear his walkie talkie radio thingy through the door, and the manager explained that someone would be checking out that night, that this is a nice hotel and cannot tolerate incidents such as this. Also that the police had been called.

“Well, that was close,” MJS said. “I thought I was going to have to go out there and break it up.”

“In your towel? Yeah, right,” I said.

MJS went back into the bathroom. I took over her spot by the door.

 

“There are three cops walking down the hall!” I screamed excitedly!

“And they just heard you,” MJS called from the bathroom.

The manager stepped away from that room and stood right outside ours to talk to another employee downstairs:  “They are checking out now, so go ahead and charge them for a full night. And authorize an additional $500. There’s blood everywhere.”

"This is like watching a reality show through a peephole," I said to MJS.

"Yeah, and every other person on this floor is doing the same thing right now," she said, "hunched by their doors, peeping."

TA texted me: Is it still going on?

I texted back: OMG, the popo are here!!!

TA texted: Can you leave the room?

I texted: Well, yes, but I have to see this thing through. I'm still eavesdropping.

TA texted: oh jeez.

MJS emerged from the bathroom dressed and ready to go. “Hurry up; we have to beat them downstairs so we can watch the cops drag his battering ass out of here. But I wish we could go look in the room and see the blood."

Unfortunately, the room in question was not on the way to the elevator, so we had no choice but to skip the rubbernecking. By the time they got to the lobby, the one man, his bag, and the three cops around him, MJS and I each had a beer in hand, ready to watch his walk of shame.

“Cheers!” I said to her, and we clinked bottles. TA, who was enjoying both the story and a martini, rolled her eyes at us.

“What?” I said. “It’s the pre-dinner show. And we didn’t even have to pay for it!”

Dinner was good too, and not a chicken finger in sight.