The Last List

I think I'll go back to my non-list posts for awhile, but I couldn't resist one last list. This one is for Uncle Toby.

The List of My Food Strangeness

1. I can not stand the sight, smell, or taste of mayonnaise. And that includes things that are allegedly not mayonnaise but really are the same nasty thing, like Miracle Whip.

2. I really would rather be punched in the face than take even the tiniest bite of most mayo-based foods, like tuna salad, cole slaw, chicken salad, etc. I consider this to be an actual phobia.

3. I dislike anything sweet and savory together. That means I don't like foods with the words "sweet and sour," "glazed," or "chutney" in the title. No fruit or sugar on meat. I cut the outside part off of honey baked ham. This rules about about 98% of most Chinese takeout, too. The only exception I can think of is cranberry sauce with turkey and dressing. I don't even like sweet-ish barbecue sauces. Sugar is for dessert only.

4. Eating fruit on an empty stomach makes me feel queasy. I need protein at every meal.

5. I do not snack, really. I have no interest in most portable foods. My house can be packed with chips and cookies for the kids' lunch boxes and I won't have the slightest urge to eat them. I want a full, cooked meal that is served hot and requires utensils every time I eat. I do like a good Italian sub, but preferably for lunch, not dinner.

6. If I never ate another piece of bread for as long as I lived, I'd barely miss it. If I eat something on bread or any kind of bun, I won't eat the end parts of the bread that are plain. I will not eat sliced white bread at all. It's too soft.

7. I have no interest in eating any candy that is not chocolate.

8. I have to have a bite of ice cream with each bite of cake. If I run out of ice cream, I just stop eating.

9. There is almost nothing you can do with a tomato or a pepper that I will not like (unless it involves mayonnaise).

10. I crave vinegary foods and have eaten entire jars of pickles and pepperoncini peppers in one sitting. In high school I had uncontrollable urges to drink vinegar on a regular basis. Twice I've correctly suspected I was pregnant after I craved and ate a big bowl of sliced pickles soaked in straight white vinegar that I added.

11. I consider scrambled eggs and hash browns as just vehicles for hot sauce, preferably Chahula.

12. I prefer for all my food to be wet, juicy, and saucy. Thus the bread thing.

13. I think the white meat of chicken is so dry as to almost be inedible, unless it is shredded and in broth or some type of soup or sauce. I like the thighs best.

14. I can't taste avocados.

15. I can't for the life of me understand the appeal of bagels and cream cheese. That is one thing that should be sweet, but isn't. I don't get it.

16. I don't like to bite into anything crunchy that has water coming out of it. This includes raw or noticeable onions in any food, celery, etc. Water chestnuts are like my worst nightmare! Coconut falls into this nasty texture category, although it also tastes like suntan oil. In a bad way.

17. I don't have any problem with "slimy" food textures, like mushrooms (although I don't like them raw). I do have a problem with things that are mushy but strangely dry, like lima beans and boiled egg yolks.

18. I like steak cooked just long enough to be brown on both sides and warm all the way through.

19. I was slow to warm up to sushi not because the raw fish thing bothered me, but because most of it just didn't taste like anything to me. A lot of it is way too bland.

20. If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, it would either be cheesecake or my own spaghetti, I think.

List of things I've had to learn the hard way in life

1. No matter how high I can get the swing going before I jump out, I will not be able to fly.
2. When the childhood belief in magic becomes the informed quest for information, the magic disappears.
3. "We must, we must, we must increase our bust" does not work.
4. Gaining forty pounds as an adult and having four children does, but somehow the victory is bitter-sweet.
5. Cantankerous hippie feminist though I may be, I love me some epidural.
6. I should never drink gin.
7. Red wine is like razorblades coming back up, and it still stains.
8. I can't be trusted to toast garlic bread under the broiler without burning it beyond all remedy.
9. I will probably never enjoy a British novel written before the 1990s.
10. The road to Hell really is paved with good intentions.

Back to the Lists

List of Things I Secretly Wish Were True

1. I secretly wish I were from Texas. That's right. Texas.
2. I secretly wish I were named Cassidy McCullough.
3. I secretly wish I had green eyes. Sometimes.
4. I secretly wish I liked opera.
5. I secretly wish I had ever been in a band.
6. I secretly wish that the universe still seemed as mysterious to me as it used to.
7. I secretly wish I could time travel just within my own life. Both ways.

School Transfer Application Time

I'm fielding so many questions about the choice and optional transfer processes that I thought I'd go ahead and post the basics here.

I'll start with the Optional Schools transfer process, because it actually started this morning.
Picking up a "reservation ticket" this week guarantees you a specific place in line to turn in your child's transfer application. The earlier you get your ticket, the closer you are to the front of the line. You can get a ticket anytime between this morning at 6:00 a.m. until January 28th from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. You can find more information about this process at the link above, and even more about the optional program and individual Optional schools here.

**Remember that the optional program at most schools does not start until first grade, so if you have a child entering kindergarten, what you need is a choice transfer (see below). The exceptions to this are Idlewild and Double Tree because these schools call themselves "all optional," which includes their kindergarten programs.

Parents may begin submitting optional school transfer applications at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, February 1 in the Memphis Board of Education auditorium at 2597 Avery. Please note that reservation tickets will be honored from 6:30 a.m. until noon that morning. All applicants, with or without tickets, are welcome to apply that day from 6:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Applications will be received on a first come, first serve basis. However, all applications will be processed according to reservation ticket number order first. Those applicants without a ticket will be processed in order of receipt after ticketed applications are processed in numerical order.

Parents must bring the following items when they apply:

• Completed application form
• A copy of the child’s most recent comprehensive report card
• Current nationally-normed or TCAP achievement test scores (if applicable)
• A copy of the child’s Social Security card
• Birth certificate for KK applicants to Double Tree & Idlewild only

Parents are strongly encouraged to stop by the Optional Schools office in Room 106 by Thursday, January 31 to confirm that their paperwork is complete. Office hours are from 7:30 a.m. - 4:45 p.m.

First preference for available optional transfers will go to qualified Memphis City resident siblings with brothers or sisters who are in satisfactory standing in the requested school at the beginning of the 2008-09 school year. City residents will also be given priority for the available spaces.

School Choice Week Coming March 4 – 6

For those of you with children who will be entering kindergarten next year, or those who want to apply to a school outside of your zoning but not for an optional program, you will need a choice transfer. The process is being done a little differently this year according to the MCS News Release this week:

The School Choice Fair, traditionally a single weekend event, has been replaced by School Choice Week, which will feature an Open House event at each school during the week of March 4 – 6, 2008. It is expected that this change will allow parents to better experience the actual learning environments of schools while it increases convenience for parents and schools. In addition, the dates of the Open Houses will tie in more closely to the district’s “choice period,” Open Enrollment.

Early sign-up for Open Enrollment will take place on March 11, with applications being accepted on March 26.

Lastly, even though this is not a matter of transferring or turning in applications, I want to remind those of you who have four-year-olds who will eventually attend a Memphis City School, you can get your child tested for CLUE now. The advantage of doing this is that the preschool CLUE test involves spatial reasoning and problem solving ability rather than reading, and the "gifted" certification is good through second grade. So even if your child does not attend a CLUE preschool program (like the one Somerset attended at Downtown, which was wonderful), they will still benefit for their first three years of school by being automatically enrolled in these fun enrichment classes as soon as possible at your particular school.

If you would like to have your preschooler tested, contact Dr. Tommy yelvington (information below). He will probably not be very nice to you on the phone and will question why you want to have your child tested this early, but he can suck it. Just let him know that you know the drill and he can just schedule you. The person who actually tests your child will be very nice, I promise. I suggest calling rather than emailing for a quicker response.

Dr. Tommie Yelvington
Lead Teacher, CLUE Program
e-mail: yelvingtontb@mcsk12.net
telephone: 901-416-0155

Once that's done, they may ask you to come to the closest elementary school to you, or you can go to their main office on Airways like we did, which is here:

Division of Exceptional Children
Memphis City Schools
Bond Building, 2930 Airways Blvd
Memphis, TN 38116-3844

Because CLUE receives funding through the Division of Exceptional Children (that's right, giftedness is classified as a disability for funding purposes), you will have to bring proof of a current vision and hearing screening with you. We had ours done by our pediatrician, but they also offer this service free at Colonial Middle School by appointment.

