The Philosopher-Mom

Everything I Need to Know That I Don't Need to Know I Learned in High School

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Sat, 19 May 2012 01:46:00 +0000

Last night, our parish held the annual baccalaureate Mass for the high school graduates. I was there, although I have no high school graduate this year, because I go to Mass everyday anyway (as I told a friend, it's my sanity insurance); and the 6 p.m. Thursday Mass, which served as the baccalaureate, is more convenient than the 12:10 Thursday Mass. Alas, it was the last 6 p.m. Mass until August, so I will have to figure out how to make the 12:10 on Thursdays, which is grocery shopping day. And I do indeed mean grocery shopping DAY. I may have only 6-8 (depending on the semester) at home anymore, but it still takes an average of five hours to compose the menus/list, shop Sam's, load, shop Kroger, load, drive home, unload, put away. Longer than five hours, if I cannot restrain myself from sampling something from every reusable bag. Sam's Club and reusable bags -- oh, yes ma'am, THERE is a post waiting to be written! But I digress. This is not a grocery shopping post; this is a reflections-on-high-school-education post. Back to the Mass.

So this year, there are eight or nine high school graduates at the baccalaureate Mass at St. Michael's, sitting in the front row, all together, all but one in Kentucky blue. I call it "Kentucky blue" because it is, of course, the same color as the SEC basketball school wears, but also from a perverse refusal to call it Auburn High blue, which it also is, especially when it's being worn by Auburn High grads. I am not a fan of Auburn High these past few years, so I'm perverse in these petty kind of ways. Nothing against the grads who were at the baccalaureate Mass; they are wonderful kids. The Odd Man Out had a black robe (for graduation! Go figure!); he must go to Opelika.

Now, I remember the baccalaureate Mass when Betsy graduated in 2010, which was also very nicely done, even though they didn't wear their robes. They wore ordinary clothes that high school kids wear when they go to a Thursday evening Mass, as I recall. So it was rather a formal, milestone kind of Mass, this year.

Our pastor, who is a Monsignor and hands-down the most efficient, effective, Go-To priest I have ever known in my life, addressed the row of mostly-Kentucky-blue-clad high school graduates in his homily. Fr. Bill (which is what the Monsignor prefers to be called) always has some pithy and memorable comments to make. Always. Every homily. This time, the pithiest and most memorable was the comment (I paraphrase, but it's pretty darned close to verbatim) that "although this may seem like a momentous occasion, really, in the scheme of things, it's only high school. It's really not that big of a deal. Thousands of people graduate from high school; in fact, almost everyone we know has graduated from high school. You're not that special."

PLEASE do not misunderstand me! I love Fr. Bill! Almost everyone I know -- whether or not they did in fact graduate from high school -- loves Fr. Bill! We have an unofficial pool as to when and in what diocese he will be appointed Bishop. But the man does not pull punches. He's too efficient for that. And all of us, including the high school graduates being thus honored, know him well enough not to have taken offense.

In fairness, Fr. Bill did also say that he remembers little about his seminary graduation, and barely more about his graduation from the University of Nebraska, but he does remember his high school graduation very well. It was "long and boring." Sort of the polar opposite of his homily.

Anyway, it got me thinking about my own high school graduation. I didn't go. I had concluded that it was really not that big of a deal. Of course, I didn't care for high school, and couldn't get far enough away fast enough. My mother and some of my friends predicted that someday, I would regret not attending my high school graduation. So far, they're still wrong. Now, if I had been Catholic back then, and blown off the baccalaureate Mass -- that I would probably regret. But the reason has nothing whatever to do with high school or graduation, and everything to do with the Mass. But here again, I digress.

Continuing to reflect upon Fr. Bill's words vis-a-vis my own high school experience, I have concluded that not only was graduation not really that big of a deal, high school itself was not really that big of a deal. I didn't learn a whole lot. I spent every possible moment practicing my clarinet, and I got very good at that (somewhere in 2010, I posted about this), but not much else made any impact.

Except one thing: "When running up a hill, lean into it, raise your knees, and drive your elbows behind you."

That, I have used. I used it just about an hour ago, in fact, running along the Chattahoochee in north suburban Atlanta; and I used it a few weeks ago on my first half-marathon in Nashville (another post waiting to be written), and countless other times before that. It is, hands-down, the most useful thing I learned in high school.

Had I been really watching, instead of pretending to watch as a boyfriend-catching measure, the guys in my class play sheepshead during lunch, I might have found that useful, too. I could have played with my younger kids during their siblings' long and boring high school graduation ceremonies.

You know what might make high school graduations less boring (though not less long)? If they shuffled the names for walking across the stage to get the diploma, instead of using alphabetical order. Everyone would have to be paying very close attention. Someone might miss his/her name, and someone else's name be left out accidentally. That element of suspense? Would make high school graduation a much bigger deal.

Perverse, who?

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Sun, 13 May 2012 04:03:00 +0000

I was trying so hard to make it a whole year without a post... Curses, foiled! I'm going to blame my weakness of will (akrasia, for those who prefer Greek philosophical terms) to a couple of younger moms who have graciously introduced me to their blogs recently. Theirs are so fresh and sweet, with an air of -- almost -- wonder at the everyday charms of motherhood and family life. Mine? Never had that. Maybe I started blogging too late in life (wonder dissipates like fog in a desert once those first four kids hit their teen years). Or maybe I just have a smart-alecky personality. I'm not sure I could write fresh, sweet, wonder-filled commentary about my life if I were being paid to do so. Which is not to say my life contains no freshness or sweetness or -- yes -- even some wonder, every now and again. I mean, my daughters (or at least three of the five) have banished me from the kitchen while they prepare, or prepare to prepare, ALL the meals for tomorrow. How wondrous is that?

And I repay them by resurrecting my blog. (They really, really hated my regular blogging. Winced with fear and anticipated shame whenever their "following" dingy let them know I'd done it again.) But see, girls? I'm telling everyone you're doing this marvelous thing for me, so as to give me the best Mother's Day ever! I love my girls! And my boys, too -- especially if they lug away all the branches and brambles and poison ivy I excised from the south-side landscaping today! Besides, don't worry. If a blogger posts once a year, all the non-related followers and subscribers give up and go away, so no one but you and possibly your grandparents will read what I write about you anyway.

What I have learned from crafting this post after an almost-one-year blogging hiatus (which now occurs to me is a misleading way of describing something technically true; misleading because I had only posted like three times the year before the "hiatus"):

1. I have more time when I'm not blogging. As in EXPONENTIALLY more time.
2. I miss the virtual camaraderie of similarly smart-alecky Mommy Bloggers.
3. It's more fun to write when I don't have to worry about using complete sentences. When I can use partials for emphasis or other sleights of style.
4. Autocorrect does serve a purpose, and I wonder how long before Blogger incorporates it.
5. Life goes on even when I'm not chronicling it for the internet.
6. I might, on occasion, have something to say that could be useful to the fresh, sweet young moms out there. But a play-by-play of my return trip from Auburn's National Championship game is probably not in that category. Yeah.

Happy Mother's Day, y'all!

Oh, Did I Forget to Finish That Story?

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 04:14:00 +0000

So...yeah, where was I, back in February? Coming home from the National Championship game (won, that's right). There was a lot of drama...but the funny thing about drama is, if you let it alone long enough, it pretty much evaporates.

Here's what's left of my grand finale:

Our crazy flight leg combo on the way out to Phoenix was duplicated in craziness, though not in airport connections, on the way back. We flew from Phoenix (where I left my Auburn car flag, on purpose)

It just seemed to belong there.

Then we flew to Long Beach, where the terminal is literally a double-wide with $8 bottles of Dasani. And a bar, which was of no use to me (since I had given up drinking some months prior to this trip), and of no use to my son (since he not yet 21...which means, of course, that a bar is of no use to him WHEN HE IS WITH HIS MOTHER). We were there for quite a long time before flying to Salt Lake City, where I went shopping in the airport, because I was positively certain that our flight, which was on Delta, would be canceled. Why was I so certain? Because I have never, ever been on a Delta flight that wasn't at least delayed by more than an hour, if not canceled outright, for no discernible reason whatsoever. And this time, Delta would have had reason, because there had been an Ice Storm of Epic Proportion in the Southeast, which had closed the airports in both Atlanta and Birmingham for a couple of days. The majority of friends with whom we'd connected at the game were still stuck in the west, because their flights into Atlanta or Birmingham the day before had all been canceled. Including the many, many folks who had thought akin to my husband to fly cheaply into Vegas and rent a car down to Phoenix. There were no flights from Vegas to Atlanta. Nada.

Our friends Rich and Kirsten had their flight from Tucson to Atlanta canceled as well, but (perhaps because they were stranded in Tucson and not Vegas?) they rented a car there and drove it BACK TO ALABAMA. Rich updated their progress on his facebook status, which was immensely entertaining. His facebook friends were placing bets as to who would get home first, them driving or those of us flying.

Amazingly, the Delta flight left Salt Lake, and it was only slightly delayed. We landed in Atlanta around 6 am , one of the very first flights allowed back in, to find that most of the roads were ice-covered and buried in snow; drivers were cautioned to STAY AWAY, or at the very least, wait until the sun rose and could do a little bit of snow removal. I agreed heartily, because one thing my Wisconsin years taught me is that I'd rather poke pencils in my eyes than drive in the snow. And ice? Rather poke pencils through my belly button.

Not so, James. He was panicked about missing his first class of the semester. Never mind that half the student body was stuck in Vegas, or elsewhere, waiting to be rebooked on some other flight. We had an irreconcilable difference of opinion, and since I'd used my one "Negotiate a Win over James" chip in obtaining his game ticket, he grabbed his bag and headed out the door to the parking garage, with or without me. Did I have an alternate means of getting back to Auburn? Nope. But my son did not care.

