Nothing makes you feel like you’re back in school like being back in school. Your child’s school, I mean. I went to a room mother’s meeting this morning at my daughter E’s elementary school, and it was like stepping back into my awkward school years, only not in a good way. Our family is new to the school this year, as my daughter finished her last year at the private school she has attended since she turned three. Now she is in the fourth grade, and it is like we are starting from scratch. I don’t know where anything is and I don’t know who anyone is, including both the staff who works there and all the moms sitting in the cafeteria that I could only find by following the color coordinated strip on the floor (orange for fourth grade). And I am not even the one in school. I can’t imagine how much worse it is for my daughter, so I concentrated instead on how it affected me.
I walked in the cafeteria which still held the stale odor of the free and reduced breakfast and took a seat near the front of the room. No one said hello to me, nor did I to anyone else. I sat there alone, fretting over the same things I did in school, only with a hopefully more mature slant. Am I overdressed? Underdressed? Why are they wearing flip flops? Can we even wear flip flops to school? We should set a better example for the children. Can anyone see my roots? I should have pulled my hair back. I need a touch up. I need some lip gloss. I’m so thirsty.
As more mothers strolled in, it became apparent to me that there were cliques here just like in high school. The thin pretty moms are seemed to know each other, and they chatted loudly in the back over the announcements of the former student council types who conducting the meeting. There were moms who looked sleep deprived and slightly disheveled and clearly had not showered for the occasion. There were the gym moms, all in their fitted tank tops and sporty little skorts. There was even one lone father who had fortified himself with a bible. I wonder if he knew what meeting he was attending or if he just saw it as another opportunity to spread HIS word.
I tried to focus on why I was there. But I don’t know why I was there. At one time, it had something to do with wanting to be involved on a more personal level so I can keep an eye on what happens in E’s classroom, which at this point seems to be a whole lot of nothing. I wanted to see what the kids in my daughter’s class are like, to help out her teacher so she can get busy with teaching. But sitting there, feeling alone with my chin acne and alcohol bloat from the long weekend, I realized that none of what that meeting detailed had anything to do with being involved in my daughter’s class at all.
In theory, we were all there to support our children and the school. The reality was more along the lines of one-up-man ship and controlling personalities. As we divided ourselves into grade levels and classes (by teacher, not socio-economics), I realized I did not fit in here much in the same way I did not fit in when I was in school. I defied classification then, and I still do. I had and still have a strong work ethic and desire to do the right thing, but a nasty lazy streak and fear of responsibility. At least I was smart enough to not head up anything.
It took a few hours for the awkward to wear off, when I could return to telling myself I was slightly fabulous and full of potential. It feels better when I’m at home making a tasty dinner or cracking a joke instead of being one more mom sitting in a cafeteria on a Tuesday morning. Feeling adequate doesn’t come easy to some, certainly not to me. Maybe those other moms are just better at faking it.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Another Reason to Shop at Barnes and Noble
“Bearing witness. Everyone has a story. Cry for everyone. From God we come and from God we return.”
Isn’t that poetic? I found it in a book at the library today. Only not as a quote the author wrote or chose to include in the first few pages. I found it scrawled on the inside back cover of a novel, hand written in a loose, flowing, feminine script. The novel itself was written by an American from Pakistan, and it is the story of a Muslim woman. That book is not exactly where I would expect to bear witness, but then again, neither is the public library! After all, it’s not like I was at the Christian Science Reading Room, where I would imagine most of the books to be a little on the preachy side. All I wanted was a good book to read before bedtime. If I wanted to read a book about God, I'd check out a bible.
That damn quote scribbled in the new release bothered me more than I thought it would. Seriously, is this what we have come to? Vandalizing library books in the name of the Lord? Really? Is this what Jesus would do? I doubt it. I’m sure Jesus would prefer you to clothe the naked or heal the sick, not force your righteous views on others through damaging library books.
I showed the offending book to the librarian, a friend of mine, who was at the circulation desk. She tsked and said, “Oh, and it’s a new book too,” as if were more understandable to minister to us by scribbling inside old library books.
“I guess this happens all the time, huh? You don’t seem so surprised,” I said to her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sadly. We even have a couple of old ladies who write their initials in the back of the large print books so they can tell if they’ve checked them out before.”
“That makes sense to me. That I can understand,” I said. “But this,” I pointed to the writing in the book,” I don’t get.”
She stamped the book as damaged so I wouldn’t get blamed or fined for it, which placated me somewhat. I don’t want to be labeled a bible thumper who defaces library books. What really angers me is that someone, or more likely a group of someones, thinks this is a perfectly acceptable outlet for preaching to strangers. I understand that the town where I live is conservative and overly Christian/Evangelical, but surely some people still think that vandalizing public property is a crime, if not a sin. I understand that the Constitution is second to the Ten Commandments for some, and the idea of separation of church and state is currently downright unAmerican. But a library book to me is its own form of sacred document. Even toddlers learn not to color in them.
When I check out a book from the library, I don’t want to find surprises in it. A book mark is okay. A library receipt is understandable. Cigarette smoke and what I hope are food stains are unwelcome but not uncommon, and thus can be overlooked. But sneaky handwritten proselytizing is unacceptable. I suppose it could be worse, though. At least the book wasn’t burned.
Isn’t that poetic? I found it in a book at the library today. Only not as a quote the author wrote or chose to include in the first few pages. I found it scrawled on the inside back cover of a novel, hand written in a loose, flowing, feminine script. The novel itself was written by an American from Pakistan, and it is the story of a Muslim woman. That book is not exactly where I would expect to bear witness, but then again, neither is the public library! After all, it’s not like I was at the Christian Science Reading Room, where I would imagine most of the books to be a little on the preachy side. All I wanted was a good book to read before bedtime. If I wanted to read a book about God, I'd check out a bible.