A List of Movies

I have to confess: while I enjoy movies, I don't think about them that much. Big Daddy is the true film aficionado in our family; I'm mainly just there for the popcorn and Cherry Coke at the theater or the snuggle under the covers when we rent. Not that I don't cry on cue when George Bailey realizes he really did have a wonderful life after all or dissolve into giggles every time I see Debra Winger with that pigeon glued to the side of her head. But when people start talking about directors and even some new actors by name, you'll usually hear me say "Who's that?" This is partly because I'm terrible with names, but also because I just don't see the point in remembering anything about these people. That said, there are a few movies that stand out in my mind for various reasons.

My Favorite Movies of All Time

1. It's a Wonderful Life*
2. The Philadelphia Story (1940 version with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart)

* I used to think this was just my favorite Christmas movie, but no. It is in fact the best movie ever made.

Movie That May Also be an All-Time Favorite, but Seems Too Unlike the First Two to Go in the Same List

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Movies I Can't Not Watch Given the Chance

1. Peggy Sue Got Married (Love that dreamy Yeats-quoting beatnik!)
2. Steel Magnolias (Love a good cry!)
3. Forget Paris
4. Sixteen Candles
5. The Big Lebowski

Movie That made Me Cry for More Than an Hour Straight

1. Life is Beautiful

Movies That Were So Bad BD and I Left the Theater

1. Scenes From a Mall
2. I Love You to Death

Movies Every Other Person My Age Has Seen but I Have Not

1. Every Monty Python movie ever made*
2. Reality Bites
3. Mallrats
4. Any classic horror movie you can think of, probably

*I've seen bits and snatches of Monty Python movies, of course, but not one have I seen all the way through. All my M.P. quotes are second-hand, including the song from "Life of Brian."

A List of Books

Here we go, my first attempt at listiness. Don't expect too much.

Books I Can Read Again and Again, and Have

(This could probably also be considered a list of my all-time favorite books, except it seems crazy to me to try to make such a list since there are so many I still haven't read. It's also not necessarily in a permanently significant order. Just so you know.)

1. Fair and Tender Ladies, by Lee Smith

2. Tracks, by Louise Erdrich

3. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabakov

4. The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje (the movie sucked compared to the book)

5. The Christmas Letters, by Lee Smith

6. The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath, by Sylvia Plath (edited by her piece-of-crap husband, the poet Ted Hughes)

7. Groom Falconer, by Norman Dubie

8. Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

9. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

10. Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut

11. God Bless You Mister Rosewater, by Kurt Vonnegut

12. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

13. Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger

14. All of the Harry Potter books (see also: list of adolescent lit I love, below)

I know I'm forgetting something. There are many other books that I've read at least twice (several others by Vonnegut, Salinger, and Bradbury, other volumes of poetry from authors I haven't mentioned...). Also, I feel the need to mention that in the case of the first four novels, which I adore so completely, the authors have written almost nothing else that I like even half as much. I find that so disappointing.

Books I Enjoyed and Would Like to Read Again, but Have Not

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving

3. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffeneger

4. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie

5. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

6. Nowhere Else on Earth, by Josephine Humphreys

7. The House of the Spirits, by Isabelle Allende

8. The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant

Again, I know there are more. What is it about sitting down to say something that makes everything I wanted to say just fly right out of my head?

Parenting Books I Have Read Cover to Cover

1. None

Guilty Pleasure: Adolescent Fantasy/Sci-Fi I Eat Up Like Candy

1. The His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman

2. The Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix

3. The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers

4. The Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix (far inferior to the Abhorsens, but fun)

5. The Midnighters Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld

6. The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld

7. The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer

8. And of course, the Harry Potter books, which I really do adore and will defend to the end.

I like to think I have an excuse for reading these books, since I do teach teenagers, but the truth is, I would read them anyway. These are the kinds of books I loved as a kid, but there weren't nearly as many of them then, and I really had no one to guide me in my book-a-day habit. Which is unfortunate, because it meant I read a lot of Sweet Valley High and Stephen King and V.C. Andrews, and later Sydney Sheldon and Jackie Collins (gasp!). My seventh grade English teacher helped set me on a better path by introducing me to C.S. Lewis and Madeline L'Engle, but it still took me awhile to learn what was worth reading and what wasn't. Hopefully I can at least provide my own children with good books to read, although I know I can't control their tastes. Joshua already shows a propensity for graphic novels, which is fine by me even though I can't seem to read them at all.

So here's where I fail with the entire concept of lists, because I now feel there should be a list of books I'd like to read, and one of books I liked fine but won't read again, and one of books I felt did not deserve their hype or just plain bit. It all feels so incomplete! But here it is. I'm going to force myself to stop now.

The List Makers

This may seem ironic after my last post, but I am not a maker of lists. Sure I can reel off more than a hundred things about me, me, me, but that's different. When I find myself in one of those conversations where I'm asked to come up with my top five desert-island albums (thanks, Hornby), or my ten all-time favorite books or movies or whatever, I never know what to say. I can probably come up with something, and you may have heard me do so, but the truth is that the items on those lists always feel wrong to me. Not false, exactly, but...incomplete. Not annotated. Improperly connected and aligned with their fellows.

A list is a concise and linear thing. Linear and concise are two adjectives that do not describe the way my brain functions. If I had to describe what my thought pattern tends to look like, I'd compare it more to a spider's web, maybe, or a ring of paper snowflakes all cut from the same huge piece of paper. Ooh! Or one of those children's toys that looks like a compact ball until you pull on its sides and it expands to be a much larger globe of interconnected pieces, all hinged together and flexible. Definitely circular rather than linear.

This means that if you ask me what my top five desert-island albums are, I will immediately think of albums I've loved at different times in my life, and within each era there will be a network of songs that remind me of each other, and of places, and of people, and I will start thinking of all of those things in sort of a simultaneous flash. It could take me an hour to sort out that layered impression and explain to you my real answer, which is really not an answer to your question at all. So I usually just throw out some inaccurate and incomplete answer.

All that said, I do appreciate the beauty of a good list. I have no desire to, say, make lists of things I need to do in a given day, or lists of my personal goals for a given time period, or anything like that. I just don't work that way, although I can see how that could be useful. But other lists can be a kind of poetry. I was telling a friend the other day how I don't write poetry anymore because it involves sitting with an idea and distilling and distilling it down until it's almost nothing, and I just don't have time to do that anymore. But I do miss it, and lately I'm missing it more and more. I don't think there's anything harder to write than good poetry, and if I'm ever going to do it again, I fear I'm going to have to work up to it. It seems very possible to me that learning to make lists could be a step in that direction. So as a sort of exercise, and to push myself outside my usual modes of thinking and expressing myself, I'm going to try to make some lists and post them here in the coming days. My lists may not look like other lists, and I imagine they will be bulky and full of asides at first, but we'll see. Maybe I'll surprise myself, or, at the very least, maybe my list-making style will evolve as I work. You never can tell.

Hundreds of Things

Since I have so much free time in which there is nothing constructive I could be doing, I thought it would go back and re-read everyone's lists of 100 Things. Doing so made me realize three things:
1)My husband still amuses me, but that first kiss item may not be kosher,
2)Many of you (Stacey, Melissa, Chockleys) never wrote one, and
3)Some of you need to update your lists (for instance, I happen to know that a certain SAM has now been drunk more than three times). It also made me re-read my own list, update and alter it where I saw the need, and fill in a few of the "I can't think of anything to put on this list" items. I wonder if you can spot the changes.