And I did not care that my son did not care. Because I knew that although he had the keys and I did not, I had the credit card that would allow him to lift the gate that was keeping his car in the garage. After 10 minutes or so, James returned, and we sat on a bench in Hartsfield Jackson airport until the sun had done its thing on the roads for 30 minutes.

Its thing turned out to be rather insignificant, at least until we got to Newnan (about 25 miles southeast). Or maybe I just revived my ability to drive on roads without visible edges or lane markers. In any event, we made it safely back home, where I left my suitcase in the car and promptly went to bed.

The end.

Next post, which might possibly appear in less than five months, will make good on the other stories I promised back in 2010.

All We Do Is Win...and Never Let It Go, No Matter What (Part II)

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:21:00 +0000

So, in our last installment of this recap of Auburn's National Championship season (football, yes -- what, have you not been paying attention to sports news all year? It sure as heck ain't basketball, sorry to say), we learned that James, Number Two Son of the Philosopher-Mom, won a student season ticket-holder lottery chance to buy a student ticket to the National Championship game in Glendale, AZ, on January 10 of this year.

James likes Auburn football just fine, thank you. Even though his heart is still in Gainesville, as evidenced by the hat in this photo, taken on the parking deck across from the Auburn pep rally part of the "Fiesta" hosted by the city of Scottsdale the day before the Championship. The pep rally that more than half of us couldn't get into, because the fire marshall closed it for capacity. Orange, orange, everywhere orange.

No, it is not a Florida hat. That would have gotten him in trouble, because the SEC takes its rivalries very seriously. It's a Broncos hat. For Tebow. (Yes, I managed to get it replaced before gameday.)

But let's back up from the mega-overflow pep rally, back to the point of ticket purchase. What James the Until Very Recently Florida Fan won in the lottery was not a ticket, remember, but the chance to BUY a ticket. For $300. At the will-call window of the University of Phoenix stadium in Glendale, Arizona. So even though there were tickets (some legitimate, some fraudulent) selling online for upwards of $1500 the minute we beat South Carolina in the SEC Championship (I know, I checked), James would not have been able to profit from this ticket unless he physically went to Arizona and physically forked over the moolah.

(Note to representatives of Auburn University's Athletic Department, Student Ticket Sales division: that is a subjunctive "would," employed in a conditional. I'm not saying he was going to sell his ticket, only that if he were of a mind to sell the ticket, he would not have been able to do so without substantial advance expense. Because, hey, just having been a Florida fan one's whole life, and an Entrepreneurship major now, does not mean that one would necessarily sell an Auburn football ticket for four or more times one's initial investment.)

James spent several weeks trying to arrange transportation to and lodging in Glendale such that the cost plus the ticket price would not exceed his liquid assets, and was apparently unable to do so...because he called me with a proposition: If I would help pay for his trip to Arizona, so that he could pick up his ticket, he would share any potential profit -- should he hypothetically decide to sell rather than use his ticket, just in case that thought occurred to him at some point between ticket window and gate -- or in any case, pay me back with interest.

Never in my life -- and I mean, since the kid was able to talk -- have I been able to outmaneuver James in a business negotiation. My track record is a series of burn piles. (Some boys just do not know how to treat their mamas!) But this time, I must have had a pure adrenalin shot to the brain.

"I'll pay your entire trip to Arizona," I countered, "on the condition that I go with you."

"Um, okay..."

"And you sell your ticket to me."

"How much?"

"Five hundred."

(Long pause, perhaps factoring the likelihood of getting in trouble for scalping a student ticket if the scalpee is the person who pays the tuition that allows you to be a student ticket-holder in the first place.) "Okay."

We were planning to drive, until we realized it would add two full days to the trip, and faced the fact that only one of us would have control the radio for a total of 57 car-hours...and ultimately, be murdered by the other one. So I went on Expedia.com and bought a wacky series of connected flights. Atlanta-Newark-Detroit-Phoenix-Long Beach (where the terminal is a double wide trailer, seriously) -Salt Lake City-Atlanta.

A week after Expedia charged my credit card a four-digit number, my husband told me I should have gotten one of those $100 flights to Las Vegas and driven a rental car down to Phoenix. I was riddled with regret for not having done this, until my friends who did were stuck in Las Vegas with their flights back to Atlanta cancelled.

Orange, orange, everywhere orange. In the airports, on the plane, and especially at the rental car counter. The country was ringing with "War Eagle!" and Phoenix, a place I can just tell loves to entertain visitors and ordinarily does a lovely job, was overwhelmed. I've already mentioned the Fiesta pep rally that had to be cordoned off because there were about five times as many Auburn fans than fit into that Waterfront area. The sports bars reportedly ran out of beer by 9 p.m. on Sunday, sending employees to Wal-Marts as far away as Sedona to buy more at retail. The Auburn Will-Call ticket window generated a wait in excess of two hours. There were NO CABS after the game. Apparently, the city was expecting an NFL-sized crowd, with a minimal number of unticketed fans. Arizona, meet SEC football. It's a religion.

The Ducks, though there were few (relative to the number of Auburn fans), were generally pretty cool. Two exceptions we found: the guy who strutted the sidewalks of Scottsdale with an Alabama banner below the Oregon flag he'd mounted on the largest possible portable pole (tacky!), and the dude on the rental car bus who derided us for not venturing outside our conference (hello? Clemson?): "I'd have more respect for Auburn if you ever came out and played some team from the west coast, or the Big Ten." James pointed out that a conference containing 6 of the last 7 National Champions offers plenty of competition...and only after the fellow was out of earshot counterproposed, "Okay, buddy, sure. We'll come up and play Oregon State...and YOU can face down the Tide in Tuscaloosa. Yeah."

A few tailgaters had fashioned "War Duck" posters, which made me giggle. And several answered our "War Eagle" cries by blowing duck lures. THAT got the Auburn fans' attention, as this university has one of the highest percentages of student-body sportsmen in the country. Ears perked up, caps adjusted nervously, fingers itched. As one explained to me, "That sound? That quacky sound? That sound means one thing: some ducks are fixin' to get shot."

And so they were -- figuratively speaking, of course -- though they put up a good fight. We won.

More stories of conquest, and the return trip to Iceland South, to follow...

All We Do Is Win...and Never Let It Go, No Matter What (Part I)

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 18:46:00 +0000

It's been three weeks since I left Auburn for one of the most exciting five days of my middle-aged life. In the morning of Saturday, January 8, my second-born and I left his car in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport North parking deck and boarded a plane for Newark. Whence we boarded a plane for Detroit. Whence we boarded a plane for Phoenix. Where we stood in a very, very long line -- the longest such line in which I ever stood -- for a rental car.

And in all these places -- Atlanta, Newark, Detroit and especially Phoenix -- we heard the same two words spoken, crowed, and shouted.

"War Eagle!"

These words, in Auburn language, mean various things: hello, goodbye, thanks, we're family, I like your sweatshirt, we're going to Arizona on a duck hunting expedition...and of course, NATIONAL CHAMPIONS, baby!

Here, now that it's had a little time to sink in and germinate, is the Philosopher-Mom's take on this year's college football season, and the pilgrimage to the summit.

We beat Arkansas State. Well, duh. We're SEC. (Conference home of the last 5 consecutive, and 6 of the last 7, National Champions. Just sayin.)

Then we beat Mississippi State.

Then we beat Clemson in what looked like was going to be a bad loss. I remember this game, not only because it was against a contemptible ACC opponent. (NOTE: I like the ACC. I really do. I have two lovely, large diplomas from an ACC school. But they don't belong on a football field with the SEC, sorry.) I remember it largely because I was driving up to visit Betsy in North Carolina, with my Auburn flags flying through upstate South Carolina. Right past the Clemson exit, in fact. And I had to listen to the game on Clemson radio. This is problematic, because (as you may not know) Clemson's team is also called the Tigers. So the announcers would say jubilantly, "Touchdown Tigers!" and my heart would leap...until I remembered that they meant the other Tigers. It was quite the exercise in reverse psychology. I didn't get to see the end of this game, because Betsy wanted me to sit on a picnic table in the Belmont Abbey quad and talk to her friends. It was an auto-refresh update from ESPN.com on my Blackberry screen that informed me of the win. I didn't know anything about field goals being called back until the highlights later. I think the game may have been governed by the same forces that took away Tennessee's victory over LSU the following week, by temporarily making the twelfth defender invisible. But whatever -- we'll take it.

Then, even though we weren't expected to, we beat South Carolina. And suddenly, the home game intro video (what plays on the big screen just before the team comes out through the fog onto the field -- the same video all season from the very beginning) was coming true before our very eyes!

We won't mention Louisiana-Monroe, out of Christian charity. The week after, we nearly lost to Kentucky (oh, the shame!), but we didn't. Actually, I should revise that "shame" part, out of respect for South Carolina, who did in fact lose to Kentucky, after beating Alabama. Anyone who beats Alabama is a friend of ours. So even though we had to spank 'em and send 'em to their Columbia room in the SEC Championship later, USC was our friend this season.

Then we beat Arkansas, which the pundits did not think we could do. That was the game we knew we'd got ourselves a Defense.

LS-Who wasn't asking "Who's Number Two?" after the next game. Although I sound like Dr. Seuss, there's actually a lot of meaning there. I speak in the first place of our Number Two, Cam Newton, who is basically a football god. (That's a lower case "g," please make note.) He won the Heisman, did you hear? Even though his daddy nearly ruined it by talking to a guy who talked to a Mississippi State booster. (Because if your kid is a great athlete who wants to play in college, you are not allowed to talk to anyone who might talk to anyone who might give money to a place who might want you to play there. Or vice versa. Y'all saw The Blind Side, right?) Ironically, no one I know ever heard boo about Cecil Newton talking to the MSU booster until after we beat MSU. Just sayin. Oh, yeah...Number Two. That's where LSU went, after we beat them. Because no one else did, all year. Not even Bama. Which almost, but eh, not quite, makes LSU our friends too. (Almost, because LSU is no one's friend. They are roude.)

