the pieces of my life

My son is required to do a poster for a state for his 4th grade class. He was assigned a state. Nevada. I’m looking over his research. I’m noticing some glaring omissions. “You’re going to put that prostitution is legal as one of your ‘fun facts,’ right?”

“Mom! No!”

“Are you kidding me? Well, are you writing about Area 51?”

“No, Mom! I’m putting the state bird on the poster.”

Who is this boy? My one consolation is that for his “historic figure of the state,” he has chosen Bugsy Siegel.

Also, I tried to explain to the boy why the Bloodhound Gang’s song “Bad Touch” (that the link is not suitable for work goes without saying, right?) is probably the filthiest song ever played on mainstream radio, and all he could say was, “But there are no swear words in it!” The boy needs to understand the phrase double entendre. His most recent spelling words were lithification and asthenosphere, but he doesn’t get “Bad Touch”? (Although on closer examination of the lyrics, I wouldn’t so much call them double entendres as just bad word play.)

In other news, let it be known at the tender age of almost-45, I still become petty when my little (read: almost 42 year old) sister gets something that I don’t. When we were in New York last week, my mom said to Tweeds, “I know you like Malin + Goetz products, so I took a sample for you from that art fair I went to.” To which I automatically responded, “HEY!” Luckily my mom had a second for me.

Oh, did I forget to mention I went to New York? Possibly because my kids were so ill behaved I’ve tried to block it from my mind. My normally hardy travelers turned whiny and miserable, and I can’t say I was sorry that they all left Monday afternoon, while I stayed over till Tuesday morning. Why did I stay till Tuesday? Because I had a date. To see this guy:

Oh, yes I did. And it was just what I needed to help my boy through a Nevada state poster. Will he notice tomorrow morning that there’s an extra line in his “fun facts”?

Shrimp consumption in Las Vegas is more than 60,000 pounds a day.
About 150 couples get married in Las Vegas in a day.
In Nevada it is mandatory that video slot machines pay a minimum of 75 percent on average.
Nevada is the only state to have legalized prostitution.
Howard Hughes stayed at the Desert Inn for so long that he was asked to leave. He bought the hotel.
Vegas Vic, the enormous neon cowboy that towers over Fremont Street, is the world’s largest mechanical neon sign.

(Note: these are actual fun facts from the poster, with one teeny tiny addition…)

Doodles said, “When you die, you can leave more money to Pie, because I’m going to be a successful businessman or computer programmer and I won’t need it as much.”

And Pie responded to me, “Yeah, I’ll take all your money.”

Ten petri dishes growing bacteria are sitting on my dining room table in the name of science. Right now, I’m not a fan of science.

The same child who is growing bacteria also had to get himself to school this morning on his own. The girl and I go to a before-school P.E. program (she as a participant, myself as a volunteer) at 7:15 a.m. twice a week. This morning it happened that Adam had to leave at 7:15 for a work breakfast (at least I think it was work. It better have been work!).

Just before I was left, I woke the boy. “We’re all leaving now. I’ve set the kitchen timer for 45 minutes so you’ll know when to go to school. Please note that if you fall back asleep, no one is here to wake you nor will you hear the timer.”

In response I received a lovely, “Ungh!”

After the P.E. program was over, I went up to the 4th grade hall to make sure the boy made it to school. “You’re here!” I said when I found him at his locker. “Did you eat breakfast?”

“Yeah,” he told me. “But I put too much sugar in my coffee.”

I know we should be grateful for the little things, and today I am. Caffeine* + sugar + 9-year-old boy = a day in which I am extremely grateful that I’m not the one trying to teach him anything this morning.

*Okay, slight exaggeration. He does have to drink decaf, but still…

My husband is taunting me with pictures on Facebook of elegant dining rooms and lingering dinners. He texted me a photo of the snacks at one of his meetings: a bucket–yes, a bucket–of gummy bears. He went to bed last night with no one kicking him in the ribs.