And, just because 100 things are not enough when it comes to self-indulgent rambling, here are ten more things you may not know about me:

101. I once won a Tabasco-drinking contest (bored barmaid vs. bored waiter on a slow shift) by filling a bar jigger with the stuff, swishing it around in my mouth for thirty seconds, swallowing, and then doing all that again.
102. I'm a fairly good cook in a Mom kind of way, but I can't bake.
103. I'd put my lasagna up against anyone's, but my chili is inconsistent at best.
104. My natural yoga ability seems to impress my instructors on the rare occasion that I get to take a class.
105. As a little girl I dreamed of being a gymnast and believed for years that I was robbed of a promising career because my parents could not afford to keep me in lessons.
106. I was a Girl Scout for several years and loved it.
107. I can no longer stand the idea of joining any group, club, team, or organization.
108. Although I would join the ACLU if I weren't afraid that Jerry Falwell's disciples would one day use the fact of my membership to put me in a re-education camp. No meetings to go to.
109. I dislike nicknames and often refuse to use them because to do so makes me feel silly.
110. I'm thinking a lot about trying to write poetry again, but I'm afraid.

Update

So yes, I have pinkeye. For the first time in my life, at 35 years old, I have the scourge of elementary school kids. In both eyes! How is that possible?

By the end of the day Tuesday, I knew I was going to have to go to the doctor. I got dinner cooking and waited for BD to get home, then drove a few blocks down Poplar to the minor medical place. I tried to make the most of my child-free quiet time in the waiting room by reading, but there was a lot of very loud election discussion on the TV hanging right above my head, and every few minutes my eyes would start to burn and I'd have to close them. That still wasn't too bad. I have a lot of good movies that I like to play in my head, an ability that has earned me the nickname "Putty" from BD.

Eventually I was called back, my blood pressure taken, my medical history briefly confirmed, and then I had to read an eye chart. My right eye started out this whole mess, but it was able to read most of the smallest line on the chart, while the left eye was stymied about four lines higher. It was hard to tell if this was because it's actually weaker, or if the oily film of goop covering it was just making everything blurry. I'm hoping it was the latter, because even though BD is always trying to get me to wear glasses since he thinks they're hot, I don't wanna. Anyway, I found it amusing when, in response to the question "What's bothering you today?" I pointed to my eyes and the young woman said "Ooh, what is that, pinkeye?" I just looked at her and said very flatly "Yeah, I don't know."

Eventually after some more reading and waiting, a doctor came in and confirmed that it was, indeed, pinkeye. He told me to use the drops he was going to prescribe, which I have been, and to stay home until at least Friday, which I did not. I stayed home Wednesday, which proved to be a wise decision in many ways. I woke up with big puffy bags under my squinty little red devil eyes and pretty much spent the day in bed. Other than the eyes I felt good, so I was able to enjoy having a day off. I couldn't bring myself to take two in a row, though. I try to save my sick days for the kids' illnesses and, more pleasantly, the occasional sanity-saving mid-day rendezvous with my beloved. Using a sick day for being actually sick just sucks.

My Eyes! My Eyes!

This has been a tough winter for the Sassy family. And by tough, I mean that someone has been coughing, puking, oozing snot, or shivering with fever at almost all times for months, or at least it seems that way. If you've ever lived with six people and one bathroom, then you know what fear the thought of all six catching a stomach virus at once can strike in my heart. I always think of that scene in "The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood" where Ashley Judd has all of her kids spewing from both ends all over the place. Once it's over, she puts on a coat over her nightgown, drives to the beach, and locks herself in a motel room for a few days. That seems about right.

Right now, both of my eyes are bright red and feel like they are coated with oil. I guess I'll have to drag ass to the minor medical down the street and sit there for an unreasonably long time just to get the antibiotic eye drops I already know that I need. And yes, I've tried the breast milk thing. After many clogged infant tear ducts cleared by a good squirt in the eye, I have resorted to filling a small medicine-dosing syringe with my own milk and dripping it into my eyes. It might help eventually, but I don't have that kind of time. That's why I never get sick--because I do not have time to be sick. It's just a big fat pain in my ass, really.

And...exhale!

For all of you who have been holding your breath every month since Genevieve was born, just waiting for me to call and say that I am yet again knocked up like a chubby cheerleader, you can now relax. As of 2:00 yesterday afternoon, a little progesterone-laden plastic sentry has set up camp in my uterus to make sure no one else moves in. Mirena, the goddess of artificial infertility, has granted BD five more years in which to get a vasectomy.

Brand New Year

I know I haven't been around. I just did Christmas for four kids! And then went out of town! What do you people want from me? Anyway, that was like, last year. Get over it already.

You may not know this about me, but I love this time of year. The time of newness. I love the idea of a fresh start and of a chance to do things differently, and better, in a new year. Last year in January I kept driving past a homeless mission with a sign that said "New year, same old you," and every single time I had to fight the urge to pull over and go inside and yell at someone for being so cynical. "Same old you"? What kind of attitude is that?

You may think it's silly to believe that anything will be different just because we get new calendars, but it really isn't about the date. January first may not be inherently different from any other day, but then, no day is inherently anything, is it? Our days mean what we make them mean. Change can be hard even for those who love it, as I do. What's wrong with taking the least opportunity to get motivated and try to do a little better than we have been? I know that resolutions often peter out, but if they last a little while, and we get a little bit done, isn't that a good thing? I didn't stay consistent with my 2007 resolution to eat less, exercise, and lose weight, but I did see the year out weighing 22 pounds less than I did when it started, and a lot of that was pure New Year's motivation.

I didn't really come here to talk about the little resolutions like losing weight and being more productive at work, though. You know me; I'm all about what lies beneath. And New Year's thinking is no exception. So here it is...

I would not say that I'm a defensive person, and in fact I strive not to be. I pride myself on a willingness to apologize when I need to and on the ability to be honest about my own faults, both with myself and with other people. But still, I protect myself a lot in other ways. Ways that are harder for me to talk about. And I don't want to do that. I want to trust people even though I know that people usually shouldn't be trusted. I want to allow myself to be vulnerable because I know that by shielding myself from emotional injury, I also put layers of numbness between myself and joy. I'm capable of feeling deeply, but I'm equally capable of not feeling much at all. And I'm choosing not to choose that now.

I will declare vehemently to whoever will listen that I don't ever want to make choices about my life based on fear, and in many areas of my life, I think I hold to that. But in less conscious ways, I think I've become afraid of not staying on an even emotional keel, and that fear does affect my life in subtle ways. Like so many things that become clear to me as I get older, I'm starting to see that what was once a positive and stabilizing instinct has become a hindrance and an unnecessary crutch, and I need to let go of it. So that's my Big Goal for this fresh, new year. To open myself to emotional experience. To live and love fearlessly, without trying to think ahead thirty-seven steps to the inevitable end and where that end will find me. I know that all these things pass away. We all know that. Let me feel them while they're here.

The Seventh Circle of Hell

My parents recently moved waaay out almost to Arlington. For those who don't live here, that's a rural area that is being turned into yet another suburb of Memphis in our ever-reaching quest to have the worst suburban sprawl of any city in America. Anyway, it's also past the hellish traffic nightmare that is the Wolfchase area in Cordova. And since I was at my parents' house with the kids Saturday, and since my parents are willing to watch said kids for free, and since I had completed exactly zero percent of my Christmas shopping, I descended into shopping hell.

I am not a shopper. I know that you know this if you've ever seen me wear a black shirt and olive or khaki pants or jeans five days out of the week. If I were thin and rich I might like to shop. Maybe. But as things stand, I hate it. However, I like Christmas enough, and I shop infrequently enough, that I can sometimes enjoy Christmas shopping. Crowds don't really bother me much, I enjoy picking out gifts for the relatively few people I have to buy for, and I like me a slice of mall pizza from time to time.

Unfortunately, Wolfchase Mall ten days before Christmas quickly overcame my feeble attempt to let the Christmas spirit override my shop-a-phobia. So. Many. People. The main problem with that kind of volume is that it makes everything take so horribly long. I walked into Victoria's Secret, saw at least four lines comprised of at least fifteen people each, and walked right back out. It wasn't as bad in Macy's, and I did manage to get started on my Secret Santa present for Stacey there, but I also spent a lot of time wandering around aimlessly looking for things that are allegedly sold at that store, but which no employee had ever seen.

