Poetry

I've tried a lot if different kinds of writing on the blog, but not poetry so far. I used to write a lot of what I called poetry. I was a lot more angsty then, so this might not be as good. You be the judge.

Rachel
by t ettinger

Hey reader girl!
You might want to live in your book world
But
You have to at least visit ours
Like
To eat


November
by t ettinger

Sullen grey November
You've stripped off your coat
And rolled up your sleeves
With your thin bare arms you try to hold back winter
You will lose
Which is maybe why
You're no one's favorite

Welcome to My Morning

I was sitting the piano, helping with Rachel helping her practice trombone this morning before school. She just started band a few weeks ago. It is not going well. There have been tears, frustrations, and threats of quitting. Fortunately, we just became the proud owners of this new-to-us piano, and so I was able to at least offer the assistance of, "C sounds like this," since I have no clue how to play the trombone. I played that low C so many times, it might be stuck in my head now. I've never had a single note stuck in my head before.

I was thumping out "C C C C," followed by "D rest rest rest," when I heard, "Tonia, you're going to have to go by City this morning."

"That's funny," I thought, "I didn't hear the phone ring." I, of course, had jumped to the conclusion that one of JD's teachers had called, and now I was going to have to go to the principal's office. (I might have to work on understanding exactly who is in trouble when one of my children's school calls with bad new.) However, the school had not called, JD had just forgotten to take his medication. It was still sitting on the kitchen table. I tell you, it is hard to get an ADD kid to take his meds. There are a lot of distractions between hand and mouth.

"I don't know honey," I replied. "This will be the third time in two weeks that we've pulled him out of class to give him meds. They are going to get annoyed with us soon."

"I think they might be more annoyed with us if he doesn't get the meds."

So, I stuck them in my pocket. I had to go by the school anyway to pick up pie fundraiser orders. Maybe I'd feel out the situation and decide what to do then.

Off I went to take the girls and Ryan (our little carpool friend) to school. Oh wait, back this story up. Back during trombone practice, Rachel mentioned that she needs rice milk for a school project, today if possible. So, on the way to school I discuss with her how to do her science project, which turns out to be out the different spoiling rates of different kinds of milk. (Disgusting! Who says girls are sweet and clean?!) We resolve a few issues she has with the project and agree that I will come in with her to see if she'll really need me to go to the store and then back to school today.

Should I take time to talk about the missing lunch and calling Ryan's dad, only to find out the lunch is actually in the van, or should I just get on with the story?

That's what I thought too. I was off the hook with the rice milk, so I arrived at City and was buzzed in the front door. As I was coming in I saw swarms of what could have been 8th or 9th graders heading in all directions. I went to the office, grabbed the pie sale info and headed to the counter. When I asked the secretary what she thought I should do about the meds, she agreed with Russ and thought it would be better if he had them. I hadn't even told her what they were. Interesting. Anyway, she calls down to his class.

"Oh!" I heard her say in surprise. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows raised some. "Ok, then. I guess I'll send Mom down."

"Now what!?" I didn't say that out loud.

"The teacher said he left for pictures, it's group picture day, forty-five minutes ago and hasn't been seen since. You should go down to the multi-purpose room and look."

I went down, looked around, looked for a kid I knew, no luck. Of course the two teachers I bumped into are the two teachers that have most often had to call me. Turns out though that it was not JD's fault at all that he was not in class. He was right where he was supposed to be, front row, center and laying down in his sexiest man-boy pose.

I had him in my sights now. I waited for the photographer to finish and I zoomed in on my target. It was a ten step walk, but by the time I got to where he had been, he was gone. G-O-N-E. Nowhere to be seen, nowhere in the crowd. Oh, for pete's sake.

Back to the office now and the secretary sends me down to the classroom. After a few missteps, I hear him before I actually see him. I hear him because he is standing in the doorway of the class. He has his back to me, so I don't realize what's going on right away. A teacher that I don't recognize is there also, so I say, "I'll be needing this kid for just a minute."

"Are you the mom?" he asks. I nod. "Then I'll just let you take care of this," he says as he turns JD towards me and hands me a pair of scissors.

There was JD with his shirt caught on the space maintainer that he just had put in yesterday. He had been using his sleeve (of course his sleeve! What would anyone have used?!) to dry the appliance so he could put a little silicone on it. I took him out into the hall and started trying to cut the shirt out. It was quite a large bit of shirt wedged in there, so it took a minute to get it out. In the meantime a bit of a crowd gathered. I guess it's not every day that they see a lady with scissors in a kid's mouth.

After I cut the shirt out, and as I was saying to JD, "Here. Now take these.," one of the girls standing there turned and gave me a big hug. She announced the rest of the kids, "This lady remembers me from pre-school! I didn't remember her, but she remembered me! She's cool." Then she hugged me again.