Then we beat Ole Miss. Ho hum.

UT-Chattanooga was Homecoming. Automatic win.

Then we hosted Georgia and -- oh, yeah! We beat them, too. Which was especially sweet in my house as 40% of the population is Georgia fan.

Then...the Iron Bowl. At Tuscaloosa. Even the most die-hard of us were varying degrees of nervous about this game, about which there is no neutral ground anywhere in the state. Down 24-0 before halftime. But after the break? It was like we came out of the locker room and said, "Just KIDDING!" This is what it looked -- and sounded like -- after the game:

(Alabama's famous cheer, "Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer" which ordinarily in Bryant-Denny stadium contains the words, "Alabama just beat the hell out of you," here contains the slight variation, "Go to hell, Alabama.")

This set up the SEC Championship, which pits the winner of the East (South Carolina) against the winner of the West (us). It was played in Atlanta, more or less neutral territory, more or less the "meet-halfway" point. I didn't get to go, because our season tickets don't include championships (besides, I was with Susanna at a swim meet in Gulf Shores, so I watched it on the big screen in the hotel lobby with a bunch of other swim parents -- good times, good times). Student season ticket-holders, however, have a chance at getting championship tickets, by being entered into a lottery. Some will win, and of these, some will go and others will sell to fans begging, pleading and offering their first-born children in exchange.

My son James -- ironically, perhaps, also a Number Two -- won a student ticket to the SEC Championship in the lottery. Some thought this to be cosmically unfair, since James (fka "Trooper-Racer") has been a rabid Florida Gators fan since age 8. But he is now a legitimate, tuition-paying Auburn student, and he does like winning teams, a criterion in which Auburn football holds the edge over Florida this year. So he went.

But when he also won one of the very few, very intensely coveted National Championship student tickets, it was time for me to intervene.

To be continued... (Hey, it's a rare Saturday at home, and I've got stuff to do.)

Wow, What a Deal.

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 06:55:00 +0000

This from my favorite store ever.

"Boots: Buy One Get One 50% Off!"

Great as it sounds, I can't deny that I liked it better when they gave you the second one free.

Happy French Hens Day, y'all!

Gotta Dance!

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 01:43:00 +0000

Happy Turtledoves Day! Or, if you prefer, Boxing Day.

So, we made it to the Atlanta Ballet's Nutcracker on dry roads, dashed through the snow and horrible gusty wind to an Italian restaurant two blocks away, then drove home on dry roads.

The production was, in a word, magnificent. Especially the Arabian dance...

photo (c) Charlie McCullers

...talk about "bringing sexy back"! In an impeccably tasteful way, of course.

I hadn't expected the flood of memories that the performance evoked, though. Not memories of Christmas, or even of Nutcrackers, but of dancing.

Ballet and piano were the two activities I'd desperately wanted to learn as a child. For whatever reason, my parents declined to enable them. Don't get me wrong -- my parents provided myriad activities, from swimming to cheerleading to conservatory-bound clarinet playing. But for whatever reason, ballet and piano (and a sister, while we're on the theme) remained unfulfilled longings.

When I was 16, and had long since developed a body shape antithetical to classical ballet, I decided I was going to go for it -- by a method popularly known as "fake it till you make it." I taught myself ballet. From books. (Remember how hard it was to learn anything new before the internet? Mind-blowing, the obstacles.) I bought books and practiced in my room. Every once in a while, I caught something on TV. I took the bus downtown and attended matinee performances when I could. Then I ~~ran away~~ moved to Boston, where only one person knew me, and I remade myself into a dancer. I wore the uniform (leotard with Danskin wrap skirt and Chinese cloth Mary Jane-style flats), walked the walk (turnout, turnout, turnout!), and took class six days a week at the now-apparently-defunct Boston Academy of Dance on Copley (in exchange for receptionist duties) and later, the Boston Repertory Ballet. I've always been graced with imitative abilities, so I studied everything I saw and mimicked it back. I practiced balance, sometimes en pointe, on the T. And thus I learned to dance classical ballet. With the exception of my teachers at the Boston Rep, who occasionally clucked over some very fundamental mistakes I had honed into habits, people took for granted that I'd been dancing since I was little.

Oh, and I also took up smoking, because all the dancers smoked. I'm not proud to admit it now, but hey -- this was 1979, before it was a sin. And besides, it went a very long way toward transforming my naturally ~~stumpy~~ curvy physique into one fit for a dancer.

When I ~~ran out of money and slunk~~ returned home, I tried to sustain a dance identity, but even though I was accepted as a dance major my first go-round at college, I just couldn't do it. Maybe because Mom and Dad and my brothers and old friends all knew that I hadn't set hand to barre until I was 17 years old. I dunno.

Fast-forward 13 years, and I had my first daughter, who would -- YOU'D BETTER BELIEVE IT -- have the youthful studio opportunities I'd been denied. The day after her third birthday, I enrolled Betsy at the Academy of Ballet in Fredericksburg. Creative Movement first, then Pre-Ballet. After we moved to Warrenton, we found her a studio in the fitness center where her daddy played lunch-hour basketball, and here she was exposed to jazz and tap as well as ballet. But her inner soccer player was coming out -- the soccer player whose highlight was playing indoor on a boys' team and knocking out opponents' teeth -- and except for the ~~tacky~~ cutesy butt-wiggles of the jazz routines, her interest and aptitude were fast dissipating.

It was Betsy's Creative Movement days, even more than my own former-life Nutcracker, brought most vividly to mind as I sat in the darkened Fabulous Fox Theatre this afternoon. You know the Christmas party scene with little boys dashing in every direction like living balls of pure mayhem? That one.

The Academy of Ballet in Fredericksburg allowed prospective students to try out a class before enrolling, as many studios do. Betsy's 5-year old brother, who played every sport freakishly well but particularly excelled at baseball, began a campaign to take ballet class. (I think he may have been watching a video featuring the Steelers' Lynn Swann). We ignored him. He persisted. So one day, I took him along with Betsy and secured the necessary permissions for him to go into the studio with the seven little girls in the class.

Within 20 minutes, all seven little ballerinas plus Teddy were literally bouncing off the walls. And each other. Because Teddy had incited them to remove their slippers and slide across the studio floor at top speed until they collided with something or someone, upon which collision they would collapse to the floor with shrieks and giggles. One little girl wet her leotard, which made them all laugh harder.

I was politely but professionally offered the assessment that ballet was probably not the activity for which my young son was best suited. Maybe baseball would be a better option.

Undoubtedly, they were right. But I'll bet they could have used him in the Nutcracker. That Christmas party scene.

I'm Dreaming of a White Highway...and It's Not Pleasant

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 22:53:00 +0000

Parts of the South are celebrating their first white Christmas in a couple of decades. Not here, in Alabama, where it is steadily pelting us with cold rain. Though I understand it may be snowing by morning -- okay, "wintry mix," which is as close to snow as we get, excepting an undisputed fluke/miracle. And I understand it's snowing in Atlanta. This is of interest to me, because my husband gave me for Christmas...

Two Tickets to the Atlanta Ballet's "Nutcracker"

It's been a very long time since I've seen a live production of the Nutcracker, and I do believe I had a preschooler in a cameo appearance. So I am seriously looking forward to this outing, just he and I, a pairing that has never experienced the ballet together since the preschool-dancer era involved several other young elementary, preschool, toddler and infant types for whom we could not afford outside babysitting very often.

This being the case, I-85 looks to be a nightmare involving loss of traction and ditches.

But my husband? He is not afraid. He loves the snow. He loves DRIVING in the snow. I do not, regardless of having earned my driver's license in the immediate aftermath of a blizzard (otherwise I probably wouldn't have received it at all, since I could not parallel park if it were the only way to witness the Second Coming...but the newly-deposited snow drifts buried the curb, so I was exempt from that portion of the exam). Let me revise that statement: I WILL NOT drive in the snow. Not for milk, bread and toilet paper. Not for Mass. Not for the ballet.

My husband, who was raised in Richmond, Virginia and earned his drivers license under the dogwoods-in-bloom for the express and urgent purpose of driving his date to the Senior Prom, thinks driving in the snow is fun. When he flew from Milwaukee back to Virginia to interview for jobs after college, it snowed. He who had not driven more than 50 hours since that Senior Prom rented a Chevy Beretta and tooled up and down I-95 and US 29 in the snow like a little boy on one of those carnival speedway games. Or so he says. I wasn't there; I was back in Milwaukee, walking to and from campus, because I will not drive in the snow.

He came back to school on such a high from the experience, he vowed to buy us a Beretta at the first opportunity. Because it handled so well in the snow and we were, y'know, moving to Charlottesville.

We never did own a Beretta, though our Corolla did what was required in that place and time. And it was light enough to push if it slid off the road on the rare occasions that it did snow. As opposed to our 12-passenger Dodge Ram van, which slid into the ditch on a couple of occasions and cost us a couple months' credit card interest to cover.

Tomorrow, we will drive to Atlanta in an entirely different kind of vehicle.

John assures me that if it's tough enough to rev up to 140 mph for the Georgia State Patrol, it's gotta be tough enough to handle wintry conditions for civilians on the interstate. Perhaps. I'm still worried, though. Put a guy who thinks it FUN to drive in the snow behind the wheel of a car he knows can go 140, and...well, let's just say the visions in my head are not exactly sugarplum-like.

From our house (and cars) to yours....Merry, Merry Christmas!

O Come, O Come Emmanuel...but can I get just a little more of a head start?

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 06:26:00 +0000

The Most Popular Question I am asked these days is, "Are you ready for Christmas yet?"

And my invariable answer is, "Of course not!" Why should I be? It is Advent, the glorious four weeks (plus/minus) expressly designed for getting ready for Christmas. Nothing in the history of the world, in my opinion, equals Advent for orchestrated anticipation-building.