That damn quote scribbled in the new release bothered me more than I thought it would. Seriously, is this what we have come to? Vandalizing library books in the name of the Lord? Really? Is this what Jesus would do? I doubt it. I’m sure Jesus would prefer you to clothe the naked or heal the sick, not force your righteous views on others through damaging library books.
I showed the offending book to the librarian, a friend of mine, who was at the circulation desk. She tsked and said, “Oh, and it’s a new book too,” as if were more understandable to minister to us by scribbling inside old library books.
“I guess this happens all the time, huh? You don’t seem so surprised,” I said to her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sadly. We even have a couple of old ladies who write their initials in the back of the large print books so they can tell if they’ve checked them out before.”
“That makes sense to me. That I can understand,” I said. “But this,” I pointed to the writing in the book,” I don’t get.”
She stamped the book as damaged so I wouldn’t get blamed or fined for it, which placated me somewhat. I don’t want to be labeled a bible thumper who defaces library books. What really angers me is that someone, or more likely a group of someones, thinks this is a perfectly acceptable outlet for preaching to strangers. I understand that the town where I live is conservative and overly Christian/Evangelical, but surely some people still think that vandalizing public property is a crime, if not a sin. I understand that the Constitution is second to the Ten Commandments for some, and the idea of separation of church and state is currently downright unAmerican. But a library book to me is its own form of sacred document. Even toddlers learn not to color in them.
When I check out a book from the library, I don’t want to find surprises in it. A book mark is okay. A library receipt is understandable. Cigarette smoke and what I hope are food stains are unwelcome but not uncommon, and thus can be overlooked. But sneaky handwritten proselytizing is unacceptable. I suppose it could be worse, though. At least the book wasn’t burned.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Movin' On Up
My friend MJ moved last week, with the help of a select few friends and her parents. Her father said at one point, as he sat to rest his back or, more likely, his heart, “You can really tell who your friends are when you move.” I answered him, “You’re right. You’re family, so you have to be here.” And he is right. By the looks of it, MJ is virtually friendless. She had me, her boyfriend, her boyfriend’s best friend, and her mom and dad. She also had some heavy ass furniture and a couple of flights of stairs, which might have had something to do with the scarcity of BFF’s. Or maybe because she moved on a Tuesday, when most normal folk are at work. MJ and her boyfriend work for themselves, her parents are retired, and I am a perpetual volunteer with trouble saying no, so we were it.
Did I mention the majority of us are over forty and have no business schlepping heavy boxes up and down stairs? Honestly, this isn’t MJ’s first apartment, and we are no longer in college. Over the years, a person accumulates more than just life experiences, and even when moving from one street to the next, as MJ did, all of that clutter, down to the last paper clip, needs to be dumped in a box and loaded in the U-Haul. It is one’s life reduced to a cardboard village, and it always takes more boxes than you think it will.
The obvious question is why didn’t MJ hire a mover, and since it is so obvious, let’s not even answer it. Instead, let’s reflect on my favorite part of the move. It revolves around a beautiful hand painted armoire that MJ had in her tiny office/storage space. I don’t know how tall the piece is, as it stands on delicate feet and has a cornice and post on top, which easily add a foot to the overall height. It does not have wood doors, more of a filigree metal decoration, all curlicues and ornate design. What it lacks in solid wood it makes up for in mirrors that line the back panel. It is the kind of piece of furniture that is best sold with a house, as it would take four men to move it. Only we didn’t have four men, we had three: one with a heart condition, one with a massive ego, and one with a sailor’s vocabulary.
“Motherfucker shit damn,” I heard from behind the massive armoire as it teetered on the top of MJ’s front stoop. MJ flitted about like a hummingbird on crank, trying unsuccessfully to find a way to be helpful. MJ has legs a mile long and the upper body strength of a rotisserie chicken. She would have been more useful in a tiny pleated skirt and some pom poms, cheering on the ego and his potty mouth cohort. The other man, her father, kept taking off his baseball cap and slamming it on the ground, like he was angry with an umpire’s lousy call. None of these theatrics was going to move that armoire down the stairs and into the U-Haul. I was there to help, but I’m no fool. I stood on the sidewalk and watched.
Eventually, with much grunting and yelling at each other, the armoire crawled its way down the five step stoop and over near the back of the rental truck. One of the armoire’s ankles cracked, much to MJ’s distress. In her mind, the piece was irreparable and should have been abandoned at the end of the driveway. I made myself busy packing boxes inside the house, so I don’t actually know how the goddamned motherfucking piece of shit got in the truck.
MJ and I loaded up the back of my car with more boxes and drove the half mile to her new home, a condo inconveniently located at the top of a full flight of stairs. When we got there, the three men were “debating” how to get the cocksucking son of a bitch off the truck without further causing damage to it or themselves. With an extra boost of machismo, they strong armed it out of the truck and onto the ground, at which point the cracked foot on the armoire snapped off all the way.
That snapped foot was the cue for everyone else to snap as well. MJ yelled at the ego, the ego yelled at MJ, MJ’s father yelled at his hat some more, and the best friend cursed. I stood on the sidewalk and watched some more. The ego was bleeding lightly from his well toned calf, at which point MJ decided to go for full castration by calling more men to help. MJ knows a lot of men who are willing to do pretty much whatever she asks of them. If she played her cards right, she would never have to scoop the kitty litter again; she only does it because she likes it. The ego and the potty mouth, knowing that more testicles were about to show up and get the job done, found the strength and vocabulary to get that monstrously large piece of furniture up the stairs. They grunted and groaned stair by stair, their mesenteric lining tearing with each heave. I watched all this from where I stood on the sidewalk. After they pushed it in the corner, the ego took the broken foot from MJ and wedged it in place, like Cinderella’s glass slipper. Good as new! This of course was when the other men showed up. Men have the knack of suddenly appearing when they are no longer needed.
With all the swearing, the fighting, the blood loss, the tears, and the drama, it already felt like a home. At least, it did to me, from where I stood on the sidewalk, watching.