Eventually I gave up on Macy's and went out into the mall proper. One look at the lines in the food court told me that my slice of mall pizza was not to be. I didn't want to leave the kids for an excessively-long time, and I just don't have a lot of patience for lines. I told myself that my waistline would thank me and moved on in search of stripey knee socks for Stacey. This search led me into Hot Topic. This is a store into which no 35-year-old mother of four has ever walked. A boy I would put at about 14 shot me with a laser gun as I walked in he door. When I ignored him, his friends erupted into cries of "Ha! She thinks you're a big dork!" I asked the sales girl with multiple facial piercings if they sold striped or printed knee socks or tights, and she directed me to a display of trashy-looking Merry Widows, garter belts, and bustiers with some stockings, tights, and socks underneath. I picked out two pairs of socks and made my way to the register only to recognize the cashier as a student from the school where I teach. Suffice it to say that I was glad I had limited my selections from that area of the store!

Eventually I made it out to the parking lot with very little to show for the two hours I'd spent inside. After a few minutes of searching for my car (minivan, whatever), I entered the serpentine line of vehicles that snaked in and out of rows and around the entire circumference of the giant mall. As I sat, the Admiral (husband to SAM) and their daughter Miss M walked by and paused to laugh at me for being stuck in the impossible snarl. I offered them a ride to their car, but the Admiral later informed me that even though they were parked a ways away, they left the parking lot before I did.

My adventures then took me across the road to Toys-R-Us, but honestly, I don't think you can handle the full account of that experience. Suffice it to say that I found far less than half of what I was looking for and once abandoned my cart in a huff and headed for the door, but then went back for it when I saw that the lines were relatively short and that I had spent almost four hours shopping with very, very little to show for it.

Next year I'm going to have to try out this interweb shopping that everyone is talking about.

In Other Formats...

My December Lamplighter column is now up. Page four.

Come to think of it, I never posted the link to my November column. It's there in the archives. It's about cocktail hour and I kinda like it, so read it if you have the time. Pretty please.

Kroghetto

Now that Genevieve has moved from her babysitter on an island in the middle of the Mississippi to a Montessori school in midtown, my afternoon pickup routine has changed as well. Part of the new arrangement involves a block of open time between 2:30, when I am allowed to leave work, and 3:15, when the older kids are dismissed from school, since the baby is now the last stop instead of the first. That 45 minutes may not seem like much to you, but to me it means time to run an errand or two without four kids in tow. After the holidays I plan to use it to (gasp!) exercise a few times a week.

Yesterday, I used my precious child-free time to get the few groceries I needed for cocktail hour tonight. A few times I've made a mad dash from work to the midtown Schnuck's, which is not far but in the opposite direction from the way I need to go to pick the kids up. And if you've ever met me in person, there's a good chance I managed to slip in a rant about how much I loathe and despise every single thing about that store. Even if we met for, like, five minutes. Because that's how much I hate it. So yesterday it dawned on me that there is a closer grocery store: the Crazy Kroger at Poplar and Cleveland. That's right. Kroghetto.

For those of you not from Memphis, let me give you just a few pieces of information about this Kroger and its location.

1. Prostitutes work Cleveland in the daytime. Ones that should really only be seen at night. Without the benefit of streetlights.

2. A few years ago, my Dad's business contracted to redo the bathrooms in this Kroger. When they pulled out the panels from the dropped ceiling, they were hit with a rain of food wrappers placed there by junkies who steal food and take it into the bathroom of Cleveland Kroger to eat it.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. In the past year or so, I chanced to visit this Kroger a couple of times, with all four kids, to grab lunch supplies for us before heading over to my parents' nearby (temporary) midtown abode. I went with a "get in, get what you need, and get out alive" mentality, but even so, I sensed a realization hovering around the edges of my consciousness. And yesterday, with time to walk the aisles unfettered by bolting toddlers or begging kindergartners, it hit me full on: I like the Crazy Kroger. There, I said it!

As I walked in the front doors, I found myself in a produce section very similar to the one in Poplar Plaza Kroger, which is where I grudgingly spend about $700 a month on food. Except for two things. Wait, three things. It was cleaner, less crowded, and there was the cutest little floor display that comprised three bins. Guess what was in the bins. Go on, guess! You'll never guess. In the first one were little cans of Vienna Sausages. In the middle one were bottles of $.49 Kroger brand hot sauce. And in the third were Ramen Noodles. I can't really explain it, but that display filled me with a sense of comfort. And I don't even like Vienna Sausages! I think it was just the thought that someone who runs that store was in touch enough with the client base to put together a display that could have borne a sign reading "You don't have to starve even if you are broke as hell." It kind of reminded me of shopping at the midtown Pig back in my college apartment days, when $45 was an extravagant amount to spend on a week's worth of groceries.

I continued on through the store with that warm, secure feeling, looking around me and marveling at how truly clean the store really was. And it was so empty of people! The things I hate so much about Schnuck's are that it is tiny, extremely crowded, and organized like blind chimpanzees chose where each item should go. This Kroger was big, clean, well-laid out, and at that hour of the day, devoid of Patty-the-daytime-hookers and junkies and just about anyone else. It was the perfect grocery store!

As I checked myself out at the U-Scan machine, the attendant let another customer know that she did in fact have a little change left on her EBT card after paying for her stuff. "That's alright, " she called out cheerfully, "that's another meal. You could find you something over there for that l'il bit of change." I think I may start doing all my shopping over there. Seriously.

The Sharpest Crayon

We just returned home from our mostly-annual Thanksgiving trip to Georgia to see the most immediate portion of BD's enormous Italian maternal family. On the way there, we stopped at our usual McDonald's with the giant playland just this side of Birmingham, Alabama, to let the kids take a break from puking into plastic grocery bags and also stretch their legs and throw away some food.

While waiting in line, we found ourselves behind three honest-to-goodness teenage farm boys. As they talked and joked with each other, I marveled at their almost-unintelligible Alabama drawl. I hear all kinds of Southern accents right here in Memphis, from the ultra-urban to the suburban to the transplanted Louisianans, but this was a whole other, extra-special kind of country accent. And just as I caught myself thinking snide thoughts about how ignorant they sounded, one of the boys flashed his calloused, blackened-though-scrubbed palms, and jokingly said that next time they all worked together, he was going to pretend not to know how to do anything as the others had done. One of his friends turned his equally grubby hands palms-up and protested that he had done his fair share. So, I thought, Miss Smarty Pants, these boys work. They know how to do things. And what do you know?

This thought threaded itself like a ribbon through the remainder of our meal. It was there when I took Somerset to the one-seater family bathroom and watched her sit on the rim of the toilet without noticing that the seat was flipped up, and when she stood in front of the hand dryer with her hands up and wondered aloud "How does it turn on?" in spite of the doorknob-sized, shiny silver button, and when she could not figure out how to open the door, and again back at the table when the box containing her chicken nuggets buckled slightly at the back, making it refuse to stay open and causing her to wail in dismay. It was there when we noticed that Joshua was running around the playland in only one sock, and when he admitted that he'd left the house that way because he couldn't find a matching pair, even though a giant brand-new package of socks was sitting right there in his sock drawer when he got dressed that morning.

All this prompted me to wonder what the hell is wrong with my children. They do well in school; two of them are even in the gifted program! Our house is full of books and art supplies and empty of cable cartoons and video games. I couldn't help compare my supposedly-brainy kids to those supposedly-ignorant farm boys, and wonder who would come out on top in the end. But then I started remembering things about myself as a child. Things like walking upstairs to wash my hands for dinner but brushing my teeth instead because I'd forgotten, in an instant, what I was supposed to be doing. Things like my Mom calling me "the absent-minded professor" and my dad's less patient responses to my mindless goofiness. And I thought, you know, I do OK. I'm not the most organized, together person on the planet, but I'm not the least, either. I hold down a respectable job, keep a reasonable grip on my household (with much pitching in by BD, of course), keep my kids dressed and fed and in school. I function.

Sure, there are things I don't know how to do that I really believe I should. I think it's sheer folly that most Americans have no skills when it comes to growing, making, or building things that meet our most basic needs for survival, and I'm not much better than most. I feel that I should know these things and that I should teach them to my children. So that's something to work on. That's a more constructive way of looking at it, I think, than just shaking my head at the baffling cluelessness of my children, or, worse yet, losing patience with them. They're only little kids, after all. Just like I was once.