Of course, there is the wreath. One candle...then two...then three (the pink one! Joy!)...then four. Brighter and brighter every week.

There is the Nativity scene, nobody there but the animals. Then a couple of shepherds and lambs may show up in the background. Then Joseph and Mary approach, until at last they find themselves stationed at the empty creche, gazing at it the way any young married couple might gaze at a crib waiting in the nursery.

Best of all, there are the Mass readings, both Sunday and weekday, which recapitulate salvation history and retell the longing of Israel for God's Promised One. I would urge every Christian -- Catholic or not -- to attend daily Mass from December 17 onward, as the Scripture selections hone in on the Big Event, not unlike an eagle circling, circling in descent, accelerating toward the final WHOOSH on its lure as the orange-clad crowd roars --- whoops, sorry, mixing topics there.

(You don't need to be Catholic to go to a Mass, by the way. You wouldn't receive Holy Communion unless you believed that what was being distributed was indeed the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, miraculously hidden within the appearances of ordinary unleavened bread and wine. But you could go up with your arms crossed in front of your chest for a blessing...or you could just sit in the pew and pray. Don't know what to do -- sit, stand, kneel, speak? There's an instruction book, called a missal. Or just do what everyone else does...except for the Communion part.)

Each day from the 17th through the 24th also has its own "O Antiphon," a phrase beseeching the savior to come, each using a different title. These make up the verses of the popular hymn, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," though the first O Antiphon is the second verse of the hymn, and the final Antiphon is the first verse. We do not play this song on Christmas Day. I mean, think about it. Would you tell the guest already settled comfortably on your living room sofa to "please, come in"? Of course not! So sing it now.

So this is Advent, and it has been brought to my attention that there are FOUR DAYS LEFT!

Ninety-six hours to...

1) Finish putting up almost all the lights

2) Bake all the cookies

3) Wrap all the presents

4) Send out all the cards

5) Take the formerly fresh Thanksgiving turkey out of the freezer (see post below)

Yes, Advent is the time for getting ready for Christmas -- which is, don't forget, twelve days long. A good thing, for those of us who perhaps didn't use those plus/minus four weeks of preparation as effectively as we could have.

Live-Blogging Thanksgiving Dinner for Eleven Nuclear Family Members

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 04:19:00 +0000

(Notice: This is an approximate live blog. Some of these items were done several days ago, but I'm only blogging them now. Some -- occurring within a 30-minute radius of the actual meal -- will be blogged after the fact, in the interest of extending the life expectancy of my laptop, my family members, and myself.)

Thursday, November 18: Shop for Thanksgiving feast items. Hide the non-perishables in a box of books to be donated, alongside an unused desk in the family library. Ask a kid (excited by the prospect of a feast to the point of willingly helping to unload the groceries from the car) to put the fresh 22 lb. turkey into the spare refrigerator in the shed. Hide other perishables under vegan daughter's weird-smelling fake chicken nuggets and fake ground beef or under early-stage-mouldy broccoli.

Wednesday, November 24: Make pecan, pumpkin (2), apple and cherry pies. Or not, because I'm too exhausted by the time we get home from Sweet Sixteen birthday dinner at Japanese steak house.

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day:

7 a.m. Get up, go to Mass. Because it's Thanksgiving, and that's what the Mass, essentially, is.

9 a.m. Make chicken broth, chop onion and celery and walnuts for stuffing.

9: 30 a.m. Preheat lower oven to 500 degrees.

9:45 a.m. Go to shed fridge to get 22 lb. fresh turkey. It's NOT THERE!! Look accusingly at barn cats circling the fridge like a bunch of Wild West bandits. Then, while stomach sinks to the concrete shed floor, open the shed freezer. Yup. There it is. Twenty-two frozen pounds of poultry. Push aside thought, "If I'd wanted a damned FROZEN turkey, I'd have bought a damned FROZEN turkey. And then given it the requisite three days to defrost."

9:55 a.m. Catch 19-year old daughter about to go for run, shove a credit card in her hand, and instruct her not to come home until she's found a fresh turkey in excess of 20 lbs. Or else we will all eleven of us be sharing the Tofurkey meant for two.

9:57 a.m. Interrupt agitated kitchen pacing (because the entire timetable is going to be off by at least an hour, maybe more if daughter has to drive all the way to Columbus to find a turkey) to entertain the brilliant thought, "This would make a good blog post."

10:00 a.m. Post. Then get to work on those pies that should have been made yesterday.

10:10 a.m. Pies cannot be made until there is a clean spot on the counter to work, which cannot be cleaned until dirty things from last night (as in, after midnight, from kids who decided to stay up all night and make things to eat) are in the dishwasher, which cannot be loaded until it is emptied. Therefore, get to work on cleaning the kitchen...as six family members wake up in sequence and come into the kitchen to eat cereal, creating more dirty dishes and using up workspace as it is cleared.

11:00 a.m. Send text message to college student who has been suggested by pastor as someone with no plans for Thanksgiving dinner, inviting to Thanksgiving dinner. Be criticized by 13-year old daughter for "always ignoring us because you're on your phone." Make the serious mistake of defending myself by pointing out that this is the first time today my phone has been in my hand, and that I'm sending an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner. Be criticized by 13-year old daughter for "always inviting stray people to Thanksgiving" because "the holidays are about family" and my "forcing people to eat with us" is offensive to humanity. Make the serious mistake of gently exhorting 13-year old to a spirit of hospitality, pointing out that no one is being forced, and that I am only responsible for my own actions and the intention behind them; sharing with her that I was alone on Thanksgiving in 1979 as a conservatory student in Boston, and while I had thought it would be no big deal, it was -- then and in retrospect -- one of the saddest days of my life. Receive text from college student thanking me for the invitation but allowing as he did have plans to eat with a friend's family. Take another round of criticism for "always being on the phone and ignoring your own kids," followed by the announcement of a poll: "I'm going to go ask everyone in this family if you don't ignore us because you're always on your phone." Stand open-mouthed in horror and befuddlement at this ill-breeding and the effect it's bound to have on the holiday atmosphere until the 13-year old returns with the results of the poll, wherein everyone but Daddy agrees with her.

11:15 a.m. Leave the kitchen, wondering if that solitary Thanksgiving in 1979 was really all as bad as I seem to remember it.

11:18 a.m. Twelve-year old comes asking if there's something she can do to help. Suggest that she can peel potatoes; she cheers exultantly and sets about the task with gusto. Feel faith in family Thanksgiving be restored.

11:35 a.m. Nineteen-year old returns with a 23 lb. fresh turkey. Give thanks! Open, rinse and pat dry. Stuff it, truss it, and put it in the oven at 500 degrees.

11:55 a.m. Nineteen-year old enters kitchen with announcement that it is time for her to bake the pies, because she "ALWAYS bakes the pies." Question memory. But whatever. Set the mise en place for her to make pecan, pumpkin (2), apple and cherry pies. Share hint about preheating cookie sheet on which to place pecan pie; receive condescending reminder that she has "ALWAYS baked the pies" and "knows perfectly well what to do."

12:00 noon. Take a break to shout to the house that it is time for the Angelus. Pray, listening for responses from far corners of the house. Reduce heat on lower oven to 350 degrees. Consider preheating the upper oven (with cookie sheet) for pies, but decide that it's not worth a skirmish with the 19-year old who ALWAYS bakes the pies and knows exactly what to do, and leave to update Thanksgiving Dinner Live Blog.

1:00 p.m. Shape dough (whoops! Forgot to include the dough's preparation and initial overnight refrigerated rising in the early entries) into rolls, instructing each of three separate daughters in the art of roping and twist-tying dough. Each of the three becomes frustrated, in turn, in the dough's maddening capacity for re-assuming its original puffy shape after roping. "This is NOT like Play-doh," observes the 8-year old. "Play-doh stays the way you put it!" Put cookie sheets of rolls into unused TV cabinet in kitchen (after having someone remove empty cd cases, a large round styling brush and three crayons), hopefully to rise. This depends on how many people forget that we've never had a TV in that cabinet and throw open the doors in hopes of a means to watch a football game different than the ones on the family room or boys' lounge TV. (How many football games are there today, anyhow? And who cares? The only one that matters is tomorrow night. WAR EAGLE! ROLL-OVER-AND-DIE, TIDE!)

1:30 p.m. Go for a walk in the beautiful, balmy, leafy wonderland with husband. Both of these entries, while 19-year old daughter makes pies. I think I could stand for her to ALWAYS make the pies, yes indeed.

2:00 p.m. Make rice for rice pudding. Retrieve alcoholic libations from the trunk of the car where they've been locked away from underage mouths, and put in the fridge to cool. Station full-time guard in front of fridge.

2:20 p.m. Parboil beans for Ubiquitous Holiday Green Bean Bake. While the water reaches parboiling point, layer mandarin slices, pineapple chunks and freshly shaved unsweetened coconut for ambrosia. No marshmallows. No maraschino cherries. Because the kids are old enough now to be experience ambrosia in its pure state, without the incentives. And no cream sherry. Because I am wise enough now to experience ambrosia in its pure state. Which means that I shall experience the whole feast in a purer state, as the opened bottle of cream sherry will not be begging to be sipped throughout the rest of the preparation.

2:26 p.m. Break to answer a Live Blogging question: Jenn @ Juggling Life wants to know when the feast is supposed to be ready. Once upon a time, I told family and guests it would be ready at 5 p.m. My timetable is geared to 5 p.m. Having started with a frozen turkey this year, the timetable has been adjusted to 7 p.m. But, as a point in fact, the feast is ready when I have finished making the gravy -- which sometimes (not often, but regularly enough to have taught me the futility of predicting the time of the feast's consummation) requires a couple of separate attempts. The year I got smart and bought two jars of French's turkey gravy for back-up was the first year my gravy came out on the initial attempt. For as long as I had those jars in the wings, my gravy was perfect the first time, every time. But last year, I asked myself, "Why am I making gravy, anyway? I have two perfectly good professionally-prepared jars of the stuff in the pantry." Now they are gone, and I am wise enough to know that this means my gravy will inevitably curdle. So the short answer, Jenn, is "idk."

