clearview

Reprise: Carefree Highway

2013-01-24T09:07:00.000-06:00

Standing at the bus stop this morning in 19 degrees Fahrenheit, too cold for the Girl to take her hands out of her pockets and read. So we talked ... an unusual thing for the bus stop, this year, this last year. Part of the price of her growing up, I guess.

Where did all the snow go?

Melted already. There was only half an inch to start with.

Why wasn't there more?

I don't know. I don't think the meterologists expected us to get half an inch, and there for a while, watching it snow from the living room window, I thought we might get more. Half an inch, 22 inches, sometimes they just miss it.

22 inches of snow. That would be fun.

And I thought of this ...

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I don't remember how long it went on or how many different places we slept.

After a week or so Mom decided it would be safer to split up, so the Shrimp and I went home with the Society Editor. A bubbly, chubby blonde, she lived in a tiny burg just a few miles north of the University. She parked her lemon-pie yellow Mach II Mustang on a gravel pad in front of the matching 1930's cottage. Her parents lived on one side, her brother on the other, all three houses backed up to the brushy end of a small pasture. The barn was barely visible in the dusk, silhouetted against the brightly lit sign from the convenience store on the highway.

I woke up the first morning thinking things were too quiet, the traffic too mute, the birds too silent. Slid out of bed, careful to avoid waking my sister. Looked out the window: snow. Crawling back under the covers, turned the clock radio on low and listened as the announcer droned soporific through the list of closings and cancellations.

Hours later, we got up to find a note on the fridge. Be back later. Make yourselves at home.

Too young to drive, all our friends a forbidden long-distance call away ....

The Shrimp curled up in the den and turned on the TV, a day of game shows and soaps in mind.

I laid in the hall next to the blazing floor grate, pulling trash novels from the adjacent bookshelf one after another. After a couple of hours I donned my sneakers and coat to stand onto the porch, watching the fat white flakes fall from the sky. I walked down the stairs, across the gravel, and along the ditches to the Buzz Buy, bought a Dr. Pepper from the fountain. Took the shortcut back through the pasture, walking along and climbing over the fence into the backyard.

I went inside, into the dark formal living room, left the wet shoes and socks and coat at the door. Started riffling through the LPs. Carole King, Stevie Nicks, Jim Croce, the Eagles, Joan Baez, Gordon Lightfoot, Gordon Lightfoot, Gordon Lightfoot.

Picked one at random. Slid the thin black disc out of its crackling sleeve and onto the turntable, deep in the walnut console. Set the needle. Discovered I did know Gordon Lightfoot after all.

Standing at the window, I watched the snow fall, leaving only shadows of my footprints as it accumulated.

Stay Away From Carnivores

2012-10-19T13:59:00.006-05:00

Last night, as the Girl and I drove back from the stable we listened to the beginning of the Cardinals game on the radio.

How many games are left?

I shrugged. Depends on how they play. They have to win 2 more in this series to go on. So it could be 11, it could be 3, or any number in between.

Who will they play in the World Series?

Don’t know. New York or Detroit.

Not Texas?

No, it’s the Yankees or the Tigers.

I hope not the Tigers.

Why not?

She looked at me as if it were obvious. Tigers eat Birds.

(yes, more than 47,. Go Redbirds!)

Using Action Verbs to Tell What is Happening

2012-10-16T21:21:00.000-05:00

Typical evening, kitchen: The Boy, reading the Wall Street Journal. Me, on the window seat looking for a word in VHTGQIE.

The Girl wandered in, looked at us, sighed. Thrust a worksheet at me.

Observe someone working or playing. Write 5 sentences describing what the person did.

Maybe Not Scot Free

2012-10-14T20:45:00.000-05:00

Thursday afternoon, at school. My pocket is ringing.

I fumble to hush it. Slippery, the iPhone leaps, landing back centered on a granite tread.

Got off Scot free that time.

Today.

G noticed the fractured pattern of the translucent case, peeled it away.

Tiny crystalline shards rained.

Phrenology

2012-10-11T08:07:00.000-05:00

At the salon, they give herbal-scented head massages. Eyes closed, focusing on rhythmic fingers, I imagine the stylist inventorying my personal qualities. Hmm … that giraffe bump says Imitative, the one behind the ear Combative; another rise further back: a loyal friend. Mirthful, not … hmm …

Reading with the Flashlight

2012-10-10T09:18:00.000-05:00

I forgot to set the alarm. I have to wake the Boy. Edging out of the warm sanctuary of my afghan, I walk into the dark hall. A faint strip of light crosses the oak planks from the Girl’s bed, turns up the wall. I leave her.

K-k-k-kickstart

2012-10-08T12:16:00.001-05:00

I need a match I need a spark Kick back like a hammerhead shark ....

Hard to restart after stopping. Need a muse, a meme, a challenge. Perhaps the hard limit is where to start. But what number is the right one?

That is so obvious, isn’t it?