One Day At a Time, Baby Steps, and Other Cliches

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't believe there are many experiences, at least in Western culture, more hellish than the first year of parenting the first baby. Yeah, yeah, the baby is precious and cute, and of course you love the baby and would not change your decision to become a parent for anything in the world. Whatever. Most of it still sucks.

Wait, let me narrow that down. What I'm really talking about is the decision to become a mother. I don't know what it's like for the average Dad that first year, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me that it's as hard for them to adjust as it is for mothers. Let me not pretend this is about all parents. It's about mothers, and motherhood, and the impossibility of the whole entire deal.

I know someone who is really struggling with this whole adjustment issue right now. She's struggling with sleep deprivation and information overload and guilt and self-questioning and unsolicited advice and feelings of inadequacy and feelings, I would imagine, of "holy shit, what have I done to my life?" I believe that she feels anxious and possibly depressed and it is impossible for her not to believe, right now, that this is all her fault. That it's not supposed to be this hard. That other women do this every day, and better than she can ever hope to. And she's had a string of bad luck and other circumstances that have just intensified all of those feelings. And we don't know each other that well, so I don't claim to understand everything she's feeling or dealing with, but I think I have an inkling. And like all the other well-meaning, misguided Mothers On The Internet, I want to be able to help, and make her feel better, and offer her some magical solution to all the problems she's facing. But I know I can't do that.

Believing that there is one right way, or that there is a magical solution that will make everything work the way it's "supposed to" is the fastest way to insanity. Every baby is different. Every parent is different. The combinations are infinite, and even within each parent/child combo, time brings variation in the needs of each party. If I had to put my finger on the thing that makes that first hellish year of parenting so hellish indeed, I would tend to put it on the belief that we should not "give in" or surrender to the fact that we are parents now, our lives are never going to be the same, we are never going to be the same, and we have to fight parenthood and the changes it brings tooth and nail. Because parents are boring, aren't they? And maybe we need to believe that our regularly scheduled lives will be back after these messages from the very pissed-off baby. But they won't. They just won't. And for me, at least, accepting that and moving forward with my new life, my life as a mother, was the only thing I could do if I wanted to survive. I can't help but suspect that this is true for everyone. Because that's how that works, right? A little experience goes straight to our heads.

If I were going to speak directly to this struggling friend, here is what I would say: The things you are dealing with are every bit as shitty as they seem to you. They are real. But they are not unique to you. You are not the worst mother ever, nor are you the only mother you know right at this very moment who feels that she does not know what she's doing. We all feel like that. It may be delayed for some of us, that feeling, but it comes to us all sometime in the first year or two. I would say that I understand the temptation to seek out information and hope that the magical answer is out there if only you read one more book or article or website or forum, but you have to stop. Seriously. You can't keep doing that to yourself, and it's not going to help. It's just not. There is no answer that anyone else can give you. I could tell you that sleeping with my baby and sleeping right through feedings worked great for me. Our other friend could tell you that Ferberizing and religiously sticking to the crib worked great for her. It doesn't matter. I'm not you. She's not you. Our babies are not your baby.

Listen to me. You are a good mother. You love your baby and you have done everything that could possibly be expected of you. You would not expect yourself or anyone you know to walk into any other new situation and instinctively know exactly what to do at every given moment in order to achieve the most desirable result. Would you? This thing that you've signed up for? It's really, really hard. It's the hardest thing you've ever done. That's not going to change, probably. The difficulties will take on new shapes as time passes, but they won't really get easier. In fact, they will make you look back at this time, later, and laugh at yourself. What can change, and what has to, is the way you deal with the hard parts. You have to stop beating yourself up. You have to stop believing that everyone else is more qualified to mother your child than you are. You have to find a way to step back a little bit, center yourself as much as you can manage, and just accept that you are doing the best that you can. There is no reason at all for you to believe that if you were doing things differently, things would be different. That logic applies in other situations, but not this one. Love your baby. Love yourself. Get both of you up and dressed and fed every day. Get both of you in bed every night, one way or another, and eke out whatever precious sleep you can manage, and in the morning know that you are one night closer to this part of it being over. Trust me on this one thing: that is all you can do. Really. Accept that this will suck, and then one day, when you've forgotten to think about how much it sucks, you'll realize that it has stopped.

Declaration

I have a tendency to think about things in a way and to an extent that I think is probably not normal. ("She thinks is probably not normal?" I can hear some of you already. Yeah, yeah.) I can't help but analyze ideas and the words used to express them. Part of that is just my nature, and part of it is because of my attempts at work to find a way to help my students crack open a seemingly incomprehensible text and find meaning. And then, to a certain extent, it's because of my not-normal tendencies, and my attempts to figure out how I actually think and why it's not really like the way a lot of other people think (see how that works?). Don't get me wrong--I'm not trying to make myself out as some misunderstood great mind. I'm mostly acknowledging that yes, I know I'm hard to make sense of and, as a result, hard for some people to get along with. But hey, at least I talk about everything that pops into my head!

But that's not my purpose here. It's actually just that I've been thinking about something for a while, and trying to solidify a particular idea, and I feel like I'm closer to doing that now than I ever have been. So of course, being me, I have to talk about it.

Because I'm not religious, or even spiritual in any recognizable way, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the basis for morality; in general, for everyone, but also my own in particular. And really, at times I have found it very tempting to believe that nothing matters. Not in an angry, rationalizing-my-own-wrong-doings kind of way, but in a coldly rational way, because of course I know that "things fade" and "alternatives exclude." In other words, we have a finite number of options available to us, choosing them limits us even further, and none of the choices we make will lead to anything lasting anyway. I know that's a depressing set of ideas to a lot of people, but not to me, and that's too long a conversation to have here. Nor is it the thing I wanted to say right now, which is this:

I have decided that there are only two real things in the world: human happiness, and human suffering. And that everything we do contributes to one or the other, and sometimes both, though not usually in equal measure. I'm not talking about superficial degrees of happiness and suffering. The best way I can explain it is, not surprisingly, through a parenting-related example. As a parent, when I say I want my children to be happy, that doesn't mean I want them to have every material thing or even every experience that they desire, and likewise, I don't think they really suffer when they don't get everything they want. I hope that my children feel safe and loved and wanted and understood, that their basic needs are met so that they are free to spend time and energy on things like creativity and learning and love. I hope they have a sense of belonging, of place and family, and that their lives will afford them more joy than sorrow. And I think that's all the happiness that any of us can hope for. So then the lack of any or most of those things I just listed is what I mean by suffering; a constant striving to meet the most basic physical and emotional needs.

And if I know that, as I feel, finally, that I do, then that belief has to be the basis for my morality. In each thing that I do, I have to try to create more happiness than suffering, and when possible, to transform the latter into the former. Knowing that is the easy part. The hard part, I think, is always being able to tell the two apart.

Birthday Dance

Seriously, don't I look like a drag queen in this picture? What is up with that?

Life Is Beautiful

Last night we kicked off my official birthday weekend by rounding out our usual Thursday takeout Night with Aunt E and Uncle T (with special guests Stacey and the monkeys in attendance) with chocolate cupcakes and ice cream and a present for moi.

Tomorrow I turn 35. I keep wanting to think "that's halfway to 40," when in fact, it's halfway to 70. And you know what? 70 seems young to me. I laugh to remember myself, on the verge of my 25th birthday, sitting with BD and a friend in old Zinnie's and feeling depressingly old as all the kids from my alma mater started to trickle in just when we were preparing to turn in for the night. For some reason, in my mind 25 marked the end of an era. Even though I had been out of college and married for over three years, I still felt young enough to be considered "college aged," an idea that expired, apparently, at 24 years and 364 days.

Then I found out I was pregnant with Calvin, and I forgot all about that silliness. I had already lost one pregnancy, but that loss was what let us know that we were, surprisingly, ready to have a baby. I knew instantly and unquestionably that the baby would be a boy, and I threw myself into the experience of pregnancy and the process of preparing for him. We bought our house, painted rooms, became parents, and I've never looked back.