Then JD put his arm around me and said, "Everyone, this is my Mom."

"You're JD's mom?" another kid said. "Hi JD's mom." A bit of a ruckus broke out then as more people started saying, "Hi," and at that point the teacher stuck his head out the door to see what the fuss was.

I decided that was my cue to get out of there. Before I got myself into Real Trouble.

Crabby is as Crabby does

I had Wednesday off this week to get a few things done around the house, get caught up on grad work and and get caught up on school work. I was humming along on those projects so well that I decided I deserved a nap. When I was woke up by the phone a short time later I decided I might as well pick up the main floor of our house. That turned out to be a bad decision.

I had been in a pretty good mood all day, but the more things I picked up, the more I realized I that almost everything I was picking up belonged to someone else. I live with a 45 year old, a 13 year old, and 11 year old and an 8 year old. All of those people are perfectly capable of cleaning up and picking up after themselves. I picked up cleats, socks, shin guards, books, notebooks, dirty clothes, water bottles, backpacks, lunch boxes, papers, markers, flip-flops, magic wands, hair ties, snack dishes, laundry, trash and recycling. In my frustration I took anything that wasn't mine and dumped it in the owner's bedroom. Unceremoniously.

I actually thought that bit might make me feel better. At least I wasn't taking care of it for them; I was just putting it where I didn't have to see it anymore. Unfortunately I didn't feel any better, so I tried a new tactic. I thought I'd go for giving myself a good talking to. I had been wishing, as I stomped around the house, that I lived alone. If I did, not only would my ipod be where I left it when I came back for it, but somebody else's ipod wouldn't be sitting on my counter when I wanted to prepare a meal on that counter. My new tactic for trying to shake off my bitter mood was to imagine what it would REALLY be like if I had to live alone.

Wouldn't I just feel awful if I suddenly had no family. Let's say (to avoid gross morbidity) that they were all whisked off to Mars tomorrow. Wouldn't I pine away after them wishing, to do anything, give up whatever, to have them back? Of course I would. If I was suddenly without them tomorrow, I would think that picking up their crap was a small price to pay for actually having my family with me.

That didn't work though. It never does. No matter how many close calls I might have with my family, or someone near us, and I have to try to remember what's really important, when they are on my last nerve, non of that Hallmark, forwarded email, post of the day crap does a bit of good. I'm still mad. No matter how much I love my family, I do not love being the maid. I do not love being invisible. And I do not love junk laying all over my house 20 minutes after I just picked it up.

Maybe this makes me a bad person (did you read my last post?!) but it's true. No amount of sweet thought is going to shake me out of feeling crabby about what I'm doing. Not even the guilt I felt for not shaking off the crabbiness when I remembered how much I love my family and would do anything if only the Martians would just give them back.

It's sad, but I'll tell you what would shake me out that mood. A hug and a kiss and a "Here, let me put that away for you."

Hmmmm, thank God for making them cute and snuggly.

I Am Not a Good Person

It's true. And I don't just say that to get a bunch of people to say, "Oh, come on! Of course you are a good person!" I'm not. I do good things, nice things, funny things, helpful things, caring things and even, on occasion, loving things. But I am not a good person. If I were to guess, I'd say I do about 90% of all these good things because I'm lazy. Sometimes I do the good because I'm afraid of something or because I keep hoping that eventually I'll be a good person, but mostly, I'm just lazy. It's never that I am actually Good.

I'm pretty honest. But honestly, that's just because I'm lazy. It's too much work to lie in the first place. It has to be plausible, and you have to tell it with conviction. Once you've sold it, then you have to keep it up. You have to keep track of what you said to whom; you have to be constantly on your guard. Ugh. That's a lot of work. I've also watched enough sitcoms in my life to know that it always ends badly and then there's the work of cleaning up the mess. See, being honest is the easy way out.

Laziness makes me a better parent too. It keeps me from being the sort who hovers; the kind who stays up all night glueing, sewing and nailing the Blue Ribbon Project together. It keeps me from signing my kids up for nine thousand activities. It keeps me from hanging around the soccer field to watch even every practice. Actually, the more I write, the more I realize I might not just be lazy, but selfish too.

I look like I'm a pretty helpful friend. Watch your kid? Sure! Pick up milk for you at the store? Anytime! Bake some food for PT conferences? No problem! But actually, it's all because I know darn well that I'll need someone to watch my kids eventually and pick up some milk for me and I dread the teachers feeling overwhelmed and quitting so I figure we should keep them well fed. See? Selfish.