Change in the Weather

2012-10-05T16:55:00.002-05:00

Autumn has fallen in earnest. Grey skies weeping cold rain, dragging the first metamorphized leaves to the ground.

Is metamorphized even a word? Should I test it in Scrabble or Words with Friends with the Z on every bench for every one of my nine games?

This morning I awoke before the alarm that was set an hour earlier than normal, an hour earlier, an hour darker, but I was awake anyway. The Girl and I, running early for the Abraham Lincoln marathon field trip's before school departure, stopped for cake donuts. Sitting here, I wonder how that's going in the rain. I wonder if they'll be even close to their scheduled arrival back at school tonight.

Driving back to the neighborhood, the first raindrops splattering on the Miata's windshield, I realized my plan for the day was being actively thwarted by weather. Leaving her at the shop three blocks for the house, I half ran back to gather the Boy and take him on the city bus to school for the first time. As we walked the two blocks down Grand, he smiled. That was easy. Should I ride it home?

Rain, Rain, Rain. Walking in the rain, I wonder what happened to all our umbrellas. The Girl lost her striped one, and I visualize the Boy's green one in the rear floorboard of the truck that the Husband drove to work. My red and white one was ripped inside out like a cartoon as I stood at the bus stop with it last year .... or was it the year before. Maybe I should buy a new one with my birthday money. I think about this more as I walk another three blocks to fetch the Miata. Yes, I should. Or I should at least wear the black and blue Stearns rain jacket I found at the resale shop, like new, for $3.

Yesterday it was 80 and tonight it's supposed to be in the 30s so I need to bring the plants in. I've been waiting for a break in the rain. And here it is, along with John Fogerty on the radio.

Reprise: the Lorraine

2012-09-25T12:51:00.000-05:00

Between third year and fourth year, the Boyfriend-who-is-now-the-Husband took a summer job in Memphis. I stayed in Fayetteville to work and take two semesters of structures.

Every couple of weeks I traded shifts with friends to get several days off in a row, and I'd drive down after closing the store at 11 p.m. The cool night air whipped through the open windows of the Omni as I wound down the Pig Trail, Indigo Girls blasting, singing at the top of my lungs. At Ozark, I rolled the windows up and got on I-40 east, over Lake Dardanelle, through Conway and North Little Rock, past Prothro Junction to areas largely unknown. Before that summer, I had been to Memphis a mere handful of times.

Driving through the flats of the Delta seemed to take forever. I stopped at every Delta Express to stretch my legs and grab Cokes and snacks. I drafted along behind convoys of eighteen wheelers, my little car shuddering faintly but its small engine easing. Finally, we crossed the Big Muddy and dropped into the city, the deserted streets punctuated by stoplights. To the leafy streets of Midtown, and the tiny apartment cut into the back of a white-columned house. Into his arms to sleep.

One day while he was at work, I drove around downtown, the windows rolled up, the air conditioner struggling against the humidity and the heat. Got a little lost, honestly, had no real idea where I was. Came to a stop sign and noticed an old black man with a Folger's can and a sign Contribute to the Civil Rights Museum. Behind him, a chain link fence around an old motel. It hit me suddenly: this is where it happened. Martin Luther King was standing on that balcony when ...

I heard on the radio yesterday that King was 39 when he was shot. The age the Husband is now, the age I will be by year's end.

Too young.

(Originally published April 5, 2008. Republished today in honor of the Little Rock Nine.)

Walking along the Artist's Way

2012-06-14T12:18:00.002-05:00

My mom did an Artist's Way course years ago. She called me. You need to do this.

I said, Sometime when I have the time, not really meaning it. When would I have the time?

But now there's a new online Artist's Way Toolkit, and as part of the BlogHer review program, I was offered trial access to it. So I've been working with it for a couple of weeks, seeing how it works for me.
In essence, the Toolkit is an online journaling facilitation system. The design is reminiscent of a journal, with limited personalization options for background (I chose grid, just like my Moleskines) and fonts (Trebuchet, of course).

The first tab is labelled the Artist's Date, and is fundamentally a weeklong assignment to go somewhere and do something presumably out of the norm. For example, June 4-10 I was to "go to a candy shop and buy yourself some of your favorite kind of childhood candy." I found myself thinking about Marathon bars and how I haven't seen one in years. These have been fun and will result in some great blog posts once I have time to work through them.

The next tab is to the Artist's Way Exercises. These are writing assignments that are more about therapeutic problem solving than creative exploration. For example, the first week I was to "Take my artist for a walk" and "record reflections" made on the walk. I'm not really a very introspective person, so I found these to be really difficult because it's just so obvious in some senses. I've been trying but rarely get more than a sentence or two.

The last two sections are for Creativity Pages and Creativity Notes. The first is supposed to be more creative snippets, images and written; the second, more of an annotative note taking system. I don't find myself really using those, partially because I don't really see a difference between the two in my process.

