@ Home in the World

So, how do we handle this?

I think I need some help from the parent universe out there. 

This Saturday morning, I had the first-time experience of going with the rest of the family to T-ball. I wasn't able to go the previous three or four weeks, because there was always something else that needed doing - getting one or the other of the cars serviced, something for work, some other volunteer project in town. Last week the Pumpkin had such a meltdown that he didn't even go to T-ball, but stayed home with me.

I knew from Piper that getting Pumpkin to stay with his group and not run into the woods or on to another playing field was a challenge. For the past several weeks Piper has handled this challenge alone, shuttling between two kids on two different teams, one who did very well at this sort of thing, but needed an audience. The other, who was not really with the program, and already had an audience of the pointing and whispering kind.

I also knew, that in spite of his inability to say much about it, that T-ball had made an impression on the Pumpkin - he'd drawn himself playing T-ball in two separate "journal entries" in his Kindergarten classroom.

So Saturday morning when we went to play, his team practiced fielding first. He stood in his "stance" out  in the field, knees bent, eyes intent on the batter, chasing after every ball whether it came his way or not, always ending in a pile of kids anxious to retrieve the ball and sometimes remembering to throw to first. He had no patience waiting in line for his turn to bat. When his team returned to the field, he stood out there, this time in left field. Soon it became clear that no balls were being hit anywhere near him, he wandered off to the sidelines, found a tractor to study, and wound up playing catcher for some older kid who was pitching to his plastic bat-wielding, not-quite-two year-old brother. The little guy was hitting far more than you'd expect from a toddler, prompting Pumpkin to say  "That's an awesome baby!"

My efforts to get Pumpkin back out on the field with his teammates were met with "I'm too tired, I'm done playing T-ball. I'm done." Judging by his actions though, what this means is "I'm bored, waiting in line is stupid, I can play the way I want to and not have to follow some stranger/coach who expects me to follow directions."

In this, as in our experience with swimming last fall, I was reminded of Bode Miller, a kid with great skill, but little form, who hated following directions and being a team player. On the one hand, not thrilled with authority myself, I admire this kind of attitude and wish I personally had more of it. On the other hand, since neither child is likely to go into professional sports of any kind, I'm not sure how far this calling of his own shots can be taken.

As much like night and day as my two boys are, I had this exact same problem with Tigger. In any activity but swimming, he was always running to the sidelines to sit with me instead of being with the other kids, waiting for a turn. It made me crazy. All the other 3-4 year olds seemed to be able to follow directions, why not mine? I finally gave up and we quit whatever it was we were trying to do back then. Last fall with soccer, Tigger literally sat in the goal net and rolled around while the other kids played the game.  Finally, during the last game of the season, he blocked a shot from the other team and got an assist toward the end to win the game. Like it all finally clicked for him.

I struggle with my patience in these situations, waffling between wanting to let the boys do it their way and trying to teach a "sticktoitiveness" that all the other kids seem to already have mastered. I don't want to seem like some overbearing sportsparent when I keep urging Pumpkin to get in and play with the rest of the kids. It would be one thing if he were three or four. He's six.

So which is it? Should I be happy that he's recognizing a personal limit and self-regulating? Or should I be concerned that this is fitting into his pattern of doing things on his own schedule and only when he feels like doing it. And if the latter, what do I do about it? How far do I push?

Make it stop!!!

Hmm, what could I possibly be fussing about now?

Indiana Jones and the Plasticrap Universe

The incredibly annoying Kate Capshaw character notwithstanding, the Indiana Jones series has long been one of my guilty pleasures. I was born a few decades too late, because I can immerse myself into his time frame like I had actually lived through it. I love the camp, the impossible stunts, the ridiculous face-melting special effects, the cultural charicatures, the hat (I have one), and well, we won't get into the rest of his accessories. I am a Karen Allen purist and I am thrilled she will be returning for the next movie.

BUT

OMG, the endless advertising for the other three videos, the movie itself, the Burger King contest, licensed character toys! Will it ever end? Seriously, the Indiana Jones theme used to make me goofily (is that a word?) happy, but now it is on every. single. commercial. break. And I want to jump off a cliff.  Tigger is entralled with the Indiana Jones series. Yes, I am aware that he is too young to be watching it, but compared to a lot of other crap out there, this is pretty harmless. Unlike Star Wars, which he loves and I kind of like in a nostalgic sort of way (which means Parts 1-3 interest me not at all), we can really bond over Indiana Jones. If I promise to see it, will you make it go away?