I–oh, wait a minute. I just stepped in a pile of Kix lying on the floor and have made a huge mess. What was I going to say? Whatever it was, suffice it to note that I am not having the elegant time of my husband, who has been swept off for the week for a conference in Berlin.

But alas it is not all bad here. Well, the sobs from the girl about missing Daddy, the boy’s refusal to practice his viola, and the insult-to-injury early release day today notwithstanding, things are going just hunky dory.

For starters, I’ve learned my daughter will not only live with me her entire life, but I shall have the privilege of chauffeuring her until the end of my days. In the car, we had this discussion:

The girl: When Doodles goes on his retreat this weekend, I get to be alone with you and Daddy!
Me: Yes, you do.
The girl: Doodles, you had two years alone with Mommy and Daddy.
The boy: Huh?
Me: Yep. Before you were born, Doodles.
The boy: Oh.
Me: But, Pie, you’ll have two years alone with us when your brother goes away to college.
The boy: But I want to go to M.I.T., so I won’t be going away.
Me: Even if you do get to go to M.I.T., you’re going to want to live on campus.
The boy: I can do that?
Me: Yes. It’s part of the college experience, moving out of the house, living with friends. It’s something you’ll be ready to do by the time you go to college.
The boy: Okay.
The girl: Not me! I’m not going to college because I don’t ever want to leave home!
Me: You may find you feel differently when you’re 17.
The girl: No way! I just won’t go to college.
Me: Well, if you feel that way, we are in a major college town and there are plenty of schools you can go to and still live at home. Heck, there’s a college just 15 minutes away.
The girl: And you’ll drive me to class?
Me: Uh, no. You’ll drive yourself to class.
The girl: No way! I’m not going to college unless you’re driving me to classes!

Let’s re-visit this blog post in 2023, shall we?

In the meantime, I’m getting a decent amount of editing done on my novel, and I’m feeling good about the changes I’m making. And I just had a short-short accepted for publication in the Sierra Nevada Review, which is always an exciting thing. And I know I have a big bag of gummies coming to me at the end of the week (are you paying attention, Adam?).

Back to writing. Gotta get as much done as I can before I’m expected back behind the wheel. Ta ta!

I’m about 1/3 of the way through edits on my manuscript, but there are so many more pressing things that I’m having a difficult time focusing on the work. For instance:

1) I’m distressed that my 4th grader has spelling words that not only do I not know how to spell without the help of my good friends Mr. Merriam and Mr. Webster, but words of which I’ve never even heard! An extra Girl Scout cookie for anyone here who can properly use “argillaceous” in a sentence without first looking it up (and if I’ve told you the definition, you are disqualified). I’ve told the boy he has two options as far as I’m concerned on today’s spelling test that I’d be fine with: He can spell everything right except for “argillaceous” or he could spell everything else wrong and spell “argillaceous” correctly. Heck, I’ve typed “argillaceous” four times now, and I still have to refer back to the list of spelling words to see how it’s spelled. By the way, this is the same list where my son has to spell the word “gentle.”* “How could you have spelled ‘gentle’ wrong?” He said, “I could have sworn she said ‘gentile.'” Another reason it’s hard to be a Jew in the public schools.

*The kids are given a pre-test of 30 words. The first 10 words they get wrong are their spelling words for the week. If they get fewer wrong on the pre-test, they have fewer spelling words for the week. Nothing annoys me more than the weeks when the boy has three spelling words for the week and he still spells two wrong on the Friday test.

2) I’m three shoe boxes short for today’s Brownie meeting. These important things take up brain space, people!

3) Goats. How can anyone work when Taylor Swift is singing with goats. I’m obsessed.

4) The knowledge that at this very moment, people are frolicking with sea lions, marine iguanas, and blue-footed boobies and I’m sitting here not writing.

I’m working on the Galapagos slide show/recount of the trip. But then I’m also working on the novel, the boy’s spelling, Brownies, baking hallah, and all those other wonderful things so it may be a bit. But I promise one thing when I do get to it: There will be nothing argillaceous about it.