Now, on the eve of the big Three Five, I feel amazingly good. I am happier in my life than I ever believed I could be. I know I talk enough about how Big Daddy rocks my world and how wonderful my kids are and how we have such incredible friends. So let me just add to that how much I feel, in a way that is impossible to really convey, like me. Like I get it now. Like I can't wait to see what the next 70 years will be like. Bring it on!

In another country

Recently, Calvin has been spending a lot of time playing with a kid who lives around the corner. Not around the corner in a house like ours, but in the big house. In the neighborhood for which our street was planned as a convenient abode for the domestic help.

The other day as we were driving home from school, he said to me "I think G's friend who lives two doors down is from another country, because he's always playing that game with the stick that has a net on the end."

"Lacrosse?" I asked.

"Yeah, Lacrosse! That's it!" I tried to keep the laughter out of my voice as I said "Baby, that's not because he's from another country. It's because he's rich." Calvin thought about that for a minute and then asked tentatively "Can only rich kids play Lacrosse?"

"No," I replied, beginning to wish I hadn't said anything, "it's just a sport they really only play in private schools." He didn't ask any more questions, and I was left to wonder what he thought about things like money and wealth. Had he not noticed the differences between his friend's house and ours? I know that he must have. But maybe in his mind, those differences were inconsequential, or just proof that they chose to buy a larger house than we did.

When I told this story to Big Daddy, he laughed and said that kid might as well be from another country; the country of money. It was funny, but at the same time I felt a niggling little worry that we were letting bitterness seep in and infect our kids' attitudes about their place in the world. My parents are solidly middle class now, but they both come from poverty and, for good or bad, they passed on some of that poverty mindset to me. Time, experience, and education have remedied most of that, but I'm still aware of how our attitudes about money can spill over into the way we raise our kids.

I would be lying if I said we don't struggle financially. But at the same time, I can honestly say that I believe I live in incredible luxury. If I feel the need to compare what I have to what someone else has, I feel unfairly fortunate. I don't know what it's like to watch my kids go hungry, or to feel helpless when they get sick because I can't get medicine. I don't have to keep them in the house all day because of constant gunfire in the streets. We tuck them into warm beds at night knowing that in the morning we'll send them to a good school where they have every opportunity they need to learn and grow. All of us are happy and healthy and our house is full of love and laughter and warmth. Bursting at the seams, maybe, but in such a good way. And that's what I want my kids to think about as they figure out how all of that works. We might daydream of things we'd like to have, but I can't really think of a single thing we need.

Brave New World

Some of you may find this hard to believe, but last night was the first time we've ever paid a babysitter to keep our kids so we could go out at night. Not the first time in a while, or the first time since Genevieve was born, but the first time. Ever.

Babysitters have always seemed like this mysterious commodity to me, kind of like drugs in junior high; you hear other people talking about using them, but you don't really know where or how to find any and you're not sure how it would all work out if you ever did. My parents live in town, and they will usually watch the kids on the rare occasion that we ask them to. But for various reasons, that means they have to come to our house, and by about 11:00 they are wondering where the hell we are and wanting to go home and get in their own bed. And really, my parents are on the young side, they both still work full time, and I'm just generally uncomfortable with asking them (or anyone) to give up their own free time so that I can have some. Those of you who know me may find this shocking, but I don't like to ask people for favors.

So, last night all the usual suspects were going out for the October birthdays (mine included), and I wanted to be able to stay out past midnight without feeling guilty about someone sitting at my house wondering when I was going to get there. That's the good thing about paying the exorbitant rate that babysitters make these days--the money precludes the guilt. I found a very sweet Bio major through the babysitter list at my alma mater , and she played with the kids and even Genevieve seemed to really like her, so I felt fine about that and didn't spend the night wondering if they missed me. They all did great.

I'm sure there will be other more detailed accounts of how the evening was spent, but just to hit a few of the high points, I had my favorite food for dinner, whipped Stephanie's ass at darts and Andria's at pool (ok, I may have also lost to both of them in equal measure), shared several pitchers of draft beer with friends for the first time in who knows how many years, danced to music from a juke box, showed a mildly scandalous amount of cleavage, and indulged in just a little inappropriate PDA. It was a good night, and worth every penny of the million dollars we paid the sitter.

Education liberation I love you

My column in October's Lamplighter is up on-line (page 16). This month is the education issue, and in addition to expressing my support for public education, I explain the process for obtaining choice and Optional transfers and getting your child into the CLUE program in Memphis City Schools. This is something I get asked about in person all the time, so I hope some of you will find it helpful.

*In case you were never an eight-year-old girl, the title of this post is from a hand-slapping-game song.

Mama don't play that

I woke up feeling kind of disoriented this morning. I had crazy, unpleasant dreams all night, or at least during the thirty minutes between my alarm going off at 5:30, and my actual dragging ass out of bed at 6:00. Ish. I'm not sure what's causing my bad dreams, and I don't want to point any fingers, but I'm pretty sure it's because Big Daddy and SAM are forcing me to play email Scrabble.

I may have told you before that I do not like games. When I mentioned this to SAM yesterday after she had put up the "word" BRAWLIER, using all her tiles and covering a red triple-word square for a total of 101 points for that one word, she pointed out that I just don't like games where people sit quietly and plot each other's destruction. Good point. I do love me some Taboo.

I can remember when BD and I were in high school and he taught me how to play chess. I wanted to love chess because it's a smart people's game, and I like to think I'm smart. Alas, I did not love it. Later, in our college days, we went through a period of playing a lot of Pente. That was all right, and I must have enjoyed it at least moderately because we played it all the time for a while there, but in the end I got tired of it.

I'm not sure why I hate games of strategy. It's not because I can't sit still or be quiet or pay attention for a long time. I can do all of those things (and sometimes wonder if I'm not the last American who doesn't claim a short attention span). I think it has more to do with competitiveness, or more specifically, my lack thereof. It's hard to spend all that mental energy on something I don't care about at all, because it's just a game and if I win, so what? I can vaguely remember, back in the days of learning chess, feeling like I wanted to win, but I found the feeling to be unpleasant and so must have banished it from my emotional repertoire. Maybe it's just me, but I'll take a good conversation over a silent contest of strategy any day.

For the record

About halfway through Friday night cocktail hour(s), I realized that I had inadvertently made my first two vodka-and-gingers with gin. I didn't know that Big Daddy had foregone his usual Hendrick's in the distinctively squat, dark bottle in favor of a cheaper brand in a tall, clear, vodka-like bottle.

About halfway through Saturday, I realized that, apparently, gin makes me act like an asshole. Who knew? And even though my official stance is still that I was not drunk, I'm pretty sure that the gin devil sent me into "people are stupid and I hate most of them" mode. This is unfortunate because, although I do feel that way, I also don't, if you know what I mean. And I'm sure you do know because, while you are people, you are most assuredly not stupid. And that's just what I mean.

The Midsouth Fair

My parents and I took the kids on our yearly excursion to The Fair the other day. Joshua couldn't wait to go, and kept saying "We're going to the Midsouth Fair!" and "Nicholas said he went to the Midsouth Fair last weekend." We went right after the daily after-school roundup and stayed for about four hours. Big Daddy does not like rides, fried food, or crowds of freaks, so The Fair really holds no charm for him. Loser.

Since it was wristband day, we (and by we, I mean my parents) shelled out $20 each for wristbands for the three older kids so they could ride an unlimited number of rides, and I bought a handful of tickets for myself so I could ride a few things with them, and the swings (officially called "the yo-yo") which is my favorite ride. It quickly became apparent that Joshua's $20 was wasted, because he refused to ride anything that leaves the ground in any fashion. No kiddie airplanes or hot air balloons, nothing. He rode the motorcycles twice, and the trucks. He and Somerset and Genevieve and I all piled into the interior of a giant honey bear's abdomen to spin around and around while also revolving around the ride's center axis. He slid down the kiddie version of the giant slide a few times, and he and his siblings went through the house of mirrors three times in a row, and that was it for him.