Did I mention the majority of us are over forty and have no business schlepping heavy boxes up and down stairs? Honestly, this isn’t MJ’s first apartment, and we are no longer in college. Over the years, a person accumulates more than just life experiences, and even when moving from one street to the next, as MJ did, all of that clutter, down to the last paper clip, needs to be dumped in a box and loaded in the U-Haul. It is one’s life reduced to a cardboard village, and it always takes more boxes than you think it will.
The obvious question is why didn’t MJ hire a mover, and since it is so obvious, let’s not even answer it. Instead, let’s reflect on my favorite part of the move. It revolves around a beautiful hand painted armoire that MJ had in her tiny office/storage space. I don’t know how tall the piece is, as it stands on delicate feet and has a cornice and post on top, which easily add a foot to the overall height. It does not have wood doors, more of a filigree metal decoration, all curlicues and ornate design. What it lacks in solid wood it makes up for in mirrors that line the back panel. It is the kind of piece of furniture that is best sold with a house, as it would take four men to move it. Only we didn’t have four men, we had three: one with a heart condition, one with a massive ego, and one with a sailor’s vocabulary.
“Motherfucker shit damn,” I heard from behind the massive armoire as it teetered on the top of MJ’s front stoop. MJ flitted about like a hummingbird on crank, trying unsuccessfully to find a way to be helpful. MJ has legs a mile long and the upper body strength of a rotisserie chicken. She would have been more useful in a tiny pleated skirt and some pom poms, cheering on the ego and his potty mouth cohort. The other man, her father, kept taking off his baseball cap and slamming it on the ground, like he was angry with an umpire’s lousy call. None of these theatrics was going to move that armoire down the stairs and into the U-Haul. I was there to help, but I’m no fool. I stood on the sidewalk and watched.
Eventually, with much grunting and yelling at each other, the armoire crawled its way down the five step stoop and over near the back of the rental truck. One of the armoire’s ankles cracked, much to MJ’s distress. In her mind, the piece was irreparable and should have been abandoned at the end of the driveway. I made myself busy packing boxes inside the house, so I don’t actually know how the goddamned motherfucking piece of shit got in the truck.
MJ and I loaded up the back of my car with more boxes and drove the half mile to her new home, a condo inconveniently located at the top of a full flight of stairs. When we got there, the three men were “debating” how to get the cocksucking son of a bitch off the truck without further causing damage to it or themselves. With an extra boost of machismo, they strong armed it out of the truck and onto the ground, at which point the cracked foot on the armoire snapped off all the way.
That snapped foot was the cue for everyone else to snap as well. MJ yelled at the ego, the ego yelled at MJ, MJ’s father yelled at his hat some more, and the best friend cursed. I stood on the sidewalk and watched some more. The ego was bleeding lightly from his well toned calf, at which point MJ decided to go for full castration by calling more men to help. MJ knows a lot of men who are willing to do pretty much whatever she asks of them. If she played her cards right, she would never have to scoop the kitty litter again; she only does it because she likes it. The ego and the potty mouth, knowing that more testicles were about to show up and get the job done, found the strength and vocabulary to get that monstrously large piece of furniture up the stairs. They grunted and groaned stair by stair, their mesenteric lining tearing with each heave. I watched all this from where I stood on the sidewalk. After they pushed it in the corner, the ego took the broken foot from MJ and wedged it in place, like Cinderella’s glass slipper. Good as new! This of course was when the other men showed up. Men have the knack of suddenly appearing when they are no longer needed.
With all the swearing, the fighting, the blood loss, the tears, and the drama, it already felt like a home. At least, it did to me, from where I stood on the sidewalk, watching.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Return of the Solid Gold Dancers
Have you been to a dance recital recently? No? Well, I have, and I must say, this ain’t your sister’s dance recital. Unless your sister is a stripper, in which case, my apologies. I don’t know if strippers have a dance school, but if they did, then I think I accidentally enrolled my seven year old there. Luckily, she was only taking a ballet class. It is kind of hard to make ballet whorish. Unfortunately, the opposite is true for most of the rest of dance numbers I saw that night.
The theme of the evening was “Rock Star,” which meant that the audience wished for ear plugs and blinders to make it through the two and a half hours of bad classic rock remakes and hip gyrations of the underage dancers. The dance studio that staged this alleged performance teaches dance from preschool to high school, and they cover ballet, jazz, tap, and hip hop. Keep in mind that the majority of their students are upper middle class and white, so you wouldn’t imagine a big need for hip hop lessons, but apparently all the cool kids are doing it.
And while the dance studio makes dance fun for its youngest students, it really concentrates on its competing dance teams, their bread and butter. Once a girl reaches grade school, she can try out for a variety of different teams, which drive around the region competing in dance offs, but not like in Grease or West Side Story. I hear it’s great fun for the girls, the spirit of competition, the importance of being part of a team, the sense of pride and responsibility, blah blah blah. For the mothers, it is a big pain in the gluteus, all the driving around, the cost of the costumes, the constant gelling of fly-away hair. So my daughter isn’t on a dance team, because there’s no way in hell I am going to do that. But come recital night, 23 of the 48 (yes, I said 48) dance numbers are from the competing dance teams, and we all have to sit through it. There is no leaving early, unless you can convince your young children they don’t really want to wait for their turn to walk across the stage in front of all the parents to get their trophy.
Now, I had no complaints with the preschool dance numbers. There is nothing cuter than a little row of mini girls in Shirley Temple dresses trying to tap their toes without falling over. Usually one kid per preschool dance number had to be carried on the stage, and would stand still, staring at the instructor off stage, as lost as if she had never had nine months of dance classes to learn the three steps the rest of the girls repeated over and over . The audience laughed delightedly, and the little girls onstage knew they were being laughed at, saving up the experience for therapy in thirty years.
Then there were the dancers my daughter’s age. These were classified as beginner classes, and involved maybe five of the performances. Each of them numbered over fifteen girls who would come out and perform rudimentary dance moves, ballet, tap, or jazz. There wasn’t much to report about them because they were what you would expect for girls learning dance. Nothing fancy, nothing special, but a chance to shine on a big stage in a pretty dress with too much of mother’s makeup smeared all over their faces.