3:15 p.m. Put together Ubiquitous Holiday Green Bean Bake.

(At 20-30 minute intervals since 2 p.m., when it was covered with foil: Baste turkey.)

3:35 p.m. Mix dried cranberries, lemon rind and lemon juice with rice. Prepare custard. Write down the ingredient amounts because I'm starting to forget them from year to year.

3:50 p.m. Submit my five "Thankful-For" items for the Formal Reading of everybody's items at dinner. I think there will be some sort of guessing game involved with these, though no one else could have been the author of "Being able to concentrate on preparing meals instead of lesson plans." And there will be a chair-emptying brawl when "Cam Newton" is read from the list.

3:55 p.m. Remove rolls from the TV cabinet before their rising opens the doors spontaneously.

4:05 p.m. Lay out tray of "cute" pumpernickel and crab dip to stave off starvation and roll-dough pilfering.

4:15 p.m. Bake rolls.

4:20 p.m. Put Ubiquitous Holiday Green Bean Bake in oven.

4:30 p.m. Put Tofurkey in oven. What?? It needs prep? A baste, you say? Why, you little Vegan Vixen (who reamed me so viciously for daring to invite someone over to Thanksgiving dinner via text this morning), why didn't you say so earlier? In fact, why don't you make your own danged Tofurkey...your veganism is not MY idea. And come to think of it, your being a vegan and expecting special non-dairy, non-egg, meatless meals while the rest of us eat ordinary food is a lot more problematic than my sending text messages, even if they're not for the purpose of staving off loneliness and depression. But I am Mother; I prepare baste, wrestle the Tofurkey from its wrapper, roll it in the baste, cover tightly with foil and put it in the oven. It is what I do.

4: 50 p.m. Remove Ubiquitous Holiday Green Bean Bake from oven. Test Real Turkey with meat thermometer. (Twenty-six years of housekeeping and this is my virgin use of a meat thermometer. I guess I should add "No one in our family has ever died of botulism" to my Thankful-For list.) It registers 160! Now if I only knew how many minutes at 350 inside a 23 lb. turkey equals 5 more internal degrees...

5:00 p.m. Put rice pudding into oven. Clear snack tray from table. Ask one child -- then another, then another, then another, then another -- to set the table for dinner. Twenty-year old son decides to organize the annual Turkey Bowl family football game for RIGHT NOW. 'Kay, fine; I'll set the table myself, later. (Images of Little Red Hen are beginning to dance in my head.)

5:10 p.m. Put sweet potatoes on cookie sheet, into oven.

5:12 p.m. Looking inside oven reminds me that I forgot to add the brown sugar to the rice pudding! It's only 3/4 cup for 2 qts of pudding -- do you think anyone will miss it? Reading my mind (something she failed miserably to do when chastising me for inviting people to dinner), Katy says, "Remember that year you forgot to put the sugar in the rice pudding and you told us that it was a SAVORY side dish from now on? Hahaaa." Pull the rice pudding back out of the oven, pour it into the mixing bowl, add the brown sugar, beat, return to casserole dish and oven.

5:20 p.m. Ask Katy for help setting the table. She declines, but offers to mash the potatoes. She will add Smart Balance for butter, and unsweetened Silk for milk, omit sour cream, in order to make the mashed potatoes vegan-safe. Whatever.

5:25 p.m. Run to convenience store for a 16 oz. Sugar Free Red Bull to make it through the rest of the evening. But first, check turkey -- 168 degrees -- remove from oven, extract 2 oz. of drippings for gravy, cover bird with foil.

5:40 p.m. Enter convenience store with the "Open Thanksgiving Day, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m." sign on the door, remove Sugar Free Red Bull from the cooler just to hear, "Oh, sorry, we're closed." "But what about 6 p.m....?" "Yeah, well, we decided to close early." Go home, trying not to mutter threats about not buying my daily Sugar Free Red Bull THERE anymore; see not one but two sets of flashing blues coming up on me from behind -- momentary panic, checking the speedometer -- hurray! They pass me! Something else for the Thankful-For list! Hmm, what's this? They are turning ahead of me...now into my neighborhood...uh, oh. (Edit to Add on Thankful-For list: they pass my driveway and go on.)

6:00 p.m. (This is where it starts to blur, as I enter Feast Warp Speed.) Lower the temp on rice pudding, remove foil from Tofurkey, turn off upper oven, put UHGBB in to warm up; remove sweet potatoes and wrap in foil, dig stuffing from turkey and having plopped it into an oven-proof bowl, put in upper oven-turned-warming chamber. Lay out mats for buffet setting, pies on the sideboard; dig out Cool Whip from behind petrified fish sticks in the bottom drawer of the freezer, open it, yell, "WHO ATE FIVE-SIXTHS OF THE COOL WHIP?!!!" Strain stock I made from neckbone, onion, sage and clove (even though I forgot to live blog it). Start setting table, then conscript 8-year old to finish. Heat drippings in small saucepan, add flour/white pepper mixture until blended and bubbly, add stock gradually, then add cream gradually, then realize it's way too thick and yell for backup to make a cup of chicken bouillon to add gradually. Call for husband to carve turkey. Every sixth gravy stir, grab another dish from the warming chamber, lower oven or fridge and put it on the buffet. Send one sibling in search of the others. Designate a responsible party to open wine and serve beer. Watch helplessly as 20-year old downs an entire bottle of Knudsen's organic sparkling cider, meant for those of us not drinking alcoholically, listen disgustedly to his burp and with great consternation to his surprised complaint that it wasn't real champagne. Add a couple drops of liquid smoke to the gravy. "What's that?" Susanna the Bouillon-Maker wants to know. I tell her, and she responds, "Ymmmm." It's the sixth stir; I go to grab the corn and turn around just in time to stop Susanna the Bouillon-Maker and Smoke-Flavor-Lover from dumping in half the bottle. Meanwhile, Katy the Vegan Vixen presents me with an envelope of vegan turkey gravy and asks me to make it. A moment (and a few words) later, she's making it herself. In the microwave, out of my arms' reach.

6:40 p.m. All eleven of us sit down, say a blessing, and then get back up and jockey for buffet position while Daddy reads aloud the Thankful-For lists without names, but that doesn't matter because they are all identified within the first two items. Cam Newton is on three lists. No one has the Thanksgiving Feast on their list, but that's okay, because I am Mother and it is what I do. Besides, I can't hold a candle to Cam.

8:50 p.m. Return from a suddenly-inspired after-dinner visit to some friends to find my husband in the process of putting away dishes he has washed. The table is clear, the leftovers put away, the turkey carcass nowhere to be seen.

And I am very, very, VERY thankful.

Homeschooling, Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:54:00 +0000

I know it seems like I just got lazy about blogging the past 14 months. But really, I had a deliberate scheme: if I disappeared long enough, I'd lose all readers except people in whose goodwill I have reason to trust. In particular, I'd lose the local crabcake who accused me of living in a house with open windows and no doors -- or was it no windows and open doors? Neither windows nor doors? Sounds claustrophobic.... But I digress.

The upshot is that I don't feel the need to disguise my children with clever pseudonyms, or even with descriptive pseudonyms. Besides, I forgot what the pseudonyms were. So I'm going to use their real names. I mean, it's not like they don't ALL have facebook accounts anyway.

So last spring, Lucy asked me to homeschool her for 2nd grade. I loved this idea -- it was consistent with the homeschool fantasies I had when I was trying to handle 8 kids on 6 different grade levels: one little motivated learner, tete-a-tete (sorry, still haven't learned how to reproduce les punctuations francaises) at the table, for the two hours a day it takes to cover second grade. Plus the non-trivial benefit of not having to meet the school bus at 6:35 a.m. and 2:35 p.m.

This fall, Katy asked to be homeschooled for the remainder of 8th grade. I was dubious, but she had good reasons involving drama and gossip and distractions from the learning environment. She dreams of Palo Alto and argued that tutoring would give her the educational advantage she needs. Her reasoning was sound. I was able to piggy-back a curriculum from a good friend with an 8th grader. Plus the non-trivial benefit of someone to babysit Lucy when I had ~~Zumba~~ to take another kid to an appointment.

Now Susanna is asking to be homeschooled for the remainder of 6th grade. Literally "now." She's behind me on my bed, running a loop of "Can I be homeschooled?" and "Why not?" and "How come Katy gets to and I don't?" and "Don't you know I'm not getting a healthy amount of sleep?" in ever-increasing intensity and ever-rising pitch. While kicking Lucy, making her whine in ever-increasing intensity and ever-rising pitch.

On the other hand, her inability to figure out the answers on her own might just indicate a change in instructional method after all.

Whatever Happened to the Friendly Skies?

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:35:00 +0000

The Transportation Security Administration obliterated them.

Long lines, okay. Nail scissors and souvenir corkscrews, salon shampoo and piracy-priced Diet Cokes into the trash can, okay. Juggling shoes, sweatshirts, purse, laptop and ubiquitous ziplock baggie containing 3 oz.-or-less liquid hygiene accessories, oh...okay. But computer-generated nude pictures or public groping of private parts?

Like hell.

If I had time, I could catalog the links -- but I'll just give y'all this, from MileHiMama at Mama Says. And this, so you can vote your opinion of TSA's court-condoned primacy over our personal space.

And this personal observation, from my weekend jaunt up to Milwaukee to watch Marquette basketball. (The Love of my husband's Life -- after God and me, and I'm supposing, the kids -- is Marquette basketball. Hey - the man works very hard, he's entitled.)