Location Joke

OR

Why I need to stop butting in to other people's water cooler conversations.

GUY ONE: What did you think of Cologne?

GUY TWO: What?

GUY ONE: What did you think of Cologne?

ME: As in Germany?

GUY ONE: As in Bartolo Colon, the new pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

Maybe you had to be there.

Yeah, I'm cool

A local radio station is advertising a New Kids on the Block reunion concert as a Mother's Day treat.

I'm flabbergasted.

Do you mean to tell me that the annoying teeny boppers who were so crazy about NKOTB are old enough to be mothers?  What does that make me? Jeez. I've always been an old fogey in my head. Now I really am one.

There are some lucky people in this world who saw bands at a small club or other venue before the band got big on the national stage. Bands like U2, REM, Talking Heads, cool stuff. Of course, for me, that band was New Kids on the Block.

I went to the first ever Boston Music Awards at the Wang Center and the New Kids were introduced there. They were really really young, in matching track suits doing their little synchronous dances. I had been hoping to see Aerosmith, which had been featured in the ads for the event. The Wang Center is a theatre where the Boston Ballet performed for years and many of the honorees came out into the lobby during the intermission. I was hoping the Steven Tyler would be among them, but sadly, Aerosmith was off on an island somewhere filming a video for "Rag Doll."

Instead I got Donnie Wahlberg in a track suit.

But I got to hear "The Right Stuff" before you did.

Nyah!

8 Days a Week

Some people say there aren't enough hours in a day, but I think the problem is that there are not enough days in the week. Make that the weekend. Before I had children, when I had much more leeway over my use of vacation time, I would sprinkle days off throughout the year to create more three-day weekends than a handful of Monday holidays would ever give me. I can tell you that it made a huge difference in my rested/exhausted ratio.

Of course, that was also before I was far enough along in my career to have large piles of things to do accumulate on my desk in my absence. We all know that phenomenon can make four-day weeks feel longer than the regular five-day weeks. I don't really mind working five days a week so I think we need to reorganize the whole calendar so that we have have eight-day weeks and three-day weekends.

Well, that, and I can't resist a good Beatles-themed blog title.

Seriously though, there is always a tension in our house between the need to get things done around the house and the need to spend time together as a family. More often than not, chores win out. Sometimes these things are combined - like a couple of weekends ago when we spent the ENTIRE Saturday cleaning out the boys' room, but that sort of activity often ends in lots of yelly frustration. That week however, it ended in a huge trash bag full of toys and clothes they had grown out of and a carpet that could now be seen and vaccuumed.

If we had a three day weekend every weekend, we could really cover all the bases:

Friday - Housework, yardwork, misc. chores and errands.

Saturday - Family activity: beach, hiking, Science Museum, bike rides, and so on.

Sunday - Sleep late or go out to breakfast, go to church, cooking, reading and puttering.

So, what should we call our eighth day?

"B*tches get things done!"

Count me among the few people on the planet who have never watched Saturday Night Live. Not even back when it was consistently funny (I was in high school then and my mother felt it was "inappropriate"). Well yeah, I've seen a rerun or retrospective now and then, but I was well out of college before I saw that "wild and crazy guys" skit that a high school friend constantly made a fool out of himself imitating. Yes, I live under a rock. These days it's on purpose for the most part.

Speaking of rocks, I've never seen 30 Rock either. Tina Fey got my attention on that American Express ad which I'm starting to suspect she wrote most of. Have you ever seen someone from across a room and just known you wanted to be friends with that person? Call it "like at first sight." That was how I felt about Tina Fey.

OK, I'm not some creepy stalker. I'm not even going to be sending her fan mail. But after last Monday morning, I'm officially a fan.

Now, I didn't see the original Weekend Update skit on SNL. I heard it Monday morning on NPR. Because that's the kind of geek I am. Needless to say, I was blown away.

For months I've been saying that what I like and admire in Hillary Clinton is what everyone else hates. I think it's been that way from the very beginning when she made that "stay home and bake cookies" remark. People who cried foul on that conveniently seemed to forget that it was she who was being attacked for wanting to use her skills in some major-impact way while her husband potentially held the highest office in the land. Why is that a problem?