Here's the point in the blog post where I should be making some witty or wise observation then that extends beyond the story or bits of story that I've just shared. Perhaps there is something spiritual or theological here, but I'd rather not go there. It's too much work and I'm in need of a little "Me time."

The Problem With God

I believe in a big God, a really big God, a God bigger than my imagination, which of course is a logical impossibility because how can you believe in something you can't imagine? I can't take on that conundrum today though.

The trouble with that God, the super incredibly big God, is that to really know him, see him, experience him, you have to stop trying to make your life be safe, risk free and predictable. You never really get to see a Big God when life is smooth, happy and "as planned." You learn About how big God is, how powerful, how loving, how awesome, and you Believe it in those easy times, but you don't Know it, until life gets serious.

When a loss, or even just an unpleasant surprise, comes along and reveals what you claimed to have known all along, that you're not in control of your life, you find out if you really believe it or not. Either God is big, or he's not. Either Jesus is creating and recreating and telling an amazing story of redemption, or he's not. There's no, "Well, in this time and place God is this or Jesus is that." Either all the time, in all the places it's true, or it's not true at all. And the only way to find out if it's true, if Love really wins, is to throw off, let go, be ripped from, all of the safety nets of knowing and controlling what will happen next.

It seems sort of odd to me, but to really be "in the know," you have to actually face the fact that you know nothing. For me, the only way it's going to happen that I admit that I know nothing, is if I have no other choice. And that is the problem with God. To quote CS Lewis, "It's not as if he were a tame lion."

Although, what would be the point if he were?

The Older Brother

Do you know the story of the Prodigal Son? Most people have at least heard the reference, even if they don't know the story. It's a beautiful story of redemption- my favorite kind of story. It's a weird redemption story though. In most stories the lost redeem themselves, but in this one the lost is redeemed before he even admits he's lost. It's also a weird story because there is another character in the story who just doesn't seem to have a real part to play, the older brother. Why the heck is the older brother in that story? If you don't know the story well, right at the end the Father's older son enters the scene. This is Mr. A1 Perfect Son who has been slaving away and following all the rules the whole time Loser Boy has been off partying. When he realizes that Loser Boy is getting a party for just showing up at home, he's more than a little hacked off about it. Can you blame him? Here he has been slaving away, following the rules as perfectly as he knows how and no one has bothered to recognize his efforts. The Father's response isn't especially helpful either. He doesn't suddenly realize that he's been neglecting Mr. A1 Perfect and offer to reward him in the manner he deserves; he doesn't even offer him any sympathy for pete's sake! Instead, all he says is "You are always with me and everything I have is yours." That sounds to me like he just affirmed that he's been taking his son for granted. The story is left unresolved as far as the older brother is concerned.

Thanks to
Dan Allender
I've been spending some time thinking about Mr. A1 Perfect. I think there are two groups of people that Jesus wanted to talk to when he snuck in the older brother bit of the story. Allender addresses the first group- Christians who don't have a lot of tolerance for the grace extended to all the Loser Boys of the world. They believe that grace is only for people who have jumped through the right hoops and then never mess up again. There's a lot that could be said to that group of people, after all that topic screams with the kind of irony that I enjoy.

I want to look, though, at a different group of people that Jesus might have wanted to talk to, a group of people that weren't even much in existence at the time he told the story. I think there are many nonreligous people who are also completely offended by the idea of grace. To them God and forgiveness don't make a bit of sense. Believing in a forgiving God just lets people pursue their worst behavior because they can just be forgiven for it later or better yet, they're forgiven for it before they even do it! If you're someone who just can't believe in God because the idea of being considered Loser Boy when you're doing the best you can, or if you can't believe in the grace of Jesus because it seems ridiculous to you that Loser Boy should get away with all the horrible things he's done, then I think Jesus might have been including you in his story.

Here's what he might have been saying to you. He might have been saying, "Relax! I've got this one. You are great and all that, but that's not why I love you. I love you because you're mine. Everything I have is yours. You're the one who insists on working so hard to get anyone to love you. I will love you for free, whether you work hard or not. My grace is for you too Mr. A1 Perfect, as abhorrent as that is to you, it's still true. You can keep on working hard to be fabulous, but when you're ready to rest, you can come to me, and all that I am is yours."

That's humbling, isn't it? I get that. True love IS humbling though. True love is always given whether you've earned it or not, and you have to humble yourself to receive it. Maybe that's why Jesus gives another teaching that so many Mr. and Mrs. A1 Perfects find difficult to take- become like little children. Children know how to accept love that they didn't earn. They even demand that you love them despite the fact that they just about killed you with those dang sharp cornered Legos that they left all over the floor. It's like that in the spiritual world too. If you want to see God, you're going to have to let the Grace of Jesus love you whether or not you've cleaned your plate, brushed your teeth and cleaned up your sharp cornered Legos.