There are two little pockets on the left hand side of the Journal page labelled Creative Affirmation and Creative Soundbites. Like the Exercises, these are a bit touchy feely for me, particularly the Soundbites, which are also rather New Age in their combination of affirming words and ethereal background music. Maybe some people need that to feel good about and focus their energies. There have been times I needed that as well. At this point, however, I'm more about putting on some jazz.

The Morning Pages are the other part of the system, to be completed off line. This has been where I've really fallen down. As she describes: "Put simply, morning pages are three pages of longhand morning writing." From reading over at the BlogHer post for the week, I've discovered I'm not alone in this.

I thought I was being so clever - I assigned the Boy to do morning pages with me. Yeah, come on, sit down with your notebook, let's write.

The problem is, of course, that by the time he's up, I've already had two cups of coffee, taken his sister to camp, washed dishes and two loads of laundry, sent 10 emails to clients, checked my online classroom to make sure my students are on track. When I wake up, I'm ready for action, not words. I'm not in the mood to do stream of consciousness writing. I've found myself sitting there staring into the blank pieces of paper, being frustrated because there are things I want to write about, and things I need to write about, and lots of other things to do. I think I just need to time shift it to a place where I'm more mentally suited to doing it, but when in the life of a busy working mom does that happen?

And that's really the biggest issue for me with the structure of the Toolkit. It just takes time. Over the few days, as I've been trying to wrap a project in addition to the usual insanity, I've had few moments to pursue it. I've jotted a few notes for the current Artist's Date assignment - I really do love that prompt - but for people who have schedules determined by other people's lives, it's a hard thing to do. One thing that I have learned from the Toolkit is that I don't necessarily lack things to write about or connection to my inner artist - what I lack is unprogrammed time that is mine to give.

Yes, this is a paid review for the BlogHer Book Club, but what you see on this page is what I think about the book. If you want to read what others think, wander over to the main BlogHer Book Club page and join the conversation.

10 on Tuesday: the Little Things

2012-06-12T09:45:00.001-05:00

The ladder-rungs of sunshine on the floor of the bathroom.
The wind in my hair as I rode helmetless this morning.
The smile on the face of a Forest Park worker after I thanked him for picking up trash.
The quiet serenity of horses grazing.
The green aroma of fresh mown grass.
The smell of baking banana bread.
The whistle of my teakettle.
The easy swing of the laundry room door after the Husband fixed it yesterday.
The enthusiastic, audible puckering of the fish as I open the lid of the aquarium to feed them.
The lazy silent thumping of a striped tail against the tile as Mary lies in the sun in the floor of the bathroom.

Wishes We Could Ride

2012-06-07T09:30:00.000-05:00

My dad told me once that you could have kids when you were young enough to enjoy them, or when you were old enough to afford them.

I ponder that a lot, and not just in terms of homework, statistics or the general insanity/paranoia of society. I don't believe in the American Suburban Dream; I don't buy into the notion that a huge house and yard are necessary to raising children.

The Husband and I waited a long time to start a family - the Boy was born 13.25 years after our first date, 7 1/2 after we got married. Part of the reason for that was our uncertainty that we wanted children; the other, the desire to have professional licenses and careers in order before we went down that road.

Implicit there, in my view, was that once we did have children I wouldn't have to deny them anything. Not in terms of the newest video games or the fanciest clothes. But in terms of experiences. Nice vacations, which I can only count a single handful before adulthood. Lessons. That sort of thing.

That's not the way it's worked out. It's nobody's fault, really. It's just the way it is, part of the Grand Illusion: photographs of how your life should be, someone else's fantasy.

The reason it's become an issue?

The Girl has gone horsey on me.

I kind of suspected she would at some point. It's in our veins, the horsey-ness: Mom, Talon, me. At the Girl's age I had already devoured every volume, fiction or nonfiction, about horses in my suburban elementary school library. Not that there were many. But my signature was the one repeated, time after time, on the checkout cards. I found a way to work a horse into every backyard game, into every walking-to-school fantasy.

But I never had a horse, or horseback riding lessons. I did go to the equestrian sessions at Girl Scout camp, until boy craziness overtook my otherwise good senses and I decided to go to Band Camp instead. I don't know that I got enough time on Slobber Wall to make up for that decision, but that's another story.

So now the Girl brings home books of horse breeds. What do you think, Mom? Wouldn't a deep bay Morgan be the thing? oh, and look, here's a picture of the grey Fjords like Ms. L told us about when we were riding.

Yes, sweetie, they'd be splendid. All of them, any of them, gentle with big brown eyes, four hooves and a long, swishing tail, and a velvety nose that pushes your hand open seeking the carrot inside.

They'd be wishes we could ride.