But the reason that the fathers all stayed awake for the recital were the teenagers, especially the dance team members. There might have been one or two girls who were almost legal, but you couldn’t tell by their used up faces, scantily clad bodies, and erection causing moves. I don’t think a single one of them hid their navels, but perhaps we should all be thankful they removed their piercings for the dance numbers.
The tap dance numbers confused me, but I guess I am not up on my tap dance. Since when did it get so angry? There was as much chin jutting and foot slamming as there was tap tapping. I guess when tap shifted from Sammy Davis Jr. to Savion Glover, it became an urban form of dance, which was in turn bastardized by suburban dance studios across the country. That meant we were treated to tap dance smack downs, complete with Unabomber hoodies, which somehow still revealed a lot of midriff.
There were a few contemporary dance numbers as well, with their flowing garments, although I am pretty sure one performance was in pajamas. Nubile teens in pjs just cranked up the male audience fantasy factor, with all that rolling around on the floor in wife beaters and plaid flannel bottoms. the rest of the contemporary dance numbers involved classic rock songs with a new age-y feel, while the girls draped themselves around each other and turned themselves inside out. I can’t watch contemporary dance without thinking about buying a douche or changing my tampon. They are the stuff feminine hygiene ads are made of.
My favorite part of the recital, however, were the jazz numbers. Jazz used to mean Liza Minnelli and fishnet stockings, maybe a top hat and the obligatory jazz hands. Now it is lap dancing without the lap. There was actually one number that involved chairs, so you could really imagine what these girls will do in a year or two when they flunk out of technical college. Lots of squatting with knees spread wide. Splits. Lots of splits. With and without arched backs. I am pretty sure I saw outer labia during one performance. “Duck,” I said to my husband, “you’re gonna get hit with a ping pong ball.”
That dance recital was an evening to remember. Which is why I enrolled my daughter in a new dance school for this fall. Now her teacher’s’ credentials involve which theater she performed with instead of being the winner of the 24-K Klub wet t-shirt amateur night. I have already been to the open house, and I didn’t see a single belly button. I am looking forward to a tasteful and age appropriate dance recital, one where girls are judged by their dance skills and not how their abs look when oiled and glittered. But we all know it will be a big snooze. I have been meaning to catch up on my sleep anyway.
The theme of the evening was “Rock Star,” which meant that the audience wished for ear plugs and blinders to make it through the two and a half hours of bad classic rock remakes and hip gyrations of the underage dancers. The dance studio that staged this alleged performance teaches dance from preschool to high school, and they cover ballet, jazz, tap, and hip hop. Keep in mind that the majority of their students are upper middle class and white, so you wouldn’t imagine a big need for hip hop lessons, but apparently all the cool kids are doing it.
And while the dance studio makes dance fun for its youngest students, it really concentrates on its competing dance teams, their bread and butter. Once a girl reaches grade school, she can try out for a variety of different teams, which drive around the region competing in dance offs, but not like in Grease or West Side Story. I hear it’s great fun for the girls, the spirit of competition, the importance of being part of a team, the sense of pride and responsibility, blah blah blah. For the mothers, it is a big pain in the gluteus, all the driving around, the cost of the costumes, the constant gelling of fly-away hair. So my daughter isn’t on a dance team, because there’s no way in hell I am going to do that. But come recital night, 23 of the 48 (yes, I said 48) dance numbers are from the competing dance teams, and we all have to sit through it. There is no leaving early, unless you can convince your young children they don’t really want to wait for their turn to walk across the stage in front of all the parents to get their trophy.
Now, I had no complaints with the preschool dance numbers. There is nothing cuter than a little row of mini girls in Shirley Temple dresses trying to tap their toes without falling over. Usually one kid per preschool dance number had to be carried on the stage, and would stand still, staring at the instructor off stage, as lost as if she had never had nine months of dance classes to learn the three steps the rest of the girls repeated over and over . The audience laughed delightedly, and the little girls onstage knew they were being laughed at, saving up the experience for therapy in thirty years.
Then there were the dancers my daughter’s age. These were classified as beginner classes, and involved maybe five of the performances. Each of them numbered over fifteen girls who would come out and perform rudimentary dance moves, ballet, tap, or jazz. There wasn’t much to report about them because they were what you would expect for girls learning dance. Nothing fancy, nothing special, but a chance to shine on a big stage in a pretty dress with too much of mother’s makeup smeared all over their faces.
But the reason that the fathers all stayed awake for the recital were the teenagers, especially the dance team members. There might have been one or two girls who were almost legal, but you couldn’t tell by their used up faces, scantily clad bodies, and erection causing moves. I don’t think a single one of them hid their navels, but perhaps we should all be thankful they removed their piercings for the dance numbers.
The tap dance numbers confused me, but I guess I am not up on my tap dance. Since when did it get so angry? There was as much chin jutting and foot slamming as there was tap tapping. I guess when tap shifted from Sammy Davis Jr. to Savion Glover, it became an urban form of dance, which was in turn bastardized by suburban dance studios across the country. That meant we were treated to tap dance smack downs, complete with Unabomber hoodies, which somehow still revealed a lot of midriff.
There were a few contemporary dance numbers as well, with their flowing garments, although I am pretty sure one performance was in pajamas. Nubile teens in pjs just cranked up the male audience fantasy factor, with all that rolling around on the floor in wife beaters and plaid flannel bottoms. the rest of the contemporary dance numbers involved classic rock songs with a new age-y feel, while the girls draped themselves around each other and turned themselves inside out. I can’t watch contemporary dance without thinking about buying a douche or changing my tampon. They are the stuff feminine hygiene ads are made of.