Thanks Jo

It's probably over done, isn't it, writing about the end of Harry Potter? So, I won't. Although it soooo tempting.

I do want to say this though, Harry, JKR really, has given me many more gifts than just seven fine stories. I have loved the stories and suffer mostly deeply from Post Potter Depression at the end of each, but what these stories have brought into my life goes beyond that enjoyment, deeper and further.

I've said for years that it if weren't for Harry Potter I would be so old by now. HP has kept me young because so many of the fans are young. I get to listen to them talk about the books and the movies and the video games and through those conversations I also get to hear what they love, are excited about and passionate about. I've connected with my own children, my students, my baby sitters, my kids' friends, and random kids that I meet. I actually have one facebook friend that I met in multiple midnight openings of Harry Potter. Some of the kids barely meet the definition of kid, but if it weren't for Harry, our age difference might leave an insurmountable gap. The Harry Potter books give us a common experience to talk about the common experience of living in a way that so often eludes people of different generations.

It's thanks to a podcast called
Mugglecast
that I've learned about chat, U-stream, Twitter, Digg, Audible, and podcasting all before any of my friends from my own generation. (Well, except for Charlotte of course, which is no surprise since she sent me my first Harry Potter book.) I also learned about far less useful, but still interesting things like Comic-Con, fan fiction and shipping. (Look them up for yourself, urban dictionary
.)I also learned not to underestimate "kids." I have seen Harry Potter fans start and finish projects that many adults wouldn't be able to take on.

JKR gave me other, more important, gifts as well. The one that stands out most clearly in mind is really a gift she gave my children. Many people have complained over the years that the books are too dark for children; there's too much death. Unlike other authors, though, who delve into darkness that very few children actually have to deal with, Jo Rowling writes about a darkness we all have to face, the death of friends and family, our own death. We all face grief in life and how we face it shapes us for better or worse.

When a main character of the books died, my nine year old daughter built a shrine for him in her bedroom. The tears she cried were real. The loss of a fictional friend was no less acute for being fictional; it just didn't last as long. A few years later, however, when a classmate died, she knew about erecting monuments and gathering with friends to remember those who are no longer with us.

Two Christmases ago my son bought a pet snake that had been hatched in his classroom. He loved that snake in a way that makes no sense to me. It can't love you back, you can't cuddle with it, you can't even play with it really. But for whatever reason, JD loved that snake. Just a few days after this last Christmas I heard a horrified scream from my upstairs. I could just tell that it wasn't the usual hollering that comes with having three children. I ran up the stairs to see JD limply dangling the dead snake in his hands. The anguished look on his face dropped my guts to my toes.

It took a long time of just sitting with him as he cried over the snake before he was ready to move on to some kind of closure for this snake's life. You remember that it was just past Christmas when this happened, right? And we live in the great white North, so burying the snake was quite an involved processes. We had to scrape away snow, build a little fire in the ground to thaw it, and then dig a hole. JD wanted to do it all himself. Before all this he first made a little casket lined with the pocket from the sweatshirt where he used to carry the snake. I tried to offer to help and I was brushed away. So I sat there helpless in the snow watching my son try to work through his tears to dig a hole in the frozen ground with one hand, while holding a snake casket in the other. As I watched, I kept thinking of Harry digging a grave for Dobby (don't scold me for spoiling the book for you; you should have read it by now) without the help of magic. Of Ron and Dean putting little socks and a hat on him. Of Luna closing his eyes. JD had learned from Harry that the way you grieve a friend is to pour yourself into a task.

I wish there was a way that I could really thank Jo for what she's given me, but I actually think she knows. She knows because it's not just me. She's received hundreds, thousands, of letters from fans thanking her for the same things I would thank her for.

Waiting...

I'm sitting at my kitchen table waiting for an 11:00 news conference. I'm waiting to hear who died. I'm waiting to hear if it's a child I know, or a child my daughters know. But really, this is not going to be good news no matter what. I'm really waiting to see if the grief is going to come to my house or to someone else's house.

How is it that I will be able to feel relief that my house has been spared, when I already know that someone else's house has not been spared? For certain the families of the children are already living with death. Even if all my daughters' friends have been spared, someone's friend is never coming over to play again. Is my hope that we will not know these children essentially a wish for grief to visit someone else? "Not here, not here, not here!" really means, "Over there, over there, over there..." Somehow that just doesn't seem right.

I can't stop those feelings though. It's impossible. I mean, who welcomes grief?

It might be too soon for me to be posting about this, but my head is all mixed up and I had to work it out somewhere. Waiting...