On Sunday, Pie and Jasmine were making friendship bracelets in the kitchen while I was reading a book in the family room. I wasn’t paying too much attention, but I heard them say something about “fat” and “thin” so I perked my ears up. I missed that conversation completely, but I did hear this exchange:

Pie: When we grow up, we’ll have wrinkles.
Jasmine: Yeah, like your mom.
Pie: My mom doesn’t have wrinkles! Well, I guess she does.

Way to stand up for your mom, Pie!

And this was after Pie and I were reading Rebecca and the Movies together. It’s a story about the American Girl Rebecca Rubin, who lived in New York in 1914. She’s the daughter of immigrants, trying to lead an assimilated Jewish life amidst the goyim.

In the opening of the book, Rebecca is listening to a phonograph at the candy store with her friend. There’s a picture:

Which led to a conversation:
Pie: Mom, you played records when you were little, right?
Me: Yep.
Pie: So you just put the plastic on the machine?
Me: Uh huh.
Pie: So did your record player look just like Rebecca Rubin’s record player?

Yes, sweetie. My Victrola was a hand-cranked machine that I used to listen to the newest Irving Berlin tune. Oh that Irving Berlin! He was so divine!

Of course, the reality of it is really the same to her. Irving Berlin and the truth–the first single I purchased was “Run Joey Run,” which is a hell of a lot more embarrassing than anything that came up in the 1910s–are close enough in her mind: They’re both ancient music.

This week I received my e-mail from Amazon: “Free MP3 Versions of CDs You’ve Bought!” Amazon’s new program searches your order history for CDs so you can download the MP3s. It’s a virtual walk down memory lane. Or in this case, a listen. Upstairs, in the dark recesses of a closet, I have all my CDs. I haven’t looked at most of them for years. So getting this visual of songs 1) reminded me how much music I have that I really enjoy but don’t listen to anymore and 2) brought me back to a different era of my life. My heaviest CD purchases happened when I worked at Amazon, right after it launched the music store. I had about three years of heavy CD purchases. All the various periods of my Seattle years lay before me: my chanteuse phase (Diana Krall, Edith Piaf, Karrin Allyson); my world music phase (Manu Negra, Youssou N’Dour); my hip chick phase (Belle and Sebastian, April March), to name but a few. Over 1,000 songs were added, reminding me of Seattle bars, ex-boyfriends, rain. That song list is a history of my life in Seattle. And I realized, nothing makes you feel older than seeing the music you used to listen to. Phil Collins and I’m in twelfth grade, catching rides at lunch to the Hoagie Hut. Mazzy Star and I’m in my illegal apartment on 10th Street in Alphabet City. Fun Lovin’ Criminals and Adam and I just started dating. I played some clips from the various songs until Doodles ran screaming from the room. Although it doesn’t take much any more to make the boy run screaming.

Last week Pie, Doodles, and I were driving, and while at a stop light, a group of girls slowly walked by.
“Hey, isn’t that H?” I asked.
The boy said, “Nope.”
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s her. You know who I mean. The sister of M. You know, M from Cub Scouts.”
“That’s not her.” The boy was certain.
“I really think it’s her. Hey! Look! There’s their mom! It is H!”
“It’s not them, Mom!” Doodles protested.
“What are you talking about? Of course it’s them!” I’m looking right at them and can clearly see who it is.
“Just don’t stop. Please! It’s mortifying!”
“Mortifying? You’ll be mortified if I speak to them?”
“Yes!”
“It doesn’t mortify you when I speak to other people.”
“Yes, it does,” he told me. “I just don’t tell you.”
And I thought, “Ah, we’ve now come to this,” and I flashed back to my father mortifying me by speaking to my friends. My father only had to suggest speaking to my friends for me to want to crawl into a hole with my humiliation. The torch has been passed. I am now old enough that I mortify my son.

The universe (or at least my kids) is trying to send me a message. I’m old. My music belongs on a Victrola. And it’s time I start using wrinkle cream.