I was subjected to a pat-down at Mitchell Field because, as the security guard explained, I was wearing "bulky clothing." Let me remind you that I live in Alabama, and I dress like an Alabamian. I had on a t-shirt, a thin fleece Reebok tennis warmup jacket, and a tiered skirt that reached the top of my Durangos. Those of y'all who live in Chicagoland and beyond continually astonish me with your ability to wear (usually quite gracefully!) volumes of clothing I've rarely seen in one closet, let alone on one body. I've joked that there should be a new fashion line, called "Bulky Couture." And I saw plenty of candidates for runway models of it, looking around in that Concourse C security line, too.

At least I got a female TSA officer, and her hands under my skirt only went slightly above my kneecap. Or I probably would have kicked her with one of my Durangos -- knee jerk, literally. But I went on my way more than a little humiliated, and even more than that, puzzled: How is it my clothing was bulky enough to warrant a pat-down, but not bulky enough to keep my teeth from chattering uncontrollably when I crossed the street from the Bradley Center to our rental car?

My husband's Love is taking us out to Kansas City to see the Golden Eagles play Duke and someone else early next week. Any scanner or grabber comes near me, I'm going to throw a good, old-fashioned Alabama hissy fit that's gonna make a whole lot of people wish they had bulky clothing over their ears. Swear.

Why, That's a Whole Trimester!

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 05:16:00 +0000

How long it's been since I've posted, I mean. No pregnancy here. In fact, today marks eight whole, entire years since I've been pregnant. That's more than four times as long as the previous longest time since I'd been pregnant.

As you can see, the 3-month hiatus has not improved the clarity of my writing.

I'm not sure how long I'll stay, or how much gestation will pass before I post again, but I felt the need to announce my continued presence. Kind of like the kick under the ribs...you mamas know what I'm talking about.

The felt need may have arisen from noticing that the link on my profile to "My Web Page" goes to a black Auburn Philosophy Department faculty page for no one. My name does not appear on the list in the left sidebar, either.

I'm considering whether I should excise the "Philosopher" part of my title. But then I'd just be "The Mom," and that sounds a little presumptuous, in context.

A Day in the Catholic Life (Favorite Devotions Meme)

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:59:00 +0000

I'm not blogging much these days (like I have to make that announcement here, on my blog, where anyone who's reading this can read the column on the left showing that I've averaged 1.4 posts per month for the better part of a year...no, I didn't really take the time to compute the average; if there are any Math Nazis out there who want to offer a correction, please do). Part of the reason is that I've been giving my spiritual life top priority, followed closely by family, who -- it finally sinks in after several years -- do not really appreciate talking to my back while I'm at the computer. So when my Google Reader announced that my friend Sara had posted A Shower of Roses: Favorite Catholic Devotions, I took it as a God-given opportunity to blog AND reinforce my top priority.

These are not listed in order of priority, themselves, but rather in the order in which they appear in my day:

(1) Morning Offering. A few quick prayers, usually formula but sometimes extemporaneous, dedicating everything I'm about to do and everyone I'm about to encounter to The Boss, and asking assistance from him, the Boss's Mom, and my guardian angel. That way, no matter what else happens, or where my mind runs me off to, I know he's got it.

(2) Mental Prayer. A half-hour of one-on-one time, in front of the Blessed Sacrament if I can get to/in the church. One of my favorite saints, Josemaria Escriva, described it this way: "To pray is to talk with God...about him, and yourself: joys, sorrows, successes and failures, great ambitions, daily worries -- even your weaknesses! And acts of thanksgiving and petitions -- and love and reparation. In short, to get to know him and to get to know yourself -- 'to get acquainted!'"

(3) Angelus. This is an oldie but goodie, and to me, a reminder of the universality of the Church. Traditionally said at noon (sometimes also at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. and midnight, too), it intersperses the words of Scripture describing the Annunciation with the Hail Mary -- also (not so incidentally) words of Scripture describing the Annunciation. With a little from the Visitation and the prologue from the Gospel of John thrown in for good measure. I love to think of the Angelus as a "torch" being passed around the globe as the clock strikes noon in all the different time zones.

(4) Holy Mass. Time is miraculously compressed to bring me -- and all the faithful celebrating Holy Mass anywhere, anytime -- simultaneously to the Last Supper, the foot of the cross at Calvary, and the heavenly Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Not bad for a half-hour of my time.

(5) Rosary. John Paul II (and others) have called the Rosary "a powerful weapon" -- and he ought to know, since he used it to bring down the Iron Curtain! As a convert, it took me a long time to "get" the Rosary; didn't Jesus warn against long, repetitive strings of words masquerading as "prayer"? Ah, how little did I know! Ninety percent of the Rosary is taken verbatim from the Bible, first off; and second, the only thing wrong with long. repetitive strings of words is when long, repetitive strings of words is ALL it is. But that's not the Rosary. Certainly, one can direct one's attention to the meaning of the words. But one can also meditate on, or even imaginatively put oneself into the scene each decade represents -- the Nativity, or the Transfiguration, or the Crowning with Thorns, or the Resurrection. And the words? Well, have you ever been around a couple (usually a young one) in the giddiness of new romance? "IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou..." "IloveyouMOREIloveyouMOREIloveyouMORE..." You get the picture.

I also have a special devotion to the Rosary because I can pray it while in the car or on the elliptical machine. Mary, as our mother, understands the life of a mother, and she's totally cool with it.

(6) Spiritual Reading. The more we know about God, the better we can love him. The more we know our faith, the better we can live it. There is no bottom to the depth of truth, so it's a lifelong endeavor. Unless you're St. Thomas Aquinas who, after writing 60 volumes of the Summa Theologiae (and a whole bookcase of other things), was granted a vision of that bottom and immediately stopped writing, calling it all "chaff." If you haven't already, try reading some Thomas -- I'd recommend the Summa Contra Gentiles if you're a beginner; De Ente et Essentia if you're up for a challenge. Or Peter Kreeft's Summa of the Summa, if you're scared. Chaff, it ain't.

(7) Examination of Conscience. Perfect bookend to the day. There are lots of ways to do this, leading up to the thorough point-by-point exam done in preparation for confession (and btw, Sara? If you were told every two weeks, you're a better woman than I -- who was told to go weekly!). My favorite way is three simple questions, with a minute or two of silence after each one so as to hear the answer: (1) Lord, what did I do today that pleased you? (2) What did I do to disappoint you? (3) What would you like me to work on tomorrow?

That's my list of seven. Not so much devotions, strictly speaking, as spiritual exercises (in the generic, not Ignatian, sense). I do have to put in an extra plug for the Memorare, a traditional prayer to our Mother Mary, to which I resort in a long, repetitive string under truly terrifying circumstances -- like when one of my children goes missing. Remember that it's addressed to the lady who, with a simple, discreet one-line observation, changed the hour of the Messiah's first miracle. Talk about clout.

Remember, O Most Compassionate Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your assistance, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, we fly unto you, O Virgin of Virgins, Our Mother. To you do we come, before you we kneel, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not our petitions, but in your clemency, hear and answer them. Amen.

And with that, the day...is...OFF!

7 Quick Takes from a Former Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:05:00 +0000

Umm...hello? I'm not sure I remember how to do this. It's been a long time -- and measured in output, well, I'm more than semi-retired.

So here are 7 things that I have planned to blog about, when I have time to do it in the style to which I've become accustomed:

1. How my darling Fabio passed out of my life.

2. How I ended my philosophical career, which entailed canceling out of an invited paper at the grand dame of philosophical conferences, the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association.

3. How our public high school principal, in an attempt to avoid a potential dropout statistic, created an actual dropout living person.

4. How I've progressed in my pursuit of detachment, humility and abandonment to divine providence.

5. How I totally botched an introduction of two friends back in the 90s.

6. How I've progressed in keeping my mouth shut at unexpected but more regular intervals since then.

7. How the blogosphere is like an MMORPG, but with real treasures for the finding.

And for some of these, I even have pictures!

Who's Crying Over Spilled Oil?

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 05:27:00 +0000

We are, down here in Alabama. Ah, my favorite vacation spot! Ah, that surreal Emerald Coast! It seems that our brains are steeped in oil these days (and no, I'm not corroborating the evil-minded newsclips that feature Alabamians in wife-beater t-shirts holding cans of cheap beer while they proudly cheer their children on to wade into the slick surf holding pails in which to catch the tar globs...newsclips, incidentally, that I was unable to find via Google, although a lot of folks down here have been grumbling about them). It's hard to think about much else.

The crying is loudest from us and the Floridians. Don't hear much out of Mississippi, and as for Louisiana -- bless their hearts, they have been heavily immunized to disaster by now. Or else they're still riding the Super Bowl high.

But elsewhere, it's background buzz at best, so far as I can tell. My husband and I were up at a wedding in Virginia this past weekend, and the priest quoted in his homily some passage about "the column of black smoke rising from the harbor." We two sat up straight, ears perked, eyebrows arched, to hear exactly what it was that BP had come up with this time. No one else so much as flinched. (The quote turned out to be analogical, about burning one's ships, where ships = single life. Better suited to the context than an update on the oil spill would be, I suppose.)

Our 13-yo daughter was at a summer camp up in Wisconsin. At one point, she asked some cabin mates, "Does anyone know what's going on with the oil spill?"

"What's an ospull? Is that what YAWLLL call a bubbler?"

Yeah, that might be a good way of describing our woe to the rest of the country. We'll call it, "the bubbler from hell."

The Mother-Teen Daughter Disconnect, in One Paragraph or Less

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Tue, 18 May 2010 04:18:00 +0000

So tonight I was in a particularly happy, warm-fuzzy, lovin' their little hearts kind of mood. (It may have something to do with a bona fide miracle involving a juvenile probation officer and a judge, about which I may humorously blog in 2024.) I was hanging in the kitchen with several of my children, including three teenage daughters. I was letting them play ninja behind the island even though I was cooking. I was bestowing smiles all around. I was laughing at their jokes...and even making a few of my own, of which a few even garnered laughs in response. I was thinking to myself, "This is lovely -- could it possibly be a new, get-along, get-on-the-same-wavelength kind of trend?" And my 13-year old says to me, "Gosh, Mom. Are you PMS'ing or what?"