The Enemy of Great

Do you know that expression, "Good is the enemy of Great?" It sounds good doesn't it? I mean, everyone knows we're a country of slackers who want to get the most while doing the least. Everyone knows that if we just worked a bit harder and stretched ourselves a bit further we could... Oh, I don't know; you finish that sentence.

It's taken me a long time to figure out why I was so fed up with and annoyed by that expression. Now I've come to realize that it's actually the word "Great" that is driving me crazy. We've veered off the path towards a Greatness that really matters and are settling for a Faux Great that is breathtaking, but empty- like a movie set. To achieve a kind "Great" that is rich, full, complex and complete, I think the expression should be "Efficiency is the enemy of Great." Or at least it should be in my two lines of work.

Have you ever tried to rush a two year old or a preschooler out the door in the morning? They don't rush. The more you try to rush them, the less they move. It's shocking how many tiny distractions they can find for every, "Come on! We have to go!" that you through out. As your blood pressure went up and up and their little heels dug further in, did you find yourself being less than "Great" as you screamed, they cried and you all got in the van out of breath?

Have you ever tried to get a middle schooler efficiently through an afternoon of sports, homework and church activities? Did you feel less than "Great" when you realized that in six hours of nagging and coaxing you finally had the kid off to bed and all the work completed, but without ever hearing what was on his heart? Did the glow of accomplishment grow dim as you double checked that the homework was in the backpack only to find a note from a friend/enemy/teacher sharing news of real importance that your child hand never had a chance to share with you?

In my other job, fifth grade teacher, it's even worse. I can go whole days, even weeks, charging through lessons in place value, spelling rules, and causes of the seasons without ever once taking time to listen to the story of the birthday party over the weekend or worse yet, the loss of the pet/grandparent/brother. What kind of loss am I creating with my "Just a minute," and "Not right now?"

To the outside world any of my kids' test scores, report cards and achievements, at home or school, could make it look like I was "Great," but I don't think that's the measuring stick I want to be measured by. I know how naive and sappy that sounds. I also know that it sounds like a cop out, a lazy, slacker path. But sometimes what's true doesn't sound like common sense.

I need to be less efficient in both jobs. Kids need space and time to move, to breathe, to unfold, and they need to do it by their own internal clocks. Kids tell you what's on their hearts when they have the need, not when you have the time. They need you to be present, which means no multi-tasking while you listen, hold, love them.

Raising humans is the opposite of efficient. It's messy. It's circular. It's erratic. It's chaotic. Raising "Great" humans flies in the face of many of business's best practices. That feels scary. Good business practices can be easily measured; you can quickly tell if you're doing the job right. It requires little or no faith; just input the right formulas and the perfect widget will pop out the other side.

Humans, kids, aren't business goals, aren't machines, aren't put on earth for the purpose of producing anything. I personally believe they were put here for the delight and joy of their Creator, but even if you don't believe that, you have to see people as being something greater than product that they can offer to a world with far too many products already.

I say, go ahead, give in to that urge to take the long way, to say "No" to one more thing, to cut the to-do list in half. If you get really good at it, then you could write a best seller called, "Efficiency is the enemy of Great!" but you probably won't have time.

Gifts

It's been quite a spring for me, as teacher. The world of education has been truly up in arms. There has been protesting and letter writing and facebooking and phone call campaigns, all trying to make education a financial priority and teaching a profession to respect within the circles of power across the country.

In the middle of all of this I was asked to take on two projects for my daughters' school. The first project was to put together a memory book for a 4th-6th grade teacher who was retiring after 43 years of teaching. My job was to take stories that former students posted to facebook and combine them with pictures into a digital scrapbook. Within minutes of agreeing to take on that project I was asked to do the program for the 1st-3rd grade play. That project involved interviewing each and every one of 74 cast members.

For a moment, and then again at various times, I was overwhelmed by what I had agreed to do. I took these projects on at the time of year when the responsibilities for my own classroom are immense. What was I thinking?!

I have never been so grateful that I agreed to do something crazy. Both of those projects turned out to be much greater gifts to me than I was to them. As I interviewed each little kid about why they liked being in the play, what they liked to do for fun and who they would like to thank for helping them out in life, I was reminded of the person that each student is. Each person in my classroom, in every classroom, is a little, and sometimes not so little, person in his or her own right. Each one of them is someone's daughter, son, grandchild, friend. None of them is a reading score or a math score. They are lovers of games and books, of music and tricks. They loved being in the play because they got to express themselves, to sing, to show emotion, to pretend to be someone else. Most of them gave thanks to their family members, but a few gave thanks to their teachers. One little girl said, "I'd like to thank Mrs. Hall for having me in her class. She's a good teacher because she sounds like a teacher and she works good like a teacher should."