My favorite part of the recital, however, were the jazz numbers. Jazz used to mean Liza Minnelli and fishnet stockings, maybe a top hat and the obligatory jazz hands. Now it is lap dancing without the lap. There was actually one number that involved chairs, so you could really imagine what these girls will do in a year or two when they flunk out of technical college. Lots of squatting with knees spread wide. Splits. Lots of splits. With and without arched backs. I am pretty sure I saw outer labia during one performance. “Duck,” I said to my husband, “you’re gonna get hit with a ping pong ball.”
That dance recital was an evening to remember. Which is why I enrolled my daughter in a new dance school for this fall. Now her teacher’s’ credentials involve which theater she performed with instead of being the winner of the 24-K Klub wet t-shirt amateur night. I have already been to the open house, and I didn’t see a single belly button. I am looking forward to a tasteful and age appropriate dance recital, one where girls are judged by their dance skills and not how their abs look when oiled and glittered. But we all know it will be a big snooze. I have been meaning to catch up on my sleep anyway.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
What's in a Name?
School started last week and already the extracurricular activities have kicked in. It seems crazy to me, seeing as how my daughter’s school still hasn’t passed out textbooks since there aren’t enough to go around (thank you Mark Sanford! We all know South Carolina’s education system doesn’t need any funding.). While the school system seems a bit lax, the opposite is true for the YMCA soccer league. We joined there because they billed themselves as more recreational and less competitive than the other soccer leagues in town, one of which involves a three day a week practice schedule and the occasional pre-season scrimmage in subfreezing temperatures, and the of which involves Jesus. For some reason, however, this season’s coaches have forgotten they are Y volunteers and not paid professionals.
My daughter E’s coach takes his responsibilities very seriously. He starts each practice for his 8-9 year old all girls’ team by making them run laps around the field. I would like to see him do that in the late August heat. After that, they get down to the nitty gritty of soccer fundamentals for about 5 seconds so that they can spend the majority of their time scrimmaging. (I don’t really know what "scrimmaging" means, but I used to think it was the lost art of carving intricate seafaring scenes on whale bones.) For their first practice, the coach split the girls into two sides, those who had played together last year versus those who were new members of the team, some of whom had never played soccer before. He then announced to the new girls’ side that the other side never lost a game all season. Way to instill good sportsmanship and teamwork!
E seems happy, though, because while she might not have played on the winningest team in Y history, she has at least played. Plus, she rocks out the goal kicks.
Anywho, yesterday E and I brainstormed names for her team. The coach asked the girls to think up a name, even though they don’t have jerseys yet and therefore are unable to use a color as the basis for the name. Typically, the names are all the same season after season, names which invoke the mayhem and destruction this group of ten little girls will unleash upon the opposing group of ten little girls. The Hurricanes, the Yellow Jackets, White Lightning, Blue Heat. Oooh, intimidating.
E took the team naming pretty seriously. She had pen and paper and plans to draw pictures to get her creative juices flowing. She asked me to help, which was her mistake. I don’t like the traditional names for teams. I think kids can be more original in their team naming. After all, their individual names are pretty original, with all the Peytons and Sloans and McKenzies and Madisons running down the field. It sounds like a law firm, not a soccer team roster.
I was a big help. I came up with great names. Here’s how it went down:
Me: How about the Killer Robots?
E: Hmmm.
Me: The Stinky Socks? The Stinging Nettles?
E: What’s a stinging nettle?
Me: A plant. How about the Swine Flu? Everybody, run! The Swine Flu is taking the field.
E: Stop, Mom.
Me (making spooky jazzy hands): Oooo. What about the Muscle Spasms?
E: No.
Me: The Allergic Reactions?
E starts to laugh.
Me: The Upper Respiratory Infections? The Cramps? That’s the name of a punk rock band.
E: Who cares? I think I’ll go with the sock one.
At the end of their hour practice, the coach took an extra fifteen minutes (G-d forbid they miss a minute of play) to share information and team building propaganda, which included asking the girls what names they came up with. E said the Killer Robots, which surprised me because she seemed to like the Muscle Spasms best. One girl suggested the Giant Pandas. Another one said the cupcakes (I love girls!). The coach pointed out that it is never good in sports to be called a cupcake and told them to think about it some more. This dissolved into suggestions of the Killer Pandas, the Robot Cupcakes, and the Robot Pandas, before the coach cut them off entirely.
Personally, I am rooting for the Killer Cupcakes.
My daughter E’s coach takes his responsibilities very seriously. He starts each practice for his 8-9 year old all girls’ team by making them run laps around the field. I would like to see him do that in the late August heat. After that, they get down to the nitty gritty of soccer fundamentals for about 5 seconds so that they can spend the majority of their time scrimmaging. (I don’t really know what "scrimmaging" means, but I used to think it was the lost art of carving intricate seafaring scenes on whale bones.) For their first practice, the coach split the girls into two sides, those who had played together last year versus those who were new members of the team, some of whom had never played soccer before. He then announced to the new girls’ side that the other side never lost a game all season. Way to instill good sportsmanship and teamwork!
E seems happy, though, because while she might not have played on the winningest team in Y history, she has at least played. Plus, she rocks out the goal kicks.
Anywho, yesterday E and I brainstormed names for her team. The coach asked the girls to think up a name, even though they don’t have jerseys yet and therefore are unable to use a color as the basis for the name. Typically, the names are all the same season after season, names which invoke the mayhem and destruction this group of ten little girls will unleash upon the opposing group of ten little girls. The Hurricanes, the Yellow Jackets, White Lightning, Blue Heat. Oooh, intimidating.
E took the team naming pretty seriously. She had pen and paper and plans to draw pictures to get her creative juices flowing. She asked me to help, which was her mistake. I don’t like the traditional names for teams. I think kids can be more original in their team naming. After all, their individual names are pretty original, with all the Peytons and Sloans and McKenzies and Madisons running down the field. It sounds like a law firm, not a soccer team roster.
I was a big help. I came up with great names. Here’s how it went down:
Me: How about the Killer Robots?
E: Hmmm.
Me: The Stinky Socks? The Stinging Nettles?