Never mind that she was positively prophetic on the problem healthcare has become in this country. No, let's talk about her marriage. I once had a conversation with a woman who told me that she would have a lot more respect for Hillary if she had left Bill. Hmm. Let's see. You have just suffered the ultimate marital humiliation in front of the entire world. Do you:

A) Divorce him, become Washington poison (all these years and still nobody likes a divorcee), return to Little Rock, or Chicago, or even New York and quietly practice law, maybe teach a class or two and write a tacky tell-all?

B) Stay with a dynamic and powerful guy, continue to travel the world, continue to have influence, support your family through personal and political crisis, get encouraged to run for Senator, run and actually win, run for President?

They still say living well is the best revenge, don't they?

But that's just my theory of the situation. Nobody ever really knows what's in another couple's marriage.

I'm trying to decide if people's dislike of Hillary is really related to her stint as First Lady, as I posited at Soccer Mom; her failure to leave her husband after the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, or if people are uncomfortable with her blatant desire to be in charge for power.

It's the 21st century, and women are not supposed to want power? Apparently, it's OK if they have power, ala Madeline Albright, or Condoleeza Rice, but they must not be seen as angling for it.

I'm not sure there's any neat way to wrap this up. I have known, and been put off by, women Hillary's age who gained their professional stripes in a time when they were told the had to "act like men" to get ahead. I've known women who were not "nice," but whom I nontheless respected because they were successful and didn't let anyone stop them.

I could understand if it was mostly guys (guys who firmly approve of the current President's smirking swagger and blatant power grab) who were put off by Hillary, but it's not. It's women, lots of them. Now I am not suggesting that all women should want to vote for Hillary because she's a woman, I'm just floored by the number of women who won't vote for her because they don't like her. This makes no sense to me. Just as the average Joe will never sit down to have a beer with President Bush, the average Joan will not be sitting down to tea (or a glass of wine) with the next President. These are not qualifications.

The primary season could be over in a few days. If Hillary Clinton's name is not at the top of the Democratic ticket, I still think that she will have done an amazing thing to advance women in our society. She has made it possible for other women to run for President and be taken more seriously than they would have been in the past. This election has exposed a lot of ugliness about our society that was easy to ignore until we had a woman running for office, things we still need to address.

I once heard Senator Clinton say that if she did not win, she would go back to being the Senator from New York and she will continue to be effective in that role. In spite of the disappointment that would entail, I believe she will.

"You're going to need a bigger boat"

Very rarely do I dip into pop culture or celebrity gossip for blog fodder, but last night I watched the Grammys. I think it's the first time in at least five years that I've watched an awards show of any kind and I was impressed. At no point did I want to fast forward through some unspeakably dull tribute or interpretive dance routine, the show seemed really more about the music than the awards or the stars. the performers crossed generations and genres and the whole night was pretty dynamic, right down the Herbie Hancock and that Lang Lang guy with the dueling pianos.  Only one complaint; nothing against Beyonce, but why, oh why didn't they have Tina Turner do "Proud Mary" with John Fogarty?

That brings us to the celebrity gossip part of this entry which is primarily about Amy Winehouse. I'd never seen her perform before and watching he last night had me wondering what kind of pain she must be in. It was hard to watch her, so skinny, almost disoriented, but still with a powerful voice and a touchingly supportive bandmates and parents. After all the awards, it's hard to know where she's going to go with her bad-girl image should she actually manage to make it through rehab. I hope she does though. And her husband too.

And while I was staying up far too late watching all of this, I was checking in on a few things online and noticed that Roy Scheider died. 

For me, he will always be associated with a movie that oddly became one of my favorites long after I saw it at the old 99 cent movie theatre in Guilford (99 cents!). I was probably too young to be watching Jaws, but I remember that a summer friend's mother dropped us off at the theatre to see it. This may be the third most age inappropriate movie I have seen. The second was certainly the original Rocky which I saw shortly after it was released because my friend's father wanted to see it so he took his 10-year old daughter and me to watch it with him during his "Divorced Dad Saturday Visiting Hours." This first has to be Midnight Cowboy, which my own parents dragged me to thinking I would fall asleep at the drive through. Instead, four-year old me spent most of the movie bouncing around in the back seat of the car asking "Where are the cowboys?" over and over.

Anyway, Jaws naturally scared the crap out of me. So much so that I was even afraid to swim in pools for the rest of that summer, never mind the ocean. Since then, I think I've seen it dozens of times, and even though I know parts of the dialogue by heart, it never seems to get old. Dated, maybe, but not boring. It's funny now as an adult to understand what closing the beaches in a summer tourist town would mean for the local economy; the other side of the mayor putting money before lives. I sort of fell in love with Richard Dreyfuss and his snappy banter in this movie, and I just think it's hilarious that he and Quint (Robert Shaw) are comparing battle scars just before the climactic scene in the movie. 