I wonder what she'll be saying about her teachers 43 years from now. I might have gotten a peek at that future. I was born the year Mr. Huyser started teaching, so as I prepared the memory book, I read stories from many people who are my age. They were thinking back over almost a whole life time, and what do they remember? They do remember a few things that they were taught. They remember that they had to learn to do their times table in two minutes or less, and be able to name all 50 states. A few mentioned books that Mr. H. read to them. But that's about it. What I read was page after page of memories of places they went and adventures they had bike riding, camping, dog sled races. I also read about lessons learned in how to treat people and how to treat yourself. I read about how he touched them by believing in them when it seemed like no one else did. After 43 years or 15 years or 3 years, what they remembered was how he touched their hearts.

As I worked on these projects I frequently found myself in tears. Sometimes they were tears of laughter, "I'd like to thank Michael Jackson," one first grader said. Other times they were tears of sadness. Sadness because I saw Mr. Huyser's retirement as something bigger, the passing of an era. It seems the time for building, growing people of character, bright, unique humans has past into history. It feels to me that my job now is to create workers, cogs, efficient producers of goods and services.

Sometimes though, I cried because I was inspired and touched. I was so inspired by the stories of the past generation and the thoughts of the current generation, that I welled up frequently as I worked. At 16 years into teaching I needed to be reminded of what's important. I may have been given a very different job to do than teachers of 40 years ago, but nothing and no one can stop me from being a good teacher. No one can stop me from treating children in a way that they will still remember 43 years from now how they felt in my class and how they were taught to treat others. No one can stop me from believing in each and every kid regardless of how she looks on paper. I don't need anyone in the circles of power to value what I do in order for it to make a difference in the circles that really matter.

True Story

I loaded up my van tonight at about 6:45 with five seventh grade boys. We headed out to pick up one eighth grader who had forgotten to tell his mom that he needed a ride. He was punished by the other boys by being forced to sit center back, also known as the squeezy seat. We were headed to a teen center type place that had opened recently to celebrate JD's 13th birthday.

The van was filled with the sounds of all the boys trying to gossip over each other. I heard about the boy from their school who is in trouble with the law, a girl whose birthday was celebrated by the entire cafeteria, how one of the boys had wormed his way into the Senior's year book pictures, and a shouting match about who was better- seventh or eighth graders. "Seniors," won.

Even though it's early March, it was raining quite hard and was fairly warm out and with all that talking and breathing going on, my windows were quickly fogged up. I cranked up the defrost in an effort to see where I was going. Where WAS I going? "By the way Mom, you know the 3Mile Project isn't actually on 3 Mile?"

"No, I didn't actually know that. Well we'll find it I guess. Your dad found it a few weeks ago." I slowed down to take the exit my husband had told me to take and peered out the still fogged windows. "Boys, you're just going to have to stop breathing; I can't see." No reply, not even a chuckle. I felt the skin on my face blister and start to peel from the heat of the defroster, so I rolled down the windows.

I turned onto 3 Mile Rd and saw a long line of cars waiting to turn left at the first street. "Is that it JD? It must be with all the cars."

"No, it was further on. Plus, there's semis in that line, why would they be there?"

"Because the place is a rehabbed warehouse and there are probably other warehouses on the street," I think, but don't say. What I do say is, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure." There was general agreement from the other boy who had gone before.

We drove on a bit until we came to a light. "It's either down here or this is the street it wasn't on and we had to turn around."

"How far do I go before I quit," I ask.

"Far. Oh wait, not far. Where's the Cheese Kurlz factory? Oh there's the bridge we saw before when we realized this was the wrong road and turned around."

I turn around.

"It must be this next one," my darling son said. I was soon going to hate those words. We drove down every street along that mile stretch of road, finally coming out on another road several miles back towards my house. I had started calling my husband back at the first wrong turn, but I got no answer. Later he told me that I only called three times, but I would have sworn I call every three minutes. Finally I called my sister. With the power of Google, she could help me from Minnesota.

The boys had looked on their registration forms and found the name of the road, but we just couldn't seem to find it. I was driving hunched forward over the steering wheel trying to see, eyes dried and face flaming from the heat, and ears pierced from the noise. "Look at the road signs boys, Aunt Christi says it's past Bristol." Bristol, by the way was that first wrong road we had gone down, the road we wanted was before that one, or now that we'd gone so far, past it.

"There it is! I told you it would be the next street!" Well, with a prediction like that, a kid has to be right eventually. "Turn left."

I turn left and go maybe two tenths of a mile. "Look around geniuses! What do you see!? I believe we should have turned right back there, not left." I head back to 3 Mile to cross to the other side.