E: What’s a stinging nettle?
Me: A plant. How about the Swine Flu? Everybody, run! The Swine Flu is taking the field.
E: Stop, Mom.
Me (making spooky jazzy hands): Oooo. What about the Muscle Spasms?
E: No.
Me: The Allergic Reactions?
E starts to laugh.
Me: The Upper Respiratory Infections? The Cramps? That’s the name of a punk rock band.
E: Who cares? I think I’ll go with the sock one.
At the end of their hour practice, the coach took an extra fifteen minutes (G-d forbid they miss a minute of play) to share information and team building propaganda, which included asking the girls what names they came up with. E said the Killer Robots, which surprised me because she seemed to like the Muscle Spasms best. One girl suggested the Giant Pandas. Another one said the cupcakes (I love girls!). The coach pointed out that it is never good in sports to be called a cupcake and told them to think about it some more. This dissolved into suggestions of the Killer Pandas, the Robot Cupcakes, and the Robot Pandas, before the coach cut them off entirely.
Personally, I am rooting for the Killer Cupcakes.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Elephants on Parade
I witnessed something at the zoo last weekend that I didn’t know occurred naturally in the animal world. I tried to get my camera out in time to capture the moment, but I was too slow for the amazing part and only got the part that you don’t want to see. Mind you, I’m no stranger to observing odd animal behavior. My sister’s last dog was a connoisseur of other dog shit when she wasn't darting through the electric fence, shocking herself before bolting for hours on end, when she would most like eat more other dog shit. My mother in law’s crazy poodle was a notorious carpet scooter who regularly masturbated with a bedroom slipper. My own two cats frequently indulge in mutual butt sniffing and anus licking, usually while the rest of are trying to eat breakfast. All I’m saying is, there is plenty of behavior in the animal kingdom that is frowned upon in the human world, but maybe it is natural after all, so who are we to judge?
This was not the first time I have been shocked at a zoo. I’ve seen my share of monkeys jerking it and turtles mounting each other. Once I saw a zebra’s giant cock unfurled, practically dragging along on the dusty ground behind him. And there is my favorite zoo story, at least until last weekend’s incident. My husband and I were at the San Diego Zoo. That zoo has a strong animal enrichment program, where they encourage problem solving and variety to improve their animal residents’ quality of life. They did this by smearing peanut butter on rocks and hiding tasty vittles inside of old logs in the enclosures and even providing children’s toys for the animals to enjoy. Anyway, we were watching the monkeys, along with a group of young children and their parents who were busy videotaping so they could relive the magic of their special day. The monkeys were in an enclosure that was more like a cage than a habitat. It had wire mesh on top as well as on the sides, and the monkeys were swinging around and ooh ooh oohing and generally doing their monkey business. That’s when things took a gruesome turn. A sweet little songbird alighted on the top of the monkey cage. Before you could say Ozzie Osbourne, one of the monkeys reached up through the wire and snatched that bird, biting its head off clean. While all the children and their Spielberg wanna be parents watched, those monkeys passed the headless bird corpse around, each taking a taste like it was some kind of communal ice cream cone. Those monkeys weren’t interested in peanut butter smeared on a rock. They created their own animal enrichment program, much to the horror of the human patrons. You can see why it was my favorite zoo story.
But back to last weekend at the zoo. We bought food for the animals, which resembles rye-crisp flatbread crackers. I couldn’t coerce my children to taste them, so we walked to the first animal exhibit, the elephants. We have two elephants at our zoo, and normally they are big fans of these crackers. We walked up to their area but didn’t bother to open the cracker pack. One elephant was standing still, chewing some hay. The other elephant had its trunk shoved up the first elephant’s ass. Now, I am not talking about a little finger like tip stuck in. I am talking a couple of feet of trunk rammed up there, so there was no mistaking where the trunk was, not even for the littlest of children who were trying to process what their formerly innocent eyes were seeing. This was no sweet elephant scene where one elephant daintily holds the tail of another in its finger like trunk opening, like you would see at the circus. No. This was fisting in the animal world, or as my husband put it later that day, trunking.
And it wasn’t brief either. It lasted long enough for us to have a good laugh, but not long enough for me to point and shoot my camera. By the time I got the camera out and zoomed in, the trunk had been removed from the first elephant’s anus, only now it was holding a giant wad of fresh crap in the equivalent of its elbow. That I did get a picture of, in case you would like to see it. You can imagine what happened next. The elephant with the shit covered trunk (nose?) snacked on the fresh poop, daintily pinching off hunks and stuffing it into its mouth, chewing thoughtfully on the steaming hot feces. At this point, I was the only one laughing. Everyone else hurried off to see the lemurs, but I stayed long enough to be impressed with that elephant's ability to simultaneously hold a ball of crap balanced on its trunk while using the same trunk's end to feed itself shit.
Needless to say, we didn’t waste our crackers on the elephants. The goats, those beggars, were thrilled.
This was not the first time I have been shocked at a zoo. I’ve seen my share of monkeys jerking it and turtles mounting each other. Once I saw a zebra’s giant cock unfurled, practically dragging along on the dusty ground behind him. And there is my favorite zoo story, at least until last weekend’s incident. My husband and I were at the San Diego Zoo. That zoo has a strong animal enrichment program, where they encourage problem solving and variety to improve their animal residents’ quality of life. They did this by smearing peanut butter on rocks and hiding tasty vittles inside of old logs in the enclosures and even providing children’s toys for the animals to enjoy. Anyway, we were watching the monkeys, along with a group of young children and their parents who were busy videotaping so they could relive the magic of their special day. The monkeys were in an enclosure that was more like a cage than a habitat. It had wire mesh on top as well as on the sides, and the monkeys were swinging around and ooh ooh oohing and generally doing their monkey business. That’s when things took a gruesome turn. A sweet little songbird alighted on the top of the monkey cage. Before you could say Ozzie Osbourne, one of the monkeys reached up through the wire and snatched that bird, biting its head off clean. While all the children and their Spielberg wanna be parents watched, those monkeys passed the headless bird corpse around, each taking a taste like it was some kind of communal ice cream cone. Those monkeys weren’t interested in peanut butter smeared on a rock. They created their own animal enrichment program, much to the horror of the human patrons. You can see why it was my favorite zoo story.