Ten for Tuesday: 1st Week of Summer Randomness

2012-06-05T16:23:00.002-05:00

Random musings from the South Grand Bread Company:

There's a guy over by the iced coffee dispenser writing on plain white paper in large cursive with a black Sharpie. Every time I walk by he's accumulated a few more curlycue adorned pages. His wooden cane is inlaid with dominoes.
Tonight is the Transit of Venus, and instead of going to the Chess Club and playing chess - which will be the usual Tuesday night routine - we're headed to Forest Park to the Science Center's setup to see it. And then maybe we'll play chess sitting in the grass on the hill at the World Fair Pavilion overlooking the lake and the sunset. Or maybe we'll run and play in the fountain instead.
I'm working off-site in the afternoons to save time driving back and forth from taking and fetching kids from their summer programs. The Girl has to be picked up at SLU at 5:00; the Boy from his 3-hour theater camp off South Grand at 5:30. This is all fine, of course: my cup of coffee costs less that driving back and forth, back and forth, not even including my time ... except I forgot the project file I needed to do the most urgent task on my list. So I'm doing less important things first. Which is, of course, illogical.
I hate 90% of online videos, especially the boring corporate training sorts. And don't get me started on webinars. I'd rather eat toenail clippings.
The Boy and I met friends for lunch today. She's an engineer, so we have lots in common workwise to talk about, and our sons have known each other at least since preschool, been Scouts together, played basketball together. It's harder to stay in touch now that they're at different schools, in different troops, but there was some conversation about letting them meet at the park or go to a movie or something over the summer months, at least.
What's been going on in front of your place lately? she asked. I saw it on the news and a car crash while I was taking C to school one morning. The car crash was, of course, our car being totalled. Turns out - not counting our car, which was crashed into the morning of the last day of March - in the month of April there were five accidents on our block of Kingshighway - just in our block. What are the police doing about it? Nothing.
Speaking of the Boy, we've assigned him the task of cleaning the house over the summer as a natural consequence of his acting on the thought I just won't do what I don't want to do. So far, so good: four days, four clean rooms. He even used the vacuum cleaner today, a first. What is it about boys and vacuums? The Punk Stepfather claimed a phobia of them as well.
Doing things off site also means I tend to lose things. Thus far this week, I'm missing yesterday's to-do list, the business card with the email address of my new client, and two green pens. I thought I had lost the checkbook as well until I remembered that the Husband had it last to pick up the dry cleaning on Friday.
My to-do list keeps growing even if I can't find it. I've remembered three more things I need to do since I've been sitting here.
One sure sign the new school is working better for the Boy: he's counting the days until school starts again. Or maybe that's the house cleaning.

What Kids Today Don't Know

2012-05-25T17:55:00.000-05:00

I was sitting on the bench on the playground Tuesday afternoon getting my thoughts together for the Brownie meeting when one of the chess dads came and sat beside me. Talking about this and that, the contrast between the things we were allowed to do as kids and the things are kids are allowed to do became the dominant theme.

We used to do all kinds of things we shouldn't have! We used to crawl around in the sewers. He shook his head. She's 10 now, but she doesn't run around the neighborhood where I can't keep an eye on her.

The conversation went on, some mention of broken bones, cuts, stitches, hurt feelings, fights, all the the things that can happen when kids aren't supervised.

And I felt the usual sinking feeling, the usual sorrow for the things that my children and their peers don't experience, for the things they don't know and won't know, for the trouble they'll get into later because of what they're not learning now.

We used to do all kinds of things we shouldn't have too.

We knew what we could and couldn't do because we tested it. I knew I couldn't go across the monkey bars at school because I had tried and failed and skinned my knees on the bare ground beneath them, not because my mother came and got me and said, That's too dangerous.

We set up ramps from found lumber and logs and jumped over creeks and ditches.

We played in falling down barns and stables and coops. We picked our way gingerly over rusted barbed wire fences. Got stuck a couple of times, tore clothing. And electric fences. Got zapped a couple of times.

We mounted ladders made of rotting single boards nailed into trees onto deserted, guardrail-less platforms between adjacent pine trees. The second step came down with me one time. It was harder to climb up after that.

We backed carefully away from strange dogs, and left large snakes quite alone sunning in the middle of paths and meadows. We warned the other kids we bumped into on the path about them.

In my own kids' lives, the serious injuries have all occurred near adults. It's almost like they expect us to be the safety switch. My daughter broke her arm falling from a playground swing with me sitting 15 feet away. Ok, maybe she was swinging a little high ... but that's when you hold on tighter, not let go to swat at your brother. Could I have prevented that? I don't think so.

The cut next to the Girl's eye requiring stitches happened because she was running in the house. My mom, was only a few feet away, and had already told her to stop.

My son's stitches? running laps in gym class. Supervised.

I watch my children and their peers on the playground, and they don't have that awareness. Parents are their gauge, not their abilities. Parents come to them and say, no, that's too dangerous, haul them away. That's appropriate for the under-5 set, but shouldn't the 6-12 year olds be figuring out that kind of thing on their own?