We pulled up to the intersection and I looked across the street. What do you know, we were right back where I had seen all the cars and thought we should probably turn way back 15 minutes before. What are the odds that my son will change his know-it-all ways?

Whatcha Shoulda Done Is...

My family and I are going to Orlando in a few weeks. We plan to go to Universal Studios to see Harry Potter World, to Downtown Disney to see Cirque du Soleil and to Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner. Right now, many of you are thinking, "Oh, what you really need to do while you're there is..." And I'm more or less fine with that. My friends Charlotte and Sue, for example, have given me many great suggestions over the years that have made my vacations awesome.

What's really going to drive me crazy is what's going to happen after I purchase the Cirque tickets or choose my day to go to HP World, or even when I tell about my trip after I get back. That's when someone, or in reality, several someones, are going to say, "Oh, that's great! What you should have done though is.... then you would have really gotten a great deal, had a great time, whatever."

What IS UP with that?! What good does your information do me now except to make my experience seem less great that I had been thinking it was right before you said that?! It's not like I can take your advice for "next time." There is no next time! These are the kinds of trips and activities you do once. (Except, this is going to be my third dinner and Boma. I never thought I'd be the kind of person who has a favorite Orlando restaurant, but that's a different post.)

The same thing happens after you make a big purchase decision. Inevitably someone will say, "Oh, did you know you could have gotten that Apple computer for less if you had worked angle blah blah blah?" Or, you comment that you really enjoyed the show you saw in Chicago and someone says, "I've heard that's a great show, but you really should have made time for..."

"You paid how much for those plane tickets? You could get a great deal if you went to 'Imsuchabetterdealfinderthanyou.com."

"Skiing at Boyne last weekend? Did you know you could have used Shell Gas coupons and skied for free?"

"Huh. You paid XYZ for your replacement windows? My neighbor got his from Window Huckster for only PDQ."

Actually, it's not limited to big purchases. Have you ever bought new shoes only to be told how there was a great sale on them at some store other than where you bought them? Does the person really think that this is helpful? Does she really expect that you're going to take back the pair of shoes that you got for $40 and then go buy them somewhere else for $30? My time is worth more than $10 an hour! (Although, not according to the Gov. of WI and Fox News pundits, but again, I'm dipping into other posts.) I was enjoying my shoes plenty, no matter how much I spent on them, thank you very much. Now that you've opened your big mouth I can no longer enjoy my shoes; instead, I have to devote my energies to deciding whether or not I should take them back and go get a better deal, or should I just sulk over my inability to get a good deal in the first place?!

I'm starting to feel that this isn't really about you helping me at all. It's about me helping you feel like a smarter/better/cooler person, whether I want to help you with that or not. That's really what this is, isn't it? Not that most people would admit it, but we all feel like losers to some extent. We second guess ourselves and doubt our own worth. The quickest and easiest way to feel less like a loser is to at least be less of a loser than someone else. It's such a hard drug to avoid isn't it?

Gifts

It's still a month to my birthday, but my husband is a bit of an impulse shopper, so I already have my present. I got a new composter.

No, this is not going to be a post about lame-brained husbands and their idiotic gifts. I was actually thrilled. I already have a composter, but there are many things that I don't like about it. It's ugly; it's too tall for the kids to really get the scraps into, it's rusty and falling apart; it's taller than my fence and my neighbor has to look at it. I've had it for a long time and I've wanted a new one almost since I got this one. I couldn't ever get a new one though because there was nothing really wrong with the one I had. I'm against replacing perfectly usable items, especially when there's nothing to be done with it except use it to increase the size of an already too large landfill.

Russ' gift wasn't really the composter, it was freedom from guilt. I don't have to feel bad about getting rid of the ugly composter and putting in the low profile new composter. I don't have to feel bad about spending money to get something that I don't really need. I don't even have to feel guilty about the fate of the old composter; Russ already told me that the old composter had to go and that I'm not allowed to try and turn it into planter or some other form of repurposing.

The reason that this perfectly practical gift is a joy and not a curse is because it has what all good gifts have, deep knowledge by the giver of the receiver. My husband knows me. He knows that I would not go out and buy a composter when the one we have is fine, even with a hole. He knows this because I won't go out and buy new laundry baskets even though the ones I have have broken handles. I can't get rid of them because where would they go?! My husband knows that what I really need for my birthday is a break from guilt and always trying to do the right thing. Knowing that he knows what's important to me and knowing that he knows what makes me tick, makes me feel as loved as any fancy, frilly, romantic gift.

The only tiny sadness to the gift was that I had planned to ask for a new storm door for the front door. Oh well, Mother's Day is not too long after my birthday.