Our thermostat has this nifty little feature that when we go into an energy efficient mode, it shows a little leaf. I think it’s for temperatures above 72 in the summer and below 68 in the winter. I can unequivocally say that I have yet to see that leaf this winter. Although by this weekend the temps will be spring-like, which will just throw my body out of whack. Pick a season, folks, and stick with it.

Sunday night my son wanted to stay up. “I’m going to watch Downton Abbey with you guys!” he announced.

“You really want to see it?” I asked.

“Any TV is good,” he told us.

I forbade him from starting Downton Abbey in the third season. So today, after school while Pie was at dance class, we Netflixed the first episode of season one. I will say, I now get all that entail crap that I found so hard to follow at first. What was up with me? It’s pretty simple stuff.

He watched the first episode. He was uncomfortable with kissing (both straight and gay, so at least I know it has nothing to do with his own burgeoning sexual preferences, and by “burgeoning,” I mean “nonexistent”), but seemed engaged. Yet, disappointingly, at the end, he declared it “kinda boring.” I was so looking forward to re-living seasons one and two with him, although I suppose the Turk dying in bed is best left unexplained to a 4th grader. Another touching mother-son experience lost.

In the meantime, 2013 is looking a lot like 2012. The girl won’t sleep. The boy is plotting plans too big for his britches. Adam is stressed. And my novel is not writing itself. Bummer.

My family clearly hates me. Because if they didn’t hate me, they wouldn’t have left me alone in the house with all this sugar! SUGAR! It’s yelling at me! Taunting me! Provoking me! The only way to get it to shut up is to eat it. And so I have.

Have I mentioned that my tummy doesn’t feel so good right now?

Anyway, I believe we have officially entered the “tween” years for my son, that glorious on-the-cusp-of-puberty boyness, which makes him swing violently from scared boy who crawls into our bed after a nightmare to too cool for you lackadaisical teen. I can’t keep up.

The other night I insisted that he put on clean underwear. “Keep your freakin’ junk clean!” I yelled at him. “Clean underwear is not optional!”

He protested that his junk is just fine dirty.

“Clean underwear. NOW!”

Finally he relented. “But you have to leave for me to change?”

Indignant I said, “You’re my little boy! What do you mean I have to get out?”

And he told, “Mom, even little boys need privacy sometimes.”

Fine. But this morning, when he woke up in my bed. Get that? In my room. Not his. I woke him up gently. Well, as gently as I could. I jumped on him and whispered in his ear, “Spell spiny,” which is one of the words on his test.

Eyes still closed, he whispered, “S-p-i-n-y.”

And that’s when I yelled, “Get up get up get up!” (This is all making you wish you lived in my house, isn’t it?). I started to get dressed myself. “Get up! Get up! Get up!”

The boy peeks open an eye. “No!” he said, closing his eyes and burying his head. “I don’t want to see that! I’m not getting up till you have your bra on!”

Twerp.

He’s also obsessed with Mad magazine, and he is constantly trying to read their jokes to me, not realizing that I read Mad as a child myself, and he’s not going to read me anything I haven’t heard. I’m pretty sure their Justin Bieber jokes are all just recycled David Cassidy jokes from my childhood. But he insists. I finally told him, “I’m cooking. I cannot understand your mumbling while I’m doing other things.”

“But I really want to read it to you, Mom!” he said.

“I can’t listen now!” I told him.

“You don’t have to listen,” he said. “Just pretend like you’re listening.” And then I suddenly realized that when I tell him to do something twenty times, and he seems to be paying attention… The gears are clicking into place. That twerp.

That boy. Did I mention my tummy? I think that candy bar on the counter might fix it. I need to get all of my sugar fixes in now, as I told Pie I’d give up sugar in the new year. But that’s a story for another day.