Christine Is Back, and Lives in My Blackberry

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Mon, 10 May 2010 06:07:00 +0000

Betsy's boyfriend happened to mention Christine the other day, and like most of her generation (the boyfriend excepted), Betsy had no idea who this was. Or as those of my generation know, WHAT this was. A car. A big, red car. That killed people.

That car had serious hostility issues.

So does VZ Navigator, which I downloaded with great anticipation last week onto my new Blackberry Curve. It hasn't killed anyone yet -- at least, mine hasn't -- but it has serious hostility issues also.

It kept me driving in spirals in northern Illinois for almost nine hours yesterday. I had it on, for a "test drive," while making my way to Kankakee, Illinois from US 41 in Vincennes, Indiana. (Digression: If you are determined to drive a convertible with the top down, and you leave a place like, say, Nashville at 8 in the morning wearing a tank and shorts, telling yourself through chattering teeth that it will get warmer as the day goes on, make sure you are not going to be driving due north.) I had jotted down the turns from Google Maps that morning, but my VZ Navigator was telling me there was a shortcut available, on unmarked rural county roads. Why not? I thought. My husband swears by his GPS. (Actually, I've often wondered if his involvement isn't a little more personal and active than just swearing...seems to be a guy thing. And my friend Amy Cates -- the Incomparable -- thinks so, too.)

Well, I think my GPS, the one inside my smoky violet Blackberry, is jealous of the 2010-model Garmin in my husband's car, and jealous of me, as well. It intends to get rid of us both. I don't know what it's got planned for Garmin, but I saw first hand what it had planned for me: death in a cornfield. It lured me out into the Illinois countryside (another Digression: did you know there are OIL WELLS in Illinois? With miniature version of Texas drills, bopping up and down like metal waterbirds on a feeding frenzy? True!) and then asphyxiated my Blackberry's battery. No more directions, no map, no way to call for help. Nothing but flat cornfields with a couple of miniature oil drills in them.

Lucky for me, going straight for about 20 minutes brought me to the town of Homer, which happened to be having Garage Sale Day all throughout the town. I bought a copy of a 1956 French workbook for 10 cents. And I would have bought a life-sized statue of Elvis (the young, cute Elvis, not the old, fat Elvis), complete with microphone, for my mama's Mother's Day present, if only I hadn't driven up in a car too small to hold him.

Besides shopping, I was able to charge my Blackberry at Homer's only service station, and also look at a 2007 map of Illinois to see how I should get onto I-57.

But VZ-stine was not about to surrender, as she told me that there was a "severe traffic incident" on I-57 three miles ahead -- the trip previously estimated at 2 hours 25 minutes was suddenly estimated at 5 hours 53 minutes -- would I like a detour?

"Yes," I clicked innocently. We got off I-57 and drove around I know not where for a while, and 30 minutes later I found myself being led right back on to I-57 at the exact same exit we'd used to get off. But still I trusted VZ-stine. Who then increased my travel time from some 2 hours to some 5 hours and offered me another detour. Which may have actually advanced me along my route, but which ALSO hit a 3-hour delay. This went on for, oh, seven or eight detours.

Finally, I defied VZ-stine's recommendation and stayed on my original route, braced for Severe Traffic Disaster. I'd like to say I defied it on purpose because I'm just steely that way, but as a matter of fact, I didn't have a choice, because there was no "legal U-turn" to make, despite VZ-stine's increasingly shrill pleas. And do you know what I found? What the "severe traffic incident" was? It was a barrel with a flashing orange light, off to the side, to show that the shoulder was closed. Yeah, I ignored the traffic detours from that point on, but VZ-stine got me back: first by leading me onto the Tri-State Tollway, where I had four opportunities to be involved in a fatal crash by digging for the requisite toll money while driving a manual transmission and jockeying for tollbooth lane position. Second, she failed to disclose that the Highway Department's official detour of the closed Interchange I was supposed to take itself required a detour because they'd dropped it down to one lane, with the result that I was stuck in a (single) long, long line of cars waiting at various lights while I needed very, very badly to find -- er, a public building with indoor plumbing.

I arrived at my destination six full hours after my original ETA, badly in need of a shot of Jack. And warm, fuzzy pajamas. And maybe a movie...but not Christine.

Senior Night (post of limited appeal)

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:47:00 +0000

I have been a soccer mom since 1994. I will continue to be a soccer mom for the next four years, but that will be at the collegiate level, where very few of us are able to follow with our accustomed fervor and dedication. Her closest game will be in Upstate South Carolina -- three and a half hours from our home. I intend to be there, come hell or high water, but the odds of hell and/or high water, with eight other kids still at home, are substantial.

So last night -- while not nearly as final-feeling as it was for some of our (parent) teammates -- carried a feeling of finality. It was the second and last of our "Senior Night" games at Auburn High School. Last year, the boys' game. This, the girls' game.

Here's the bio that accompanied our poignant mixture of pride and wistfulness:

Betsy’s soccer career began ominously at U5, when she flatly refused to set foot on the field until the after-game snacks were brought out. It would be four more years before her first actual game, with a rec team at the

Georgia

club now known as Atlanta Fire United. Passed over by the A, B and C Select team coaches at U10 tryouts, she vowed to prove ‘em all wrong by keeping a soccer ball at her feet 24/7 and studying tapes of the Women’s National Team every night. Midyear she was added to the A team, which at U11 and U12 was ranked No. 2 in the nation by GotSoccer.com. Her efforts were also rewarded with the club’s Matt Mayfield Award for outstanding character and determination.

Tragically, Betsy’s life was “ruined” when her U12 coach put her in the goal, a position she played with much wailing and gnashing of teeth for Georgia 91 ODP the next two years. After taking 9 stitches under the chin stopping a breakaway that turned out to be offsides anyway, Betsy quit goalkeeping by leaving Atlanta Fire United for Georgia Futbol Club, where she got to play midfield again. At the 2006 Vulcan Cup, she played so well against BUSA 92 Elite that the team recruited her as soon as she moved to Auburn that summer. Betsy played for Alabama 91 ODP as well as for BUSA, and made the Varsity Lady Tigers as a freshman. One particularly memorable game, when goalie Sam Trupp went down with an injury, Coach Mac urgently asked the team whether there was ANYONE AT ALL who could play goal; Betsy responded by gazing intently at the clouds. She was named Most Valuable Offensive Player in 2008, scoring 18 goals, including the first two AHS Final Four goals ever, in the semifinal against Enterprise. After being selected to the Alabama All-Star team last year as a center forward, Betsy finally revealed to Coach Mac that she had once been an ODP goalie and would be willing to step in should he ever need her. So far, he hasn’t.

In her free time, Betsy enjoys reading college physics textbooks; watching “Criminal Minds;” idolizing her older brother, former Auburn varsity and All-State Honorable Mention goalkeeper James (who helped to write this bio); and falling off the back of her boyfriend’s Gator.

Betsy is signed to a soccer scholarship at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, where she will prepare to enter medical school by majoring in English. She is especially looking forward to facing off against AHS teammate Leigh Anne Kuhn when the Crusaders play Western Carolina in the spring season.

Photo courtesy of Rick Kuhn, father of aforementioned Leigh Anne.

(We've had a good time filling in the quote balloon on this shot. Based on the 16 years of soccer-momhood I've got under my belt, I'd have to bet on, "Uuuuuse!" It was the first of three goals she scored in the game's first 15 minutes. Ah, yes, I'm gonna miss this.)

A Lame Duck in a Yellow Pond

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 01:13:00 +0000

We are living in a yellow haze these days. Pollen. Everywhere. I washed my car on Tuesday afternoon, and by Wednesday lunch it looked like a giant had doused it with that fake butter topping the movie theatre concession folk are always trying to push on us.

Today it rained, which would normally be cause for weeping and gnashing of teeth. But we were all so thankful to be able to BREATHE again that we didn't really mind. Until we noticed that our pretty rubber boots were staining yellow at the bottom, because all the water the eye could see was...yellow. (Can't wait to see the effects of us drinking this stuff. Because I know pollen is too small to be strained out by the filtering system. I bet people start growing buds instead of new hair shafts.)

So that explains the yellow pond.

What's with the Lame Duck?

That's me. I have three more weeks of classes, then two final exams, then my teaching career is, for the foreseeable, over.

Way back when, in the days of regular blog posting, I alluded to some soul-searching that would yield a momentous decision I wasn't quite ready to announce. This is it. After 12 years (concomitant with the birth of eight children) pursuing a Ph.D., and six more years pining over my lost chance to teach at the collegiate level, followed by four years of a truly serendipitous teaching job, I have decided that the grass was actually quite a lovely green on the stay-at-home side of the fence after all.

(Well, that's a bit of a spin job. Fact is, a couple of my children seem to require full-time shepherding toward adulthood. And my baby -- the only one of the bunch who never got a chance to be homeschooled -- wants to homeschool second grade. How could I resist?)

In my own mind, it's a leave of absence, albeit an indefinite one. In the collective mind of AU's Philosophy Department, I suspect it might read differently (like, "There goes another adjunct for the archives"). But we shall see. For almost two decades, I've moonlighted giving practical talks to women on ways to be a serious Catholic Christian in and through our ordinary, everyday work. One of my frequent refrains is, "God first, then husband, then children, then friends, then job." Even allowing that I sincerely consider some of my students to be friends -- in the sense that I really do care about them and want good things for them, not in the (embarrassing to my children) sense that I text them about trivialities and hang out with them at the bars -- family is clearly priority. It's about time I put my own words into action.