After the first ride, I realized that all of the operators just assumed I had on a wrist band and were not looking for my tickets, at least in the kiddie section. Eventually, though, I took Joshua's wristband off of his arm and bootlegged it onto mine. This done, I rode Calvin's first roller coaster with him. It was called the Crazy Mouse, and consisted of round cars on multiple casters going around a series of hairpin turns and up and down a couple of steepish hills while sometimes turning around backwards. It was bigger than the true kiddie coasters, but smaller than a real one. A few of the turns at the top make you feel like you're about to be flung out into space, and I had to close my eyes and think about how old I am to have become a wus. It was a major milestone for Cal, because he has inherited his father's temperment, not mine, which means that he tends to be anxious and expects the worse to happen at any moment. I'm always trying to help him overcome that without pushing him to do things that are too scary. I was proud of him for riding a few things that were a little outside his comfort zone.

When we got to the Yo-Yo, he was still undecided about whether he would ride it with me or not. He wanted to, but the fact that we couldn't sit in a seat together was holding him back. In the end, he decided to go for it, and settled for sitting right behind me. As we were lifted into the air, I heard him say "this isn't that bad." Then we started to really spin, and the seats started to tilt back and forth and swing out and back, out of line with each other. I worried that he'd be scared, but if I spoke to calm him, he wouldn't hear it. In a few minutes, it was all over and we had our feet firmly on the ground. "That was fun," he told me. Now he says it's one of his favorite rides.

I had a first at The Fair this year, too: I had my first deep-fried Snickers. I always thought it sounded gross, but at Andria's urging (Steph voted for a no-nut candy bar), I tried it. It was so good! It's all about the meltiness factor. I also had at least a bite or two of a smoked turkey leg, a funnel cake, a box of popcorn (the only Fair food Joshua would eat), chicken-on-a-stick (with a few dill pickles threaded in between the chunks of chicken), and two cups of $1 sweet tea from the 4-H booth. I like to support the farm kids, you know.

Just as we were about to leave, the sky opened up and dumped rain on the great unwashed, causing us to skip the petting zoo visit we'd planned on the way out. All in all, it was a satisfactory Fair visit, and possibly the last since The Fair is being either moved or canceled after this year. Assuming the Memphis city government can decide what to do with the Fairgrounds. Yeah, right.

Rockin' the 90s

It's homecoming week here at THE high school. That means things like "tacky day" and "sports fan" day have been going on all week. So today is "Decades Day." Each grade level is dressed in a way that they believe represents a different decade; the freshman are 50s, the sophomores are 70s, the juniors are 80s, and the seniors are 90s. How is it possible to have 90s day when the 90s are barely over? Or at least, that's what I like to tell myself. The kids could not figure out exactly what to wear to look "so 90s," either. A lot of things have changed for the worse since that decade, but at least our clothes are not that different.

For most of my childhood, my parents would load us into the car (sans seatbelts, a la the 70s), and drive us over to my grandmother's house for Sunday lunch. She had a crock pot full of chili, the world's tiniest yet somehow bottomless Corningware sweet tea pitcher, and a cabinet coffee table whose innards were packed with old magazines. By the time I was in middle school, the 80s were in full swing, and I would look at those 70s magazines with a mixture of horror, fascination, and pity. I can clearly remember thinking how bad everyone looked, with their flat bangs and their earth-toned makeup. I also thought the people in the pictures looked old for their age, and I nodded smugly to myself when I thought about how much better we looked now. When I saw people in the real world who still had that 70s look, I was baffled about why they wouldn't get with the fashion program. I couldn't understand how someone could get stuck in a decade that had, quite frankly, seen its better days.

Now I tend to see the 90s as a golden era. Everything was good about the 90s: the 80s were over (never underestimate the goodness of the 80s ending), Bill Clinton was president (I drove to Little Rock at midnight with my roommate, Laura, to see and hear Bill Clinton give his acceptance speech), a lot of great music was being made. It was also an amazing time in my life. I spent the first four years of the decade in college, immersed in ideas, tending bar, experiencing life outside the bubble in which I was raised. Sure, there was some painful stuff along the way, but it was growth and for the most part, I reveled in every minute of it. In the mid 90s, I married the love of my life, and I rounded out the decade by having my first baby. It was a good ten years.

I haven't been participating in the dress days this week, but I couldn't resist 90s day. I suspect that my look is still fairly 90s anyway. How could I pass up an excuse to wear jeans and a black tee, my uniform of choice, with my black Dansko clogs and, the piece de resistance, my biggest, most-loved dangly stone-metal-and-bead earrings from the good old days? No the jeans aren't acid washed, and the tee doesn't hit me at mid-thigh, but my outfit is my millennial version of the 90s look. Hopefully, that means my look isn't completely stuck in the decade of my glory days, even if my heart is.

Weekend Update, sadly not starring Tina Fey

Some things I did this weekend:

-Had friends over for cocktails.
-Baked a birthday cake for my Dad.
-Ate pizza for too many meals in a row.
-*censored*
-Threw a bowling party for Somerset's birthday, a week and a day after the fact.
-Finished The Yiddish Policeman's Union .
-Learned that when Genevieve poops in the bathtub, she wants out. Now.
-Watched people more motivated than myself run a 5K past my parents' house.

Things I did not do, but should have:

-Refrain from eating birthday cake, twice.
-Clean my house in any meaningful way.
-Take a nap.
-Anything that remotely resembled running, or exercise of any kind.
-Remember to buy Somerset the ballet slippers she needs while we were in Cordova, where they have stores that sell such things.
-Find the cable that would allow me to upload pictures from the party and post one here.

The Problem of Evil

Restated: If God is all loving, all knowing, and all powerful, why aren't babies born with all their molars?

Time Flies

As it turns out, time not only travels with a one-way ticket, but it takes the Concord. It seems like just yesterday that I was lamenting the end of summer vacation, and now here we are at the end of the first six-weeks grading period. How is that possible? Once again, in spite of my best intentions, I find myself swamped with papers to grade. And yet, I am oh so easily distracted from that task. Because I don't want to do it.

Not only am I swamped with this week's workload, but I'm already dreading the supremely dreadable Research Paper grading. I figured out last year that if I spent just five minutes grading each paper, I would spend 14 hours on them. And that's optimistic, because I tend to spend ten minutes on each one. Now to make matters worse, the department has decided, in spite of my dissent, that senior papers should be a minimum of seven pages for the regular classes and ten for honors. TEN! That's five pages of reasonably reasonable text, and five pages of slaw. When I discussed this with my students today, they laughingly promised to blend the slaw in rather than stacking it five-on-five. Very reassuring.

Just Like Old Times

There was a time in my early twenties when I became acutely aware of the fact that we only get to lead one life at a time. Maybe it sounds unreasonable to you, but this was a hard fact for me to accept. I'd learned all about opportunity cost in that required semester of high school Economics, but the concept didn't really hit home for me until I had some life experience under my belt. For a while, I became sort of fixated on the wish that I could go back to certain phases of my life simply by going back to the places where I had spent my time. If I went to my old apartment on Madison, I would find people and things just as they had been when I lived there. You get the idea. Imagining that possibility, and having to admit its impossibility, was a way for me to reconcile myself to the cruel reality that time travels only in one direction.

But sometimes, when we are patient, life will indulge our little whims. This past weekend, I got an opportunity to revisit a part of my life that ended about three years ago. For those of you who don't know, I used to own a little store called Mothersville, which is now owned by my friends Andria and Melissa . The store is located just where the Cooper-Young Festival begins, and for various reasons that are better heard from the ladies themselves, they needed a little help this year. Now, I feel compelled to admit here that I am not one of those people who loves to offer up my time to every cause and person that requests it, mostly because I'm just lazy and I like to have a lot of time to sit around my house in my comfy pants and no bra. However, in this case I willingly volunteered to pitch in. I asked my parents to watch the kids, and I went to work at my old store, and did what I used to do six days a week for a little over two years.

When I got to the store, I warned Melissa that it would be hard for me not to dominate the floor, and that she should feel free to rein me in as needed. She told me to stop talking crazy and get out there and sell stuff. So that's what I did. It was fun to be back there demonstrating sling-wearing techniques and explaining how cloth diapers work. For a few hours, it really was like my little fantasy of being able to walk into a place from my past and find everything there waiting for me, just like old times. I even saw several of my old regulars, who stopped by to say hello. But of course, the babies who were waiting to be born then are preschoolers now, and there were lots of new faces and new babies to meet. I really enjoyed myself, and I'm grateful that I was able to be back there, if only for a little while.