Nobody on my street broke an arm or a leg in our unsupervised wanderings. One girl broke both arms on the monkey bars at school, which gave me another reason not to play on them. More stitches were required from sports than from play. There were many minor cuts, many band-aids, many bruises healed with a cold plastic cup of Kool-aid applied as an ice pack, but by and large, we learned to test our limits gradually because we had the freedom to.

The same thing applies to the emotional stuff. On the Brownie troop camping trip, the main "activity" the girls wanted to do was play. Just play, without adults calling the shots.

As soon as everything was unpacked and organized, they started a game of Drip Drip Drop - this is like Duck Duck Goose except with water. Noticing the disappearance of one of the fire buckets, I called out to them. It's Drop not Drench. Use your water bottles, not the buckets. And bring that back over here.

A few minutes later one of the moms broke it up because she didn't think they needed to be getting all wet. So the kids wandered off to play house near one of the cabins. One girl kept coming to us complaining about the people she was playing with. Kim is being mean to me. Lori called me fat.

I walked down the hill. This is unacceptable behavior. It's not how we treat our friends or our Girl Scout sisters.

Ten minutes later, Jen is back. Did you tell them that you don't like it? She shook her head. Did you go play with someone else? She shook her head again.

Her mom looked at me. Now, that's not fair. There's one of her and three of them.

I agreed. It wasn't fair. But the most effective way to get them to stop is to either stand up or leave. We knew this.

But kids today don't. And how they'll learn ever learn it, I don't know.

(Note: I wrote this almost exactly a year ago ... and never posted it!)

Awards They Should Give

2012-05-23T17:07:00.000-05:00

Another year, another promotion/awards ceremony. This one almost bittersweet, the last End of Year Awards for the Girl ... next year will be 5th Grade Graduation or whatever.

I watched while a staffer for a local state representative handed six of the Girl's classmates neatly framed Resolutions honoring them for going to the Capitol back in February. The campaign for the same politician called last week. We're counting on you to go to the polls and vote for her.

I'm sure you are. I replied. I'm not planning to vote for the former gang member, but I didn't feel like being rude.

So I was puzzled why the woman whose staff telephoned looking for my vote wasn't giving my pale-skinned daughter the same recognition as her darker classmates. Turns out we aren't in her legislative district. I'm relieved by that seemingly logical reason.

But for all my not wanting to be rude, I was standing at the back of the room with two of my Chess parent buddies and we started making a list of awards they should give:

Always Shiny
Best Procrastinator
Most Needs a Dictionary
Best Use of Questionable Language
Finally Made it Across the Monkey Bars
Fastest Talker
Dependably Late
Most Hours Spent on Video Games
Stands Up a Lot
Future Teenage Fast Food Intercom Worker
Most Creative Bending of Uniform Policy
Cutest Younger Sibling
Best at Using Google
Most Creative SmartAleck
Biggest Geek
Longest Sentence Ever Spoken

I'm just thankful that they no longer do separate "graduation" style ceremonies where every kid crosses the stage to get their folder full of stuff, and that the Boy's new school seems to eschew them.

(Editorial note: Yes, I've been absent a while. I will be again for a few days, but plan to be back in force the first week of June!)

I'll Show You, Mother Nature!

2012-03-16T08:55:00.000-05:00

Conversation in the car driving to school this morning.

Me: Son, it's gonna be warm everywhere we'll be next week. Do you want me to dig some shorts out for you?

the Boy: Shorts?? We haven't even had a real snow yet!! I'm not wearing shorts until we get some real snow!!

Looking around me, at the trees budding pink and white, the golden flames of forsythia, and the bright heads of daffodils, I'm thinking that's going to be a while.

Ten for Tuesday: Plugging in the Positive Cord

2012-02-28T10:01:00.001-06:00

Once again this spring, I'm volunteering as a Practice Partner with the Girls on the Run program at my daughter's school. Yes, it culminates in a 5k and centers around running - but really it's more about goal-setting and learning some emotional intelligence-related skills.

This morning's lesson focused on the power of positive thinking. I'm no Pollyanna, but there is something to spinning things positive instead of negative. As the girls ran, they stopped at pieces of poster board and wrote with colorful markers things they do to reconnect with positive energy. As I ran a few laps with them, and listened and scrawled my own list, I realized I could come up with a whole list of 10 all on my own.