(Notice: I will continue to call myself the Philosopher-Mom, because once a philosopher, always a philosopher, institutional affiliation not required. And I do have a couple of papers I'm lined up to give at philosophical conferences, including the GRAND DAME of phil conferences, the Eastern Division APA. But I more justify my claim to the title because even in this post announcing my retirement from teaching, I have provided supporting argumentation. Because that's what philosophers do.)

No Other Explanation

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 12:45:00 +0000

When we lived in Fredericksburg, our pastor organized biannual pilgrimages to the Holy Land for young people and any parents who wished to accompany them. One year, my husband's youngest brother (I think he was 16 at the time) was part of that pilgrimage. He came back with a t-shirt that said,

HE IS RISEN!

And on the back, above a graphic of an empty tomb with the stone rolled to the side, it said,

I KNOW: I CHECKED

I always liked (I'd say "coveted," but y'know, that's a no-no) that t-shirt. Because it really cuts to the heart of the matter. Christ rose from the dead, validating everything he said -- about who he was, why he came, what is required of us to follow him to where he reigns eternally. How do we know he rose? The empty tomb.

Oh, yeah, there are stories now like stories then, about disciples coming to the garden in the dead of night and removing the body. But there was nothing, NOTHING, the Jewish hierarchy as well as the Roman provincial government would have wanted more than to produce the body. We can bet they left -- pardon the pun -- no stone unturned looking for it.

And the disciples? Well, we don't know about all of them, but there's nothing to suggest any of the thousand acted any differently than the Eleven who were left. Despite unimaginable torture, gruesome death, and (perhaps the most reliable test of conspiracy to deceive) non-communicable separation, they all stood by their story. He died, he rose, he appeared and spoke. This from a motley collection of natural cowards -- cowards who, after the crucifixion, ran back to the upper room of a good friend and locked the doors.

Pardon my preaching, but hey -- it's my blog, and this is my greatest day of the year. The ultimate reason for joy, for hope and for faith.

No matter how bleak or how catastrophic things may seem through purely worldly eyes.

Ol'MamaCare

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:37:00 +0000

It occurred to me yesterday, as I sat in a pseudo-comfortable chair next to my son in the bed on the pediatric floor of our local hospital (he's fine, home and, at this moment, out on the basketball court with his sibs; thank you for asking), that I am one blessed Mama. Because in (21+19+18+16+15+13+11+11+7) 131 cumulative years of parenting, it was the very first time I'd ever BEEN on the pediatric floor of a hospital. That's beyond lucky, if you ask me.

The Emergency Room, now, that's a different story. Which really has begun to bother me, as our reasonably decent private health insurance QUINTUPLED the copay for ER visits beginning Jan. 1, from $100 to $500. So far this year, we've been there FOUR times. Three times by ambulance. One of those three after I explicitly told the police officer who called for my Consent to Transport, NO, do NOT take my teenage daughter who left school without leave and slipped into a creek and is now cold and wet to the $500-copay ER in a $500-copay ambulance, because I am less than two miles from said creek and can drive her myself. I'm quite sure that the heating system in my 2007 Chevy Trailblazer is close enough in quality to that of the $500-copay ambulance. And I have a blanket in my vehicle, too. No stretcher, true; but you tell me she is not hurt, just wet and cold. (When I got there, of course, she was nowhere to be found, but a nice ol' fella walking his dog told me an ambulance had just left and he thought he saw a teenage girl climb into the back of it. Bless my hissy-fitted heart, the ambulance company agreed to write off the $500 copay. The fact that I refused to sign the acknowledgement of service, writing instead in large letters that I had expressly denied consent to transport, might have helped them toward that magnanimous decision.)

But I digress. You'll forgive me if I don't go into detail about the other two ambulance rides to the ER, except to say that both trips were self-induced and have ended happily. And to say that one of the more embarrassing features of the small town medical center is that you tend to see the same personnel. The same EMTs come with the ambulance. The same Triage specialist (no doubt thinking, "This family again? For the same self-induced adolescent stupidity? What goes ON at that house, anyway? Where are the parents?" Answer: They are working overtime to afford their hospital and ambulance copays). The same good-lookin' country boy orderly to wheel them to their rooms where they will be held for observation and questioning. And for which there will be a separate copay.

Still, as I sat in the room where my son alternated between watching Sponge Bob, sleeping, and talking to the EEG tech about March Madness and drumsets, I was keenly aware of the pediatric patients in the other rooms, and repeatedly thanked God that we haven't had to deal with the crises and chronicities that some of their families have. The kind where the bills matter not one whit. If I thought my quintupled copay was helping to ease another mother's burdens, I would gladly give up my complaints.

As a matter of fact, I think I'm just going to pretend that it does. Call it Ol'MamaCare. Just leave it at that.

I Should've Known There Was a Hitch

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:26:00 +0000

My very good bloggy friend Suburban Correspondent points the way to EARTH-SHATTERINGLY good news: women who drink regularly (in moderate amounts...but oh, well) are less likely to gain weight than women who don't.

Alrighty then! Salut!

Excuse me? What's that I see in the second last sentence? Women who are overweight actually gain more weight with regular alcohol consumption than normal-weight women? Because overweight women's livers are better at metabolizing it? So alcohol affects overweight women like it affects men, who have naturally efficient livers? As in, hello beer gut?

Yep. The weight-control benefits of alcohol consumption are available only to women who don't need to control their weight.

And the Times didn't even bother to put it in fine print.

7 Quick Takes Friday, Nashville Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:07:00 +0000

I KNOW it's not Friday. But Friday I was busy in Nashville, watching my 11-year old swim in the Southeastern championship meet. So I thought I'd synthesize, and produce 7 quick takes about Nashville.

1. Bound'ry restaurant (S 20th and Broadway, more or less) makes a martini called "The Nutty Gourd," which is the best-tasting liquid my tongue has ever encountered. It's composed of vanilla vodka, pumpkin and hazelnut. I didn't even know there was such a thing as potable pumpkin. Someone should definitely write a song about it.

2. Country music singers are a real close family. So says Hank Williams, Jr. Judging from the bios I read at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, this may be partly due to their propensity to marry each other, then divorce, and marry another one of the cadre.

3. My children have grown up thinking that "Howdeeee! I'm just so PROUD to be here!" is something I invented for those occasions on which I have a particularly acute desire to embarrass them. They've never seen an episode of Hee Haw, and I can't find one on DVD, not even in Nashville.

4. The Tracy Caulkins competition pool at the Centennial Sportsplex contains so much chlorine that spectators and swimmers alike succumb to violent fits of coughing by the end of the second day's events. My theory is that pool management is exacting revenge for everybody's (and I do mean "every") defiance of the posted prohibitions of outside food and coolers.

5. The Hampton Inn and Suites at Elliston Place stands on the site occupied by Father Ryan High School until the 90s. Thus, there are pictures and other artifacts from the high school and its Civil War-era namesake in the lobby. One of these is the school's Coat of Arms, with a long explanation of its symbolism written in calligraphy. In that explanation is an egregious grammatical error (I forgot exactly what it was).

6. Green Hills is the shopping capital of the mid-South, if Saturday traffic southbound on Hillsboro Pike is any indication. But you can bypass a lot of it but turning right onto Hillsboro Circle at the Pier One. Then go to Hill Center and buy cool things at Monkee's and Francesca's.

7. Pedestrian signals change to "Walk" accompanied by bird calls. And no, I did NOT first notice this after indulging in a Saturday-anticipation Nutty Gourd martini.

Beyond Chocolate, Alcohol and TV: 40 Ideas of What to Give Up (or Take On) for Lent

noreply@blogger.com (Kalynne Pudner) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:31:00 +0000

Lent is about sacrifice, self-denial, getting ready to participate in Jesus' death in order to rise again with him on Easter. Spiritually speaking, of course. We die to our selfish selves, and rise more like Christ.

"Giving [x] up for Lent" is a bandwagon you don't have to be Catholic to jump on. You don't even have to be Christian, because no matter what your belief system, there's always room for improvement. (The added bonus for a believer is that God adds his grace to our efforts, and something truly supernatural is effected.) So a well-chosen [x] is something that gets in the way of improvement, or communion with God, or whatever you choose. It can be a neutral, sure -- the very act of saying "no" to ourselves tends toward improvement as it cultivates self-control and then self-mastery. It shouldn't be something good, like vitamins or wearing a coat or kissing your spouse at the door. Best of all are those [x]es which make life more pleasant for the people around you. (This is why my college attempts at giving up makeup for Lent were ill-advised; the cost was borne by those who had to look at me. It would be even worse to do this now.)

The standard for Lenten [x]es is to give them up, but some of the really valuable [x]es are the ones you take on. The idea is that it "goes against the grain" -- something out of the ordinary, good or at least neutral for you, that you find difficult.

Some ideas?

Give up...
1. complaining
2. bad attitude
3. nagging
4. the snooze button
5. speeding
6. text messaging
7. judging others
8. procrastination
9. professional manicures
10. condiments
11. clutter
12. Facebook
13. your favorite chair
14. having the last word
15. shopping (for fun stuff, not for groceries)
16. sugared cereal
17. flavored lip balm
18. eavesdropping
19. looking at the secret boyfriend (fans of Mrs. G know what I'm talking about)
20. two notches on the shower hot water control

Take on...
21. smiling at irritating people
22. learning about your kids' favorite band
23. flossing every night
24. putting yourself together a little more nicely
25. sending a card or email to an old friend
26. punctuality
27. eye contact with strangers
28. finishing what you start
29. a regular daily appointment for prayer or meditation
30. giving compliments
31. making excuses for others instead of for yourself
32. doing favors without being noticed
33. learning a new recipe
34. cleaning between the couch cushions
35. wiping down the sink in a public restroom
36. leaving the better parking space for someone else
37. paying a toll for the car behind you
38. hiding a love note in your spouse's pocket or car
39. looking at old photos with your family
40. waking up with a song

Feel free to add on! There's plenty Lent to go around.