But back to last weekend at the zoo. We bought food for the animals, which resembles rye-crisp flatbread crackers. I couldn’t coerce my children to taste them, so we walked to the first animal exhibit, the elephants. We have two elephants at our zoo, and normally they are big fans of these crackers. We walked up to their area but didn’t bother to open the cracker pack. One elephant was standing still, chewing some hay. The other elephant had its trunk shoved up the first elephant’s ass. Now, I am not talking about a little finger like tip stuck in. I am talking a couple of feet of trunk rammed up there, so there was no mistaking where the trunk was, not even for the littlest of children who were trying to process what their formerly innocent eyes were seeing. This was no sweet elephant scene where one elephant daintily holds the tail of another in its finger like trunk opening, like you would see at the circus. No. This was fisting in the animal world, or as my husband put it later that day, trunking.
And it wasn’t brief either. It lasted long enough for us to have a good laugh, but not long enough for me to point and shoot my camera. By the time I got the camera out and zoomed in, the trunk had been removed from the first elephant’s anus, only now it was holding a giant wad of fresh crap in the equivalent of its elbow. That I did get a picture of, in case you would like to see it. You can imagine what happened next. The elephant with the shit covered trunk (nose?) snacked on the fresh poop, daintily pinching off hunks and stuffing it into its mouth, chewing thoughtfully on the steaming hot feces. At this point, I was the only one laughing. Everyone else hurried off to see the lemurs, but I stayed long enough to be impressed with that elephant's ability to simultaneously hold a ball of crap balanced on its trunk while using the same trunk's end to feed itself shit.
Needless to say, we didn’t waste our crackers on the elephants. The goats, those beggars, were thrilled.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Dirty Laundry
I am looking at the photos on my digital camera, and I wish I could show them to you. I can’t, for several reasons. The most obvious is that my blog is not the place for pictures of my daughters, except for those pictures I create with words, as I will have to attempt to do right now. They have also not given their consent for me to share them, and given the nature of these photos, they really shouldn’t. The biggest reason, however, is that I am sure if I were to upload these pictures and post them, store them in my computer memory, or in any way, shape, or form, retain the proof of the existence of these photographs, I am pretty sure the authorities would be busting down my door with that guy from Dateline NBC right behind them, wanting knowing what kind of a monster am I. But oh, if I could share them with you. I have never laughed like I have looking at them. No words that I know how to use can thoroughly describe the humor found in these images. Now to back up and explain.
My daughters are fans of “America’s Next Top Model” in an innocent way. They don’t watch it like I do, to see that narcissistic train wreck, Tyra Banks, get a bunch of stick figures to worship her and do her stupid bidding. They love it like I used to love paper dolls. They like to look at the makeup and the clothes and the final photos and the judging. They try to understand that the two main men on the show are men even though they look and act like women. And when it’s over, they like to play model. Luckily, neither of them wants to be Tyra Banks, and they both love ice cream too much to make me worry about any lasting influences. Playing model to them means one of them snaps pictures while the other one poses all over the house making serious faces at the camera and twisting their arms in odd ways. S seems to be a natural at it, with her eye contact, like she is making love to the camera. E looks more like a victim in a crime scene, all unnatural angles and dead eyes.
They have used my camera before, taking pictures of each other on a Sunday morning, still wearing their little nightgowns. Pictures of them draped over the couch and standing precariously on the stairs seemed innocent enough, if not more than a little amusing, so when they asked me this past Sunday morning, while I was trying to calculate how many vanilla vodka and ginger ales I had had the night before, I handed over my camera, pleased that they found something quiet to do. Later, after everyone was dressed and lunch had been consumed, I sat down next to my husband, who said, “Have you seen the modeling pictures?” “Nope, not yet,” I answered. “You really should,” he said noncommittally.
I turned on the camera and stared at an image of my 7 year old draped over her blue horsey ride-on like she had been shot in the head. The next one was her sitting upright, her head thrown back, the horse’s rounded blue nose poking between her legs. “Oh my,” I said to him. “Keep looking,” he said, while still reading the newspaper, never giving away what else was on the camera. S lying suggestively on the rug in the bonus room. S on the couch, the blanket covering her just so, making you wonder what was under it. Then it was E’s turn, her face serious, as if she had been captured by the camera doing something so wrong, even the lighting looked guilty. Her head lying on the blue horsey’s back. Her twisting unnaturally on the love seat as if she fell there from a great height.
And then, they moved to the laundry room. Now, I have no idea what made them think that posing suggestively in the laundry room was modeling, but holy shit. S looking over her shoulder directly at the camera, holding a blanket over the washing machine. I call that one Dirty Laundry. I was crying, I laughed so hard. Her chin pointed down, arm tucked inside the laundry basket. Lying belly down and butt cheeks up on the top of the folding counter, her back arched. It was E’s turn again. She had one leg hiked up on the washing machine like she was going to shave her legs with the water in it. Her head back so far it was in the laundry basket. Another on leaning across both the washer and dryer. I sure hoped they weren’t agitating while my children posed against them.
From there, they moved to the bathroom. I don’t know wish of them suggested it, but removal of clothing occurred, like in an after school special. (It all starts innocently enough, with the offer of seeing a new puppy or a giant dish of ice cream.) The next thing you know, little S is wrapped in a towel, the toilet still open behind her. And leaning against the shower wall. And sitting on the counter, her face solemn, as if she needs another hit of acid. On the monkey rug in the center of the bathroom floor. I would have been horrified if I couldn’t stop laughing, but I couldn’t. Each one was more inappropriate and therefore more hilarious than the next. I couldn’t get enough. E poking her head out from behind the shower curtain coquettishly. Draping herself in her pink kitty towel. Her head wrapped like a genie.