Drive fast. How I love to take Rxy out on a curvy road and driving as fast and as clean as I can. I lose myself, becoming the thinking part of a racing red machine.
Watch the fish. They are so peaceful in there swimming around.
Run. I have to be mindful that I don't overdo it and hurt myself - apparently that's pretty common, that it's very common to incur injuries when "blowing off steam" is part of the goal. But it feels good.
Turn on the stereo - loud. Sometimes it's Gorecki, sometimes Pink Floyd or Radiohead, but loud music is the thing.
Play my trombone. I refocus on counting the rhythms, remembering where the notes are, improving my intonation. I make sure to play something I can play well to start and to end the session.
Lose myself in a novel. Going to that different world gives me a different perspective on the one I live in.
Do a chore. Something small and manageable, like doing the dishes or cleaning the bathroom, that has a definite starting and ending point. Empty the dishwasher, put everything away, rinse/scrape/put all the dishes in the sink in the dishwasher, hand wash what's left, clean the countertops ... finished. Instant sense of accomplishment. Especially useful on one step forward, two steps back days.
Write something. A blog post, for example. It doesn't have to be creative, even: sometimes invoices do the trick.
Reach out to a friend. Helene, for example. or send Artie a quick text message, to get her weird point of view on things.
Hang with the Husband. Yeah, I'm still in kind of deep like with him.

Now, back to the grind ...

10 Things About Yesterday's Trip to the State Capitol

2012-02-22T17:48:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I took the day off and went with my daughter's class to the State Capitol in Jefferson City, some 2 hours away.

Tour buses these days rock. WiFi, DVD players, big bottles of GermX fastened on springs on the countertop instead of the weird blue water stuff and the tiny sink.

Somehow, my group of four kids to follow around included a redheaded boy who would probably get elected Most Likely to Wander Off and Get Lost. How he got paired with me, the adult Most Likely to Wander Off and Get Lost, I have no idea, but we did both make it back.

Our tour guide this time was amazing compared to the one we had two years ago. She really related to the kids, really involved them, really thought about how she had them stand and sit to get the best effect of what she was showing them. Our tour ran 15 minutes over and we didn't notice.

One of the things she showed us was Nuderscher's The Artery of Trade, depicting the Eads Bridge - our revolutionary 1874 steel bridge over the Mississippi. One of the key features of this painting is that the bridge seems to move across the painting as you walk past from either direction. Our tour guide had us hold our arms in the air, almost Nazi youth style, and trace the end of the bridge with our fingertips as we walked by, our arms rotating from pointing straight ahead to perpendicular to our bodies. Several of us adults walked back and forth in front of the picture, testing it, until we noticed the tour guide and the engrossed children moving away, and hurried to catch up.

While there were many academic goals of the trip, the real prompt for going was that it was the Gifted Association of Missouri's annual coordinated lobbying day. We watched videos produced by middle and high school gifted students from other parts of the state, talking about how important gifted education is because it gives them the opportunity to stretch intellectually that they'd never have in the regular classroom. Of course, most of the Girl's classmates sitting around me had no idea what the speaker was talking about when she asked if pullout day was their favorite day of the week because they've been in a whole school full of gifted kids their entire academic careers. I had to explain it to them.

The videos made me feel a little sad with their focus on enrichment. I remembered the projects we did in pullout when I was a kid, and the things the Girl used to do before she moved to the gifted school. I thought about the things she does at school now - the children are all gifted, so there's none of that sense of isolation I felt in grade school - and the teachers try, but it's mostly acceleration instead of enrichment. And the "gifted" middle school ... I haven't gotten around to writing about that yet ... suffice it to say there is nothing resembling their videos at all, it's all on the Piled Higher and Deeper philosophy of educating smart kids. The arts charter school the Boy is now attending comes much, much closer.

One of the key tasks for the day was to deliver letters the students had written to their Representatives and Senators. My group, residents of four different areas - North, South, and Central, and West County - had 8 different legislators to visit. Many of them were out in committee meetings, but our Senator, Robin Wright-Jones, greeted the children enthusiastically and had a staffer take a group photo. The redhead's senator, Joe Keaveny, took us onto the Senate Floor and was brave enough to pose for a picture behind a 10-year-old with the raised President's gavel.

The highlight of the day, however, was provided by the aides to Representatives Jamilah Nasheed and Penny Hubbard, who, after taking the kids' letters said, Well, she's not available right now - would you like to go up in the Dome? Eight kids, me, and another local architect's wife who is a splendid photographer: of course we wanted to go. So we went up in the Dome, first to the Whispering Gallery, then up the tiny narrow step stairs between the two shells to the narrow walkway below the top of the lantern. The redhead whispered to me. I'm afraid of heights. I shrugged. I am too. But this will be cool.

At the end of the day we dashed back to the green and yellow buses with the horses painted on the side, foot-weary, hungry, thirsty. The teachers handed out pretzels and fruit snacks, and the initial chatter dwindled into a quiet cacophony of warbles and bleeps. I ate the orange left over from lunch, and wondered why none of the children were asleep.

Entertaining Inspired by the Dogs

2012-02-19T15:04:00.000-06:00

Years ago, when we first moved into our park front condo, we began our hobby of watching life in the park through our fourth floor windows. Sunday mornings were one of our favorite days: we sipped hot drinks while reading the paper, and waiting for the dogs to come.