The Good Dishes

I'm not saying that other people's way is wrong here, it's just not for me. I loath plastic dishes. Plastic storage containers, love 'em, but not dishes. And that includes the utensils and glasses. It's not a health issue or an environmental issue or any other high minded ideal. I just don't like the look and feel of them. I'd rather drink out of a re-purposed glass jar than a plastic cup. I'll pick the itty bitty glass wine glass over the mongo plastic wine "glass."

This plan to use glass and ceramic ware was simply a matter of taste for quite a few years. There were no consequences one way or the other. Then I had children. At my baby shower I received plastic dishes and plastic sippy cups and plastic utensils. I used them for awhile. You know how it is when you're first starting out in parenting, all the little baby gadgets are kind of fun, and those no-spill sippy cups are genius. When kid number two came along however, I was over a lot of things. Plastic dishes were one of them. (Although the genius sippy cups got a pass.) I started setting the table with the same dishes for everyone.

I didn't have the sort of dishes a person would be attached to or proud of. I believe my mom collected them a few at a time in a grocery store deal when I was still in middle school. It's a good thing too, because it wasn't long before those babies were old enough to start helping out with the dinner clean up and I watched my supply of dishes quickly become depleted. Not that the kids were the first ones to break dishes; my husband and I are pretty clutzy ourselves. Eventually I didn't even have enough plates or glasses to set the table for a couple of guests.

For my 34th birthday, after 10 years of marriage, I asked for and received a new set of plates and bowls. This was a good time to rethink my aversion to plastic. My children were five, three, and unborn at the time. I could keep the new, very awesome, dishes only for adults, or only for guests. I really liked these new dishes. I liked that I had gotten to pick them out myself. I liked that they were bold colors and had a handmade look. I liked that they came in six different colors and made the table look cheery in any season.

That love was the downfall of the dishes. And when I say downfall, think, slipping from small fingers, crashing into sinks, falling to the floor, being knocked off of tables. I could have gone back to plastic and kept the dishes safe so that I could enjoy them far into the future. I didn't. And I'm not sorry.

I went the route of enjoying the dishes now. I set my table with those cheery dishes each night and smiled at the sight of them. When they got broke, I did feel sad, but I moved on pretty fast. Eventually I took advantage of their mix match appearance and started filling in the set with odds and ends I picked up at Goodwill, or on clearance here and there. I decided spending big money on dishes was a stress I didn't want in my life. I wanted a colorful table set with real dishes. I wanted dishes that said dinner was important and the time together was to be valued.

I get a finite number of dinners with my family, and nobody is telling what that number is, so I want dinner time to matter. If I saved the good dishes back so that I would be able to enjoy them long into the future, who would I enjoy them with?

Snow

New Year' Eve dawned. Right, there's no way to actually finish that sentence because New Year's Eve never really did dawn; there was just a lessening of the dark by a bit. It was gray, wet, ugly and warm. Yes, warm, in Michigan on December 31st. It was so warm that I had to go out and buy ice for my cooler to keep all my New Year's Eve drinks cold. The mud, puddles and smell of damp put me in a foul mood. It was so ugly out that I felt like yelling at someone.

I won't say that all that warm rain ruined New Year's Eve; I am a woman who knows how to rise above her circumstances. I will say though, that on the evening of New Year's Day as we walked out into a gorgeous snow globe world in my friends' front yard, my girls and I were moved to break into song on the front porch. I hadn't even know that snow was predicted and it was a lovely surprise.

Now I'm sitting on the front edge of "the storm of the century," and I say, "Bring it!" I'm so excited that we might get a foot of snow. The only thing I like more than a foot of snow... is two feet of snow! I love how quiet it is when it's snowing. Cars go by and you don't even hear them. It's a kind of quiet that you don't get in modern times. When I'm out in the snow I don't hear that hum that is a constant part of modern life.

Snow is magical; it turns ugly lumps of old lawn furniture in my back yard into smooth, elegant statues. It covers my many landscaping sins in a blanket of diamonds. Snow and ice make the sad looking bare branches of the maples and oaks sparkle and shine with joy. Mountains appear where there once was flat, barren parking lot.

I used to hear people say, "At least you don't have to shovel it," whenever it rained in the winter, but if it weren't for the fact that we have to get out and shovel, I'd never see my neighbors all winter long. We may not stand out and chat as long as we do in the summer, but at least we check in a bit. I love how all the old guys with big snowblowers come out and try and outdo each other clearing sidewalks and old lady's mailboxes. I also love that shoveling snow is a good reason to let myself off the hook from having to work out!

So, I'm going to build a fire, pour a glass of wine, let my son stay up late and enjoy the forced slowdown to life that a good winger storm brings. Unless, of course, the power goes out, but I won't be able to post a blog about that so you'll never hear me whining.