We used to have a really cool alternative music station. It went away. Now we have a “we play anything” station that really plays nothing. I can’t stand it. But I was so tired while running errands this morning, that I found myself on the station and I didn’t even realize it until I discovered that, yes, I do remember every word to Foreigner’s “Urgent.” And then I wanted to gauge my ears out with the windshield wipers.

Why was I so tired that I inadvertently listened to adult whatever-it-is radio? Because my daughter isn’t sleeping through the night. Which is funny, because I’m pretty sure I wrote the same thing seven years ago. She’s in second grade, for freak’s sake! But last night she was up at 2:40 a.m. Yep, that’s right. And she read. And she tossed. And she turned. And she complained. Until 5:20 a.m.. She went down–or rather was up–like a flaming arrow and she brought me along for the ride. Shoot. Me. Now.

It’s the monsters. The monsters are getting to her. They are under her bed and in the closet and nothing she does is making them go away. She refuses to sleep with her light off or her shades down. So of course she wakes up. And then she sits, completely upright, on the edge of her bed, reading, complaining that it’s not helping her fall asleep. Well, duh.

Today was a very sleepy day. I ran errands in a haze. I yelled at my children when they got home because a Crumbs has come to our local mall and no one warned me. I was not sufficiently prepped to see that cupcake sign beckoning to me. My children were just at the mall on Saturday. They could have told me! Useless children!

As the boy was doing homework and the girl was complaining about doing hers, I made hot chocolate and we chatted. The boy started getting mouthy.

Me: Just do your homework.

The boy: Give me more marshmallows.

Me: Be nice! You’re the child I’m keeping!

The girl: Hey!

The boy: Ha ha! [to the girl] When you and Daddy move out, I’m going to take all your stuff.

Me: No, we’re going to move out.

The boy: What?? To where?

Me: Dunno. New York. Miami. Paris. Somewhere good.

The boy: No, not New York. The city is too big.

Me: What?? Who are you? Fine, I’m not keeping you, either!

The boy: I get dibs on all your stuff!

Me: I’m taking all my stuff with me!

The boy: The stuff you don’t take, I get dibs on!

The girl: I want dibs, too! I’ll take the cooking stuff.

The boy: Do you not understand how dibs works? I called dibs on everything!

The girl: No way! I want her stuff too!

The boy: Fine, you can have her stuff. I’ll take her money.

The girl: Hmmmm….

This is one of those times I wished we celebrated Christmas. Because instead of buying them gifts, I could just get them mammoth lumps of coal. Hey, maybe I’ll start a new Hanukkah tradition here….

Yesterday was gray and snowy. I was sitting warm and cozy at my computer, getting some writing done when the phone rang.

Me: Hello?
Voice: Hi. My socks got really wet at recess. I need you to bring me new socks.
Me: First things first. Which child of mine is this?
Voice: Doodles.
Me: Okay, Doodles. Now, what?
The boy: At recess my socks got soaking wet. I need you to bring me new socks.
Me: Um, no.
The boy: My feet are really wet! I can’t wear these socks!
Me: It’s one o’clock. School gets out in an hour and fifteen minutes. You’ll be fine.
The boy: They are really wet.
Me: I’m not walking over to school an hour before it’s over to bring you socks. It’s snowing out!
The boy, clearly exasperated: I know! That’s why how my socks got wet!
Me: Take off your socks and go sockless for the next hour.
The boy: My feet will be cold!
Me: I’m a mean mommy. I’ll come by before the bell rings to bring you socks so you don’t have to go home with cold wet socks.
The boy: Fine!

I get to school shortly before the bell and I go to the boy’s 4th grade classroom.

Teacher: Ah, Doodles, here are some socks for you!
Me: Did you really let him call me to bring him socks an hour before school gets out?
Teacher, laughing: I did! You know, he never complains, so when he did, I figured I’d let him call.
Me: You’re crazy! Boy, tell your teacher what the family motto is!
The boy: Suck it up.
Teacher laughs.
Me: Next time the boy has an issue like this, remind him of the family motto!

Freakin’ fragile child. Where do these kids come from?