I could see how it all went down. “Hey,” one said to the next, “let’s go to Mommy’s room.” And it started again. S lying in the center of my bed, cocked up on one elbow, beckoning the viewer to join her. Her hair draped over her shoulders. Lying on her side. And then E’s turn, which actually involved a full frontal panty shot. I put the camera down and wiped my eyes, making wheezing sounds. “I didn’t find them that funny,” my husband said.
That afternoon, my friend MJ came over. She had orchestrated my birthday party the night before, I and wracked my brain trying to think of the perfect thank you gift. My husband had stepped out to run an errand, and the girls were (this time) playing innocently upstairs. “I want to show you something,” I told MJ while she picked at leftover party food. “Consider this your thank you present. You may look at each of these, but you may not laugh out loud or scream or do anything which would indicate that you are amused for any reason whatsoever, because of those two upstairs know we are looking at this, they will kill me.” MJ agreed to my conditions, and I handed over the camera, after setting up the modeling scenario for her. We looked at them together, pausing for the crying and inevitable wetting of panties. When it was over, MJ handed me back the camera and said, “You’re right. That was the best thank you gift ever.”
I'm sure it could have been worse. But thankfully, we don’t have a tripod. All I know is, if I see pictures like this in five years, I won’t be laughing at all.
My daughters are fans of “America’s Next Top Model” in an innocent way. They don’t watch it like I do, to see that narcissistic train wreck, Tyra Banks, get a bunch of stick figures to worship her and do her stupid bidding. They love it like I used to love paper dolls. They like to look at the makeup and the clothes and the final photos and the judging. They try to understand that the two main men on the show are men even though they look and act like women. And when it’s over, they like to play model. Luckily, neither of them wants to be Tyra Banks, and they both love ice cream too much to make me worry about any lasting influences. Playing model to them means one of them snaps pictures while the other one poses all over the house making serious faces at the camera and twisting their arms in odd ways. S seems to be a natural at it, with her eye contact, like she is making love to the camera. E looks more like a victim in a crime scene, all unnatural angles and dead eyes.
They have used my camera before, taking pictures of each other on a Sunday morning, still wearing their little nightgowns. Pictures of them draped over the couch and standing precariously on the stairs seemed innocent enough, if not more than a little amusing, so when they asked me this past Sunday morning, while I was trying to calculate how many vanilla vodka and ginger ales I had had the night before, I handed over my camera, pleased that they found something quiet to do. Later, after everyone was dressed and lunch had been consumed, I sat down next to my husband, who said, “Have you seen the modeling pictures?” “Nope, not yet,” I answered. “You really should,” he said noncommittally.
I turned on the camera and stared at an image of my 7 year old draped over her blue horsey ride-on like she had been shot in the head. The next one was her sitting upright, her head thrown back, the horse’s rounded blue nose poking between her legs. “Oh my,” I said to him. “Keep looking,” he said, while still reading the newspaper, never giving away what else was on the camera. S lying suggestively on the rug in the bonus room. S on the couch, the blanket covering her just so, making you wonder what was under it. Then it was E’s turn, her face serious, as if she had been captured by the camera doing something so wrong, even the lighting looked guilty. Her head lying on the blue horsey’s back. Her twisting unnaturally on the love seat as if she fell there from a great height.
And then, they moved to the laundry room. Now, I have no idea what made them think that posing suggestively in the laundry room was modeling, but holy shit. S looking over her shoulder directly at the camera, holding a blanket over the washing machine. I call that one Dirty Laundry. I was crying, I laughed so hard. Her chin pointed down, arm tucked inside the laundry basket. Lying belly down and butt cheeks up on the top of the folding counter, her back arched. It was E’s turn again. She had one leg hiked up on the washing machine like she was going to shave her legs with the water in it. Her head back so far it was in the laundry basket. Another on leaning across both the washer and dryer. I sure hoped they weren’t agitating while my children posed against them.
From there, they moved to the bathroom. I don’t know wish of them suggested it, but removal of clothing occurred, like in an after school special. (It all starts innocently enough, with the offer of seeing a new puppy or a giant dish of ice cream.) The next thing you know, little S is wrapped in a towel, the toilet still open behind her. And leaning against the shower wall. And sitting on the counter, her face solemn, as if she needs another hit of acid. On the monkey rug in the center of the bathroom floor. I would have been horrified if I couldn’t stop laughing, but I couldn’t. Each one was more inappropriate and therefore more hilarious than the next. I couldn’t get enough. E poking her head out from behind the shower curtain coquettishly. Draping herself in her pink kitty towel. Her head wrapped like a genie.
I could see how it all went down. “Hey,” one said to the next, “let’s go to Mommy’s room.” And it started again. S lying in the center of my bed, cocked up on one elbow, beckoning the viewer to join her. Her hair draped over her shoulders. Lying on her side. And then E’s turn, which actually involved a full frontal panty shot. I put the camera down and wiped my eyes, making wheezing sounds. “I didn’t find them that funny,” my husband said.
That afternoon, my friend MJ came over. She had orchestrated my birthday party the night before, I and wracked my brain trying to think of the perfect thank you gift. My husband had stepped out to run an errand, and the girls were (this time) playing innocently upstairs. “I want to show you something,” I told MJ while she picked at leftover party food. “Consider this your thank you present. You may look at each of these, but you may not laugh out loud or scream or do anything which would indicate that you are amused for any reason whatsoever, because of those two upstairs know we are looking at this, they will kill me.” MJ agreed to my conditions, and I handed over the camera, after setting up the modeling scenario for her. We looked at them together, pausing for the crying and inevitable wetting of panties. When it was over, MJ handed me back the camera and said, “You’re right. That was the best thank you gift ever.”
I'm sure it could have been worse. But thankfully, we don’t have a tripod. All I know is, if I see pictures like this in five years, I won’t be laughing at all.
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