In those pre-dog park days, many neighborhood dog owners gathered in the slice of the park across the street from our home on Sunday mornings. Around mid-morning, the first canines would appear: dachshunds and whippets, German Shepherds and Schnauzers, big mutts and little mutts, every shape and color of dog imaginable.

It was fluid: we'd notice different things on different days.

The bald guy with the giant schnauzers isn't there today. I'd say.

Maybe he got hauled off on his roller blades. the Husband would reply. We'd both chuckle since we'd seen the man dragged down the sidewalk on more than one occasion.

I imagined it as being almost a Cheers-like atmosphere, where everyone knew your name and when you showed up, you showed up, but you would be missed if you weren't there.

We aren't dog people. Or maybe, I should say, the Husband is not dog people, the kids want a dog but aren't very good at helping with their cats, and I do not like being cold. So I was never able to join the dog group, and now, with all the dog parks around, they don't gather across the street anymore.

Trying to arrange a Mom's Night Out is a nightmare. One recent attempt generated almost 100 emails consisting mainly of, Can't do that date.

Somewhere in the middle of one of those email passages last summer, I visualized the dog owners gathering across the street and had a moment of genius. I sent out an email: Hey, I'm going to the concert at the History Museum Tuesday night. Bring yourself and a seat; snacks, beverages, husband, and/or children are optional. If you come, you'll have fun; if you don't, we'll miss you. I did this on and off over the summer, picking and choosing among the free concerts and movies throughout the City to suit my taste. It turns out my friends are like those dog owners: all I had to do was make the suggestion, make it easy, and people showed up.

I look forward to summertime, when we can sit on the lawn in the Botanical Gardens or under the Arch, listening to music and enjoying being together.

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Ten for Tuesday: Ways Architecture School Prepared Me for Parenthood

2012-02-14T21:14:00.000-06:00

Sleep deprivation? No problem.
Children seem logical after spending 5 years with sleep-deprived 20-somethings.
Multi-multi-tasking is still a way of life.
I look cool in class with my hard hat, roll of drawings, and animations running on the computer.
I have mad glue skillz.
I understand not just their art projects, but their math homework too.
My kids know an Exacto is the only way to cut things really straight. They also know Exactos are surgically sharp
I know the smartest, fastest way to do any academic assignment..Not that they listen to me, but I do.
I can tell great stories about cutting off fingers that are, sadly, true.
Design studio professors were kind critics compared to my children.

Just a Normal Schoolday Morning

2012-02-01T11:28:00.000-06:00

Scene, kitchen, Chez S:

Parents stand on one side of the room, red coffee mugs in hand, leaning against the baking center talking about schedule for the day, dinner, saxophone lessons, Boy Scouts, business meetings.Ten-year-old girl, wavy hair diseveled and wrapped in a too-big pink bathrobe her grandmother gave her, wanders through, opens the refrigerator.

Mom (glancing at oven, realizing the time): Hey, it's time for your bath.

Girl: But I'm huuunnnnnngryyy.

Dad: You can eat after your bath..

(Girl mumbles and wanders off-stage. Parents pour another cup of coffee, weigh relative merits of coffee roasted yesterday 3 blocks away vs. coffee roasted God knows when in Seattle. Fat tabby cat runs into kitchen and leaps onto windowseat. Girl follows moments later.)

Mom: What are you doing? You're supposed to be in the bath!

Girl (pointing at cat): But I had to get Mary.

Mom: Cats aren't necessary bath accessories.

Girl (scooping up cat, who looks resigned): Yes they are!

Heart-shaped.

2012-01-31T10:47:00.000-06:00

The other morning, I looked into the mirror and saw the facial shape, the hair style, the thin unhappy mouth of the person towards whom I feel the most enmity these days. All that differed was that my eyes are blue, not brown; my hair reddish, not black; my skin ivory, not mocha. I stared at that person, that stranger in the mirror, and pondered a Kafka-esque sci fi story where hatred becomes a disease that transforms you into the form of the hated, perhaps even into a clone. What are the implications of that? Besides needing a haircut, of course?

I walked to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and rummaged until I found the silver heart the Husband gave me as a Valentine a few years back, the silver earrings with Chinese script the Girl selected for me Christmas two years ago, heart-shaped also. I've worn them every day since to remind me to find the place with love inside me, and shape my actions from there.

Fatalism: 1990s vs. 1950s

2012-01-22T19:24:00.000-06:00

It's all the same really, a sense of fatalism about the future. But there are things for which this attitude is appropriate - the actions of others you can't control, for example - and things for which it isn't, your own performance and attitude chief among them. We make our own luck as much as luck makes us.

Parental lecture over. Carry on.

10 for Tuesday: Best and Worst of Middle School

2012-01-17T15:07:00.000-06:00

Having a middle schooler apparently makes you think a lot about your own experiences in those years.