I've never seen any of the sequels and have no intention of doing so. This is one of those cases where I think Spielberg should have left well enough alone (I'm hoping this summer's Indiana Jones movie doesn't prove to be another one). I'm sorry that Scheider was stuck doing the second version of Jaws rather than taking (DeNiro's) part in Deliverance. Who knows where his career might have taken him after that?

Careers are funny things for creative types, some will reach a pinnacle quite unexpectedly, some never will. Some people may spend their entire lives trying to repeat that winning performance, only to find that time and trends have moved on without them. The lucky ones may be the ones able to appreciate having had that success and the creative freedom it may allow them to try new things.

If you were to try something completely new, what kind of project would it be?

Hey! Check this out.

I went to high school with these guys. Most of them, anyway.

Someone sent me that article a while ago. At the time I had a little fun looking up their website, tracking down the ad they did (I had not seen it before, have you?), and downloading the songs (added bonus: I actually like this kind of music). Then I promptly forgot about the whole thing. Well, except for the music, which is kinda fun. 

A couple of days ago, through a weird quirk of memory I realized I have to pass this stuff on.

Have to.

Ever have a completely random memory pop into your head from seemingly nowhere? No? Odd, it happens to me all the time.

Anyway, I remembered that once upon an, oh so very long time ago, I had one of those completely pie-in-the-sky conversations with one of these guys about what we wanted to do after high school. Of course, he wanted to be a musician and I wanted to be a writer, so I half-jokingly promised that if he ever made it big, I would write about it.

Funny how life works sometimes.

Recovering

There's something about being sick for a long time that makes feeling better seem like the return of spring. Of course, the weather snapped me out of that right quick. Sheesh!

I finally went to the doctor who gave me some anti-biotics to chase away the remainder of the phlegm monster that was sapping all my strength. Just having my appetite back has helped a lot.

Because I hadn't been to the market in two weeks, I went out on Saturday and bought a ton of stuff. Our nearly empty fridge and freezer are full once again. Now if only we could stop running out of milk.

I bought a scale. We haven't had one in almost two years. I didn't replace the last one when it broke because I was still losing weight and not really thinking about it. Since returning to work, I have gain nearly 10 pounds of the 20 I lost. That's about 5 over where I want to be. Not a big deal, but a difference in how clothing fits.

I also found shelves for the towels in our bathroom. We can get rid of that laundry basket that's been taking up most of the floor in the bathroom and cross that off our winter to do list.

I have a huge deadline coming up in March. I'm a bit nervous about it, but at least I'm not still sick on top of it all.

Peaceful New Year

There is perhaps no more soothing way to end a hectic and crazy year than in the mountains of New Hampshire. The weather was perfect for skiing, but we refrained. I slept and ate and thought about going for a walk. We watched the Patriots hit their mark. I watched the snow fall and finished both Atonement and Grace Eventually.

I took pictures with my fabulous new camera. The boys had perfect conditions for sledding and snow angel making (a favorite pastime of the Pumpkin's). The boys enjoyed watching Papa (my FIL) rake snow off the roof (it would never occur to me that one had to do this).

Our weekends in New Hampshire are a bit like a visit to Walton Mountain. When you live your life in and out of Boston for 20 years, it can be hard to remember that most of the country is rural. It's hard to believe that things can be so slow and not be stress-inducing. I was not late, I did not need to be anywhere and it was so relaxing. On this trip the boys kept asking if there were bears in the woods. The answer is yes, but I told them the dogs would bark and scare them away. We have seen bears up here before. Tigger remembers them. I keep hoping for a moose, but this time we got a woodpecker or two.

  Tomorrow we return to the real world, of work and school, and baby sitter. I need to start getting ready for my trip to Denver next week. This is the first time in my life I have ever not wanted to go on a trip. I'm worried about the air up there, I'm worried about the Pumpkin. It's only for three days, but I don't think P has any concept of time. This may be the only work trip I have ever been on where I will call home every night. Usually, once is enough for the whole trip.

All things considered, I had a great 2007. We are so much more together a family now, if that makes any sense. I look forward to further progress in 2008. There is much to work on. More growing still to be done.

Happy New Year!