Happy Birthday Somerset

Five years and nine months ago, I was just getting used to having two children. I was the mom of two boys, a four year old and a five month old. Big Daddy and I knew we would have at least one more child...some day. I was exclusively breastfeeding and had not seen the dreaded "aunt" in over a year, but somewhere around month six, I got a funny feeling that I might be pregnant. I took a test and, sure enough, two lines. I walked out of the bathroom, looked at BD, and just blew out a big cleansing breath. I think it was two weeks before we even talked about it. We needed a little more time to just be the parents of two boys. But soon enough, the truth sunk in. I remember telling my friend Kimberly as she stood at her kitchen sink washing dishes. Without turning around to look at me, she tossed her head back and just screamed for about a minute. It was outrageous to think that one of us could go from having one child to having three under four in just over a year, but I was about to do it.

The day BD and I went for the ultrasound, I was hoping desperately for a girl, and I think he was too. We could not have loved our boys any more than we did, but both of us wanted at least one daughter, and under the circumstances it seemed likely that the third baby would be the last. I lay on the table with my belly covered in goop, clutching Big Daddy's hand as we both stared at the fuzzy images on the screen. Finally, the tech gave us what we were waiting for: the news that we were having a girl.

That summer we took both boys on the train to New Orleans and then rented a car for the last three hours to Pensacola for BD's little sister's wedding. On the train, we talked about names. I wanted to name the baby Veronica June. Veronica had been my girl name with Joshua before we knew he was a boy, and I was still holding onto it. BD wanted to name her Somerset. I liked the name a lot, but I was still lobbying for Veronica. I was also lobbying for us to move our bedroom into what was then the back den so the baby could have the front room instead of bunking with both boys. So, I made a deal. There on the train, I agreed to name the baby Somerset if he would agree to move rooms, and that was that. Now I can't imagine my Somerset by any other name.


Happy birthday Somerset. You are my beautiful little spitfire. You are the only one of my four children who has my eyes and my bravado. You aren't the baby of the family any more, but you will always, always be my sweet baby girl.

Watch this right now

This is a segment from Al Jazeera television showing Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychologist from Los Angeles, making very powerful statements about the true nature of the "culture clash" in the Middle East. I fear for this woman's life, but she is amazing and she deserves to be heard.

Let Us Prey

The other night, Big Daddy and I had the opportunity to attend an open house at our kids' school. Since we have three children now at the same fairly large public school, this involved quite a bit of running around. Joshua's math and science teacher was particularly chatty, which meant we had to stand around and wait while she held mini conferences with several other parents. When it was finally our turn, she wanted to tell us a cute story about something funny Joshua had said. Apparently they start each day with a morning meeting on the rug, at which time they may play a variation of a game that will only be familiar to you if you ever attended an urban elementary school. Basically everyone stands in a circle and claps out a rhythm while one person is in the center. In this case, the group chants "Hey, hey Joshua, what do you like to do? Tell us what you like to do." So my sweet little Joshua, according to his teacher, replied "I like to pray."

At first she thought he must have said "play," but upon asking him she was assured that he had, in fact, said "pray." She thought by telling me this, she was acknowledging that we were a good Christian family who had taught our children well, and that maybe we are raising a future priest or something. Imagine her surprise when, in my surprise, I said "Well, that's really funny because we are in no way a religious household." If you live outside of Memphis, you can't imagine what a shocking statement this is considered to be, but trust me when I say it was not the response she was expecting.

Later that night, I called Joshua into my room and asked him very casually about what he said he liked to do during the game in morning meeting, and he replied "I said I like to pray."

"Ok," I said, "but when do you pray?" After looking confused for a minute, he answered "Somerset." OoooK. "Somerset is a who, not a when, honey. Do you know what 'pray' means?" He nodded. "Can you tell me what it means?"

"It means eat," he said, like duh, mom. "You know, like a lion." Slowly it dawned on me that what Joshua likes to do is not pray, it's prey.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

The End of the Innocence

My oldest child is almost ten years old. I feel lucky that he has maintained his childhood innocence and wonder to an age that, if the media is to believed, is practically post-puberty for the average American kid. But I'm afraid this is the beginning of the end for some of that wonder.

A few months ago, he started asking me very earnestly "Mom, is the tooth fairy real?" I found myself torn between telling him the brutal truth and letting the magic go on just a little bit longer. It's not that the tooth fairy is such a big deal, but if the tooth fairy's a fake, what's next? How far down the path is it to Santa Claus? Yes, Virginia, he still believes in Santa Claus. At least, he did yesterday. All that may have changed by now.

This morning, Calvin came out of his room on his own, before any of the other kids had woken up. He walked up to me grinning and drawing attention to a newly-formed gap in his smile where a loose molar had recently been. "Oh, you pulled your tooth," I said, smiling back. "Yep," he replied, "yesterday."

It took a minute for that to sink in. I'd been duped! I knew this was something he'd been planning to do, based on veiled comments and his recent revelation that his best friend had lost a tooth the day before, but he had waited to tell me. As if I were possibly in cahoots with all the other parents, making clandestine phone calls at the shocking hour of 10:00 pm to alert them to their children's tooth fairy sting ops.

He didn't seem upset this morning, just satisfied that his plan had worked. He asked me what I did with all the teeth. When I told him not to spoil it for his siblings, he replied "Well, you better give me a dollar then, because they're going to ask to see it."

A little later, he came into the bathroom where I was doing my makeup and asked "The next time I lose a tooth, can I put it under my pillow?"

"You should have thought about that before you got in such a rush to figure everything out. Especially since the dentist said you're about to lose a bunch of teeth!" I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him, though. I also couldn't help but wonder where his thoughts would take him over the course of the day. I know my child, and I know that this is going to be a big deal for him. One thought is going to lead to another. And even though I don't remember a single moment when I stopped believing in Santa Claus, and I know I was never upset about it, it kills me to think of him losing that magical idea. He has been one of the last hold-outs in his class, insisting on believing. And now that's probably over for him. I've always known that growing up is hard to do. I just never knew how hard it was to watch.

The Long and Winding Road

A few weeks ago, my mom called and asked if I would be interested in taking the kids to a cabin in Chattanooga over the Labor Day weekend. My sister lives about half an hour from there in Dalton, Georgia, and she was throwing a party for my nephew's second birthday. A friend of my mom's told her about the cabin, and it sounded great, so I agreed. I did so knowing that Big Daddy would most likely have to work, and that I would have to drive all four kids myself for the five hours there and five hours back. And that's exactly what happened.

It went well, for the most part. Genevieve took a decent nap each way, and the older three were pacified as usual by "new" movies from Netflix on the van's DVD player. There were moments when Genevieve was awake and no longer willing to be bribed with french fries or cookies, but we survived. Once we arrived, we were immediately taken with the mountain views. The yard was flanked by two beautiful weeping willows in addition to a huge fig tree loaded down with fruit. The cabin was really more of a small house, which had been remodeled to very nice effect. Huge porches span the house across both the front and back, which looked out on the sloping lawn and the river. Floating on a raft off the back dock, I was completely surrounded by mountains. It was really peaceful and relaxing.

The kids were not so much with the relaxing, but they had a great time swimming and playing on the rope swing.








The place turned out to be twenty minutes up the mountain, which required the passage of a very dark and twisting road to get anywhere. My sister's house turned out to be well over an hour away, and Saturday night found me driving my children and my parents back up said road after 11:00 pm. Even the highway through Chattanooga is winding and dark. I have to say that the white-knuckled drive back made me acutely aware of how dangerous an enterprise driving really is, and how much we have to block out to be able to hurtle ourselves and our loved ones along at break-neck speeds mere inches away from other hunks of metal traveling equally fast in the opposite direction.

So there was a lot of driving, some of it scary, but for the most part we had a really great trip. The kids loved being outside all day, and when we left, Joshua was heard to say "I wish we lived here!"