1. Best class in Jr. High (except for Band): As I look back, I think the class that had the most long-term impact on me was my seventh-grade Literature class at Magnolia Junior High, Mr. Calvin Louis Fudge in charge. English class was all grammar and spelling; in Mr. Fudge's class, we read. As in, we walked into the room, picked up the paperback book that he had assigned to each of us individually, and read until we reached the end of a chapter. Then, we got up and got a 10 question True/False quiz out of the filing cabinet, marked it appropriately, and handed it to Mr. Fudge. You had to get 7/10 correct to continue to the next chapter. I always read grade levels above my age, but I didn't read for comprehension until Mr. Fudge made me, and assigned me to read a lot of books I probably never would have chosen on my own. He was also the first actual published author (of romance novels, but still) I ever met.

2. Runner-up: Coach Mc's 8th grade American History class. Coach Mc taught me to take notes, which has proven to be an excellent tactic for avoiding trouble. Except when it gets me in trouble ...

3. Worst class in Jr. High (after P.E.): Career Orientation. Basically, we went through the U.S. Department of Labor Guide, job classification by job classification. At the time, I thought it was better than taking Home Ec but I'm not so sure now ... knowing that the teacher turned out to be a serial pedophile just adds to that sense.

4. About P.E.: In Little Rock, only nerds took Band. Knowing this, and not accepting my inner geekiness, I signed up for P.E. -- except that was what the people too poor to buy Band instruments and too butch to take Choir took in Magnolia. I was neither of these, and, to add insult to injury, more butch and developed than most of the other girls, and completely uncoordinated. I ran in and out of the locker room faster than I ran inside the gym.

5. Binders: When we moved to town, that August before seventh grade, I convinced my mother to buy me a Trapper Keeper because that's what was fashionable in Little Rock. I remember it was a big deal because it was like $7.

(photo from Paxton Holley's Flickr stream. Mine is long gone, and was green anyway.)

What was fashionable in Magnolia? Plain blue denim binders like this one, that were then decorated with Sharpies and red and white paint pens. ~$2. I thought Mom was going to kill me.

6. Best teacher: Hands down, Mr. English, the high school band director who taught Brass at the Junior High. I loved Mr. Sutton (the actual Jr. High band director, and a wonderful woodwind guy) too, but Mr. English took me on mid-year in seventh grade and taught me to play the trombone well enough to make first band by May, and All-Region Alternate by mid-autumn. He groaned and slumped in his chair when I did something wrong, hummed along with me when I played well, complimented me profusely when my playing warranted, chewed me out when I deserved it. By ninth grade, I could tell what he thought by how his mustache twitched, before he ever consciously moved or said anything. He had an odd combination of honesty, humor, toughness, and tenderness, of expecting perfection but knowing that some days I just didn't have it in me. Noone else ever was able to get so much out of me - not my other two high school band directors, not the lady trombone professor I took lessons from in college. I often wonder where he is ...

7. Best Way to Learn to Faint without Hurting Yourself: mid-to-late afternoon Marching Band practice in southwest Arkansas --like twenty miles from both Louisiana and Texas -- before water bottles were a fashion accessories. Really, what were they thinking?

8. Stupid Things You Do at 13. The one I'll own up to: in the winter of 9th grade I decided not to wear a coat because I wanted a particular football player to give me his letter jacket. I said I was not cold and that I didn't like my coat because it wasn't cool enough (sorry Mom) but that was the real reason.

9. Best thing about Junior High: friends. Those I have left from then loved me at my worst and still do, somehow.

10. The Other Best Thing about Junior High: It's 30 years gone.

Except that by having children, I get to do it twice more ....

10 for Tuesday: Things I Don't Like & Probably Never Will

2012-01-10T13:38:00.003-06:00

Following along with Mali & Indigo Bunting ... and trying not to say Me too ...

Green peas. They're just ... mushy.
People who have all the answers. Most of them are wrong.
Fruit in my beer. or my coffee. Not a fan of it in my tea or my chocolate, either.
Minivans. It's not legally necessary for mothers with 2 or fewer children so don't judge.
Scraping noises. (Covering ears, so can't type.)
Trash anywhere but in a trash can. Little candy & lozenge wrappers drive me wild.
Short airplane flights. As soon as my ears get adjusted, we start falling out of the sky, albeit in a controlled manner.
Large amounts of condiments on sandwiches. Doesn't matter what it is (well, okay, Indigo is right: Miracle Whip is gross), I just want a little. And the people at Subway, God love 'em, mostly don't get the meaning of One thin stripe of lite mayonnaise, please.
Bric-a-brac. I used to love all those little knick-knacks on shelves and things ... Bluebirds of Happiness, figurines, etc., etc. More and more I don't. I don't like cleaning it, I don't like cleaning around it, and it takes up space I could fill with books. Priorities, right?
Micromanaging people. Whether it's employees, fellow volunteers, or my family, I want to be able to trust people to do what needs to be done without me hovering every moment of the day giving instructions and forcing focus. I prefer guiding and helping to overseeing and enforcing.

If you like any of these things ... more power to you